Cola Drinks – Vaughn J. Featherstone

I was over in England a while back and a bishop asked me, “What is the Church’s stand on cola drinks?” I said, “Well, I can’t remember the exact wording of the bulletin, but I remember seeing the bulletin when I was a stake president. The Church, of course, advises against them.”

He said, “Well, I have read the Priesthood Bulletin, but that isn’t what it says to me.”

And I said, “Would you get your Priesthood Bulletin? Let’s read it together.” And so we found under the heading “Cola Drinks”: “. . . the leaders of the Church have advised, and we do now specifically advise, against use of any drink containing harmful habit-forming drugs. . . .” (The Priesthood Bulletin, Feb. 1972, p. 4.)

He said, “Well, you see, that doesn’t mean cola.”

I said, “Well, I guess you will have to come to your own grips with that, but to me, there is no question.” You see, there can’t be the slightest particle of rebellion, and in him there is. We can find loopholes in a lot of things if we want to bend the rules of the Church. [“A Self-Inflicted Purging,” Ensign, vol. 5, no. 5 (Salt Lake City, Utah: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, May 1975), p. 68.]

Vaughn J. Featherstone, 2nd Counselor, Presiding Bishopric, 5 Apr. 1975