Now official: Mormons may drink Coke, Pepsi
Perhaps reporters, bloggers, outsiders and even many Mormons will now acknowledge that the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does not forbid drinking cola.
The LDS Church posted a statement August 29 on its website, saying that “the church does not prohibit the use of caffeine” and that the faith’s health-code reference to prohibiting “hot drinks” “does not go beyond [tea and coffee].” A day later, the website wording was slightly softened, saying only that “the church revelation spelling out health practices . . . does not mention the use of caffeine.”
The same goes for the church’s two-volume handbook, which LDS Church leaders use to guide their congregations. It says plainly that “the only official interpretation of ‘hot drinks’ . . . in the Word of Wisdom is the statement made by early church leaders that the term ‘hot drinks’ means tea and coffee.”
