The Kingdom Not Taken by Entertainments

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 10, 1914

The Kingdom Not Taken by Entertainments

Many feel today that the proper method of gospel extension work is through entertainments fostered and carried on by the churches. Of the spirit attending these modern plays and of their influence on religion, the Biblical World for May, 1914, says:—

It is amazing how mad our modern world is after amusement. The feudal lord kept his fool, who was anything but a simpleton, but our modern world is content with nothing that is not highly spiced with entertainment. Our preachers must have their stories, our professors must be clever as well as learned, and our evangelists (God forgive us) must be vulgar before our attention is much attracted.

Is it any wonder that our world has lost a sense of reverence?

Play is a legitimate right of children, but any person who thinks that a child’s needs are satisfied on the playground simply does not know children. Quite as truly that man has much to learn who thinks that sturdiness of character, abhorrence of sensuality, heroism that scorns delicate living and welcomes sacrifice, can be produced without listening to the Hebrew prophet and the English Puritan.

The world in which we live is not good-natured. We have not yet quenched the lust for war, nor abolished sin, nor ended death. A religion that overlooks men’s sins, men’s sufferings, and men’s death is only a diversion. It does not save men—it hardly keeps them out of mischief.

The sensuousness of our day will not be driven out by amusement. The only message of salvation that will cut into our selfishness and recklessness is one that makes us morally uncomfortable; that does not distract our attention from sin; that makes us feel the doom impending upon lives and social orders which have taught themselves to believe that we live in a good-natured universe, and are responsible to a good-natured God.

A minister should not speak comfortably to comfortable people. He ought to make such folk morally uncomfortable.

One reason why men prefer golf to church is because they have drifted into the notion that golf and churchgoing belong to the same general class of interests. Truth need not be deadened in order that it may find one’s conscience, but a church crowded with people who want to be entertained is a poor recruiting ground for the army of the Lord. . . .

Seriousness and gentleness, candor and fraternity, solace and inspiration,—these are some of the characteristics of a genuine religion. To doubt their power and to seek crowds by cajolery, by appeal to that which is frivolous, hysterical, cheap, and vulgar, is to publish a lack of faith in the gospel of the kingdom that is love, joy, and peace in the Holy Spirit.