Nil combustibus…
I don’t come from a church which has a particular “down” on smokers, but I do note that some do, particularly in the States. I’m a smoker; I don’t regard it as a commendable thing – certainly it damages me physically, and I have COPD as a result, and would very much like to be relieved of the compulsion to keep on smoking (I’ll freely admit to being an addict in that respect) but I’ve never really regarded it as “a sin”, i.e. something scripturally forbidden.
I noted in a Patheos article today the statement “What about the command to treat your body as a temple, Christian smokers?” (the article was largely about Christians singling out homosexuality to be the “sin” they condemn, to the exclusion of all the sins which are more unequivocally prohibited in scripture, a position with which I entirely agree), and my immediate thought was “How do they work that one out?”.
Most temples I’ve come across burn incense – indeed, most churches do, if you include the Catholics (by far the majority Christian denomination) and the Orthodox. Can I regard myself as burning incense, perhaps? Add to that the fact that “the Temple” in our scriptures is a place where animal sacrifices including very many burned offerings were made, and I think of the complex hydrocarbons given off by the burning of meat, and anything I inhale when smoking rather pales into insignificance…
That said, I don’t think those who regard smoking as a sin and guilt those Christians who do smoke as doing a particularly bad thing – it would definitely be a good thing if no-one took up smoking in the first place (or at least, smoking tobacco), and I rather reluctantly approve the climate which has grown up in my country which makes smokers into social pariahs, despite being one of those pariahs myself, and would that they focus more on smoking than they do on homosexuality!
But I don’t think it can legitimately be put forward as something Biblically condemned…