Note and Comment

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 1, 1908

The Church and the Theater

Among other indications of a falling away from the old standards in religion is the present attitude of the churches toward the theater. For years the theater has been classed with the wine-cup, the dance, and the card-table, to be shunned by all professed Christians. In recent years, however, this hostile attitude has changed to a feeling of toleration, if not of actual favor, until the London Missionary Society, as a means of raising mission funds, presented what has been designated as “in every respect a spectacular theatrical performance.” A New York paper deals with the matter thus:—

The London Missionary Society, when it decided to present the piece [Pageant of Darkness and Light], did wisely in putting the management of it into professional hands. It was staged superbly by an experienced theatrical manager. The training of the performers was entrusted to persons who knew their business, and enough of professional actors were employed to save it from any appearance of amateurishness. The Pageant succeeded on its own merits. It would have drawn crowded audiences in any theater in any city in any part of England, quite apart from its connection with missions. . . . To multitudes not accustomed to attend the theater it was a revelation, and it was interesting to watch their faces. Unless we are much mistaken, there were hundreds and perhaps thousands of young people in the daily audiences who will go to the theater, hereafter, who had not before been much interested in it.

When the church leads its members into temptation instead of being a means of grace for resisting temptation, the perversion of its mission is complete. The present developments indicate the fulfilment of the words of the angel, “Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.”