p. 14 | Sensational Church Advertising

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 28, 1911

Sensational Church Advertising

SPEAKING of some of the sensational methods employed by preachers in order to obtain a hearing, a recent number of the Western Christian Advocate, according to the Literary Digest of Nov. 25, 1911, speaks as follows:—

We believe the public is more and more feeling weariness and disgust for such vaudeville “entertainments.” They can get all they want of such amusements in the cheap theaters and nickelodeons. For the church to go into competition with the moving-picture shows on secular lines (we do not speak of religious and church topics) is a degradation that ought to stir the conscience of true Christians to the depths.

The same paper, quoting from a New York journal, gives the following picture of the conditions which would exist in some of the New York churches in the future if such methods of advertising were employed:—

The Rev. Pelatiah W. Jinks, who was called to the highest pulpit in New York in 1912, succeeded within less than three years in building up an unrivaled system of dancing-academies and roller-skating rinks for young people. Under him the attendance at the Sunday-afternoon sparring exhibitions in the vestry-rooms of the church increased from an average of 54 to an average of 650. In spite of the nominal fee charged for the use of the congregation’s bowling-alleys, the income from that source alone was sufficient to defray the cost of missionary work in all Africa. We are told that this was only the beginning of the Reverend Jinks’ “glorious services.” Ten years later he could point with pride to the fact that the football team of his church won the championship of the Ecclesiastical League of New York.

Jinks afterward undertook to build up the chapel of St. Basil on the East Side, whose congregation had been steadily dwindling. A moving-picture plant was installed in the church forthwith, and immediately the former empty pews were filled to overflowing. The new departure worked so well that Jinks resolved to introduce other innovations. To encourage church attendance at Sunday-morning services he established a tipless barber-shop. Two years later, in spite of the murmured protest of the conservative element in his congregation, he erected one of the finest Turkish baths in New York City.

In concluding, the Advocate justly observes:—

What can we say of all this miserable business — this prostitution of the church and its services — except that it is infinitely humiliating, an offense to right-minded, spiritual Christians, and an insult to God?