Christ and Comedy by E. C. Towne

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 23, 1872

Christ and Comedy.

By E. C. Towne

I HAVE sometimes rejoiced in the breaking up of orthodox rigidity by the lively methods of the sensational pulpit; and yet I never could become reconciled to anything like comedy in religious ministration. My regrets, indeed, have never been poignant that orthodox preachers should make certain aspects of orthodox doctrine ridiculous; and yet I never could understand how they could be betrayed into doing it, because I have always felt that to one who believes in the embassy of the Divine Word to a lost world it must be impossible to step aside from the sacramental ministration of grace and truth, to the stirring of crackling laughter.

I know the current explanation, the ready excuse; and I endeavor to appreciate it, and to have no thoughts which are not the thoughts of charity. And yet I cannot shake off the conviction that comic aspects of Christian ministry weaken a hundred times as much as they win, and that congregations on the broad grin let slip the most essential elements of religious impression. I am unable to understand how any man, under commission to tell his fellow-creatures of sin and punishment, and peril even of eternal doom, and of invitation and hope and deliverance, should ever escape, for a single moment of his “on-duty” hours, from the feeling, tender, it may be, and cheerful and joyous as the smiles of Heaven, and yet the feeling of profound solemnity.

Do any of the “popular” preachers ever permit themselves to raise a laugh at the communion-table? Do they become comic when thus closely held to their exact work? Undoubtedly they do not. A sensational handling of the sacrament is not yet in vogue. But what is any genuine ministry of Christian gospel but the administration of a sacrament which is veritable and significant precisely in proportion to the minister’s consciousness that he handles the living Word of God? Are not great truths of revelation, divine truths of saving faith, more significant elements of a sacrament than bread and wine? These pass the lips, while those go through the very soul, to prepare the way of the King coming in his glory. How can a man ever speak to men’s souls on behalf of redemption, and not feel so much of the shadow before him and upon him, and of the glory behind and above him, as to stand transfixed almost with a sense of sacramental significance in the words which pass his lips and the very gestures which his hands make! And if his creed bids him remember that every passing instant is to some a moment of final doom, and every present step of life a step to far the most into greater peril, must there not come in him a rush of heavenliness, a tide of the passion which sways the plains of redemption, which will make even accidental comedy impossible? It seems to me; and, looking at it the most carefully that I can, I believe that not one of the sensational features of the popular pulpit has done a hundredth part as much good to people’s liberty as it has done harm to their essential interest in religion. If it were only that the laugh is raised against old errors of supposed superstition, or severities of faith and practice, which I am glad to see disused, I should not myself care for the utter discomfiture of orthodox interests, little as I might be able to understand how any but an extreme heretic could promote this discomfiture; but I cannot help lamenting the widespread injury to serious religious sentiment, and rapid decline of this sentiment, under the influence of clerical lightness of heart and speech—the intrusion of the spirit of play where that of incessant prayer is alone fit and proper.

If there were no such thing at all as the struggle of human souls with sin and sorrow; if sense were enough, and spirit were needless for present life; if the energy of action among men, without that of aspiration toward God, were sufficient to our happy progress; or if there were any possible way to fight and fly and mount away toward Heaven, except with the arms, and in the power, and on the wings of the most serious and earnest passion of the soul, the case would be wholly different. But he knows little of average man who anticipates religious impression by any other than deeply religious agencies, or who deludes himself for a moment with thinking that a prophet can turn player without abdicating his function.

In its place, play has its function; but that place is not and never can be the pulpit. A man of varied power and profound experience may easily command the mood of prayer in the midst of play, or may turn from the former to the latter and back again, without violence to the motions of his own spirit; but this is not so with average experience, which does not want prayer in the midst of play, and cannot turn back and forth between the solemnities of sacrament and the jovialities of comedy. If the latter are thrust in, the former are too much driven out to get wholly back again; and when ministry is characterized by sensational appeals to light sentiments it will be at serious and lasting cost to spiritual experience.

I have in my own faith no reason to be mournful about the end of all things for human souls. I only have occasion to strive for present influence and help with those to whom I may minister; and I strenuously summon myself, and all who are seeking for heavenly things, to put on a cheerful courage; and yet I dare not hurt these deepest interests of religious feeling by using any other than grave and earnest words, such as I find religion has always used for effective impression. If there is need of disturbing religious tradition, as heart has given it to heart, I would resort to the most thorough method of honest confession, of vehement appeal, that in great strength of sincerity and great fidelity of conviction there may be preserved, at least, the feeling that it is a business full of urgency, of necessity, of solemn significance, which religious discussion has to settle. Better the fire and sword of honest fanaticism than the pleasantries and gayeties of a sensational pulpit.

There must be, in any at all religious, or even deeply ethical, appreciation of the verities expressed, or suggested, by the word “Christ,” a full and deep sense of the seriousness of every aspect of faith. In any appreciation at all adequate of those verities there must be the quickened conscience, the awakened cry of penitence, the search and struggle of the soul after God, the effort and sacrifice and endeavor after submission; the passionate anxiety of the penitent confessor to escape temptation and get safe past the evil, and the absorbing expectation of help within and without, of heavenly providence and holy spirit. No mind can be held to this veracity of adequate experience where diversion interrupts spiritual sobriety.

And if to these general spiritual elements of conformity to “Christ” is added any variety of degree whatever of recognition of an Incarnate Sacrifice, how utterly incongruous must pleasantry be before the altar of ministry of this incarnation and propitiation! The unreality of such supposed sacrifice will be irresistibly suggested by any comic aspect of ministry, and the Word will be broken rather for the entertainment than for the conviction and conversion of the unbeliever.

The entertainment of believers might be legitimate; and too many settle the question by considering only this. But the mistake is a very great one if in truth the business of ministry is to seek and to save, and not yet to make merry. Not yet to make merry. Even believing, without a shadow of doubt that there is no danger at all of the final loss of any soul, one yet might well bear this always in mind: Not yet to make merry in the ministry of serious faith. How much more, believing that doom has its hand on some; that redemption, in the very heart of God even, is a fountain of tears in view of inevitable loss; and that rescue must be through the humanly-executed embassy of warning, and appeal, and persuasion, who can help shutting down against every gay motion or light emotion with a Not yet to make merry?

And certainly it is no plea suitable to be put in that thus a large and strong nature must disport itself. A little and weak nature might plead a kind of hysterical falling from wisdom; but strength and greatness are to be held to acceptance of the law, especially in view of the force of example. The pleasantries of play are a conspicuous feature of popular ministry, far and near, in consequence to no small degree of some illustrious examples; and if Christian religion, as it is commonly understood, continues to lose ground and ceases to be a serious concern with thoughtful and virtuous persons, it will be largely in consequence of this sensational lightness of the popular pulpit.—E. C. Towne.