p. 7 | Wrong Standards by F. M. W.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 6, 1913

Wrong Standards

By F. M. W.

Editorial

Christian Recreation—No. 4

The need of recreation on the part of Christians, in common with the world around them, all will admit. That it is entirely consistent with their high and holy calling for the followers of the Master to take time for rest and recreation as the necessities of their work may permit and their physical condition demand, and to arrange innocent amusements for the youth and children, there can be no question. As far as we know, Christian believers in every church admit the consistency and propriety of these procedures, but the question as to how the Christian shall relate himself to the great sports and pleasures of the world is one upon which there is not altogether, concurrent agreement.

Wrong Standards

Many members of the various churches throughout the world attend theaters, the circus, dances, etc. Though we may differ from them as to the propriety of their course, it is not for us to judge or condemn them for so doing. Their standard of Christian living may vary from ours; their education in Christian duty may have been given from a different viewpoint. The attention of many has never been called to the evil growing out of these popular gatherings, nor do they recognize the influence which their course of conduct may have upon the young and inexperienced. The standard of the world has come to be taken as their standard.

God calls upon Seventh-day Adventists to elevate the Christian standard, to call their fellows to a higher plane of thought and Christian living. Hence the question with which we are concerned in this article is, How should the members of this church, professing the sacred, solemn truth for this generation,—a people looking for the speedy return of the Lord to this earth, and preparing themselves for that blessed event,—relate themselves to the pleasures of the world?

Dangerous Amusements

Some of these pleasures are so gross in their nature and pernicious in their influence that little time need be given to their consideration. Perhaps none who read this article would be tempted to frequent the race-track or the gambling parlor; to engage in card-playing, or take part in less harmful sports for a wager. The dissipation and excess connected with these sports are discouraged even by the average standard of nominal Christianity. What relation should Seventh-day Adventists sustain to those worldly sports which occupy a respectable standard in the estimation of the world around them, and which are liberally patronized by the members of the popular churches? This is the question before us. We refer to such amusements as the theater, billiards, the moving-picture show, the circus, the great public games of cricket, baseball, and golf.

For convenience rather than by arbitrary classification we have listed these together. We are willing to admit, as many claim, a difference in the degree of evil exerted by the influence of these sports. Some whose conscientious convictions would forbid their attendance at the theater would go to the popular moving-picture show. Others who would be held back from attending these indoor amusements would frequent the golf, cricket, or baseball grounds. And yet, while we are willing to admit this difference in degree, we recognize that in a large measure the same baneful influence to spiritual life is connected with all these great sports. This is made true by the environment, and by the spirit which accompanies them. It is well for this fact to be kept in mind: that in morals the lesser evil, however small, always opens the way for and encourages the entrance of the greater evils. “We should never give sanction to sin by our words or our deeds, our silence or our presence.”

Common Features of the World's Sports

These great games are exploited equally by their promoters for commercial purposes. The promoters and regular attendants of these leading sports are the same class of people—the world-loving, the pleasure-seeking. Connected with many of these games, the same as with the race-track, there is found the practise of gambling. Men, instead of horses, are the objects upon which money is staked. At all these great worldly sports the same spirit of excitement and infatuation takes possession of those falling under their influence. The tragedies and comedies of the theatrical stage appeal strongly to the emotions of the auditors. Men and women sit entranced as these scenes are enacted before them. This same appeal to passion, only perhaps in a different way and in a different degree, is made to those who witness the great outdoor sports. A spirit of wild enthusiasm possesses the excited multitude, and this extends even outside of the immediate range of the playground.

One has only to see with what avidity old and young scan the sporting page of the daily newspapers, the eagerness with which the surging multitudes in the street watch for the latest returns of the contest as marked on the tally-board, to recognize how widely this hypnotic influence extends. And every taste of this unnatural excitement creates a thirst for more, and thus, little by little and step by step, those who enter upon this path are led down into the final vortex of dissipation, where God is forgotten, and the things of time and sense become the ruling passion in the life experience.

All these great sports are occasions for the display of rivalry, vainglory, and purely human achievement. All have connected with them, more or less directly and in greater or less degree, allied scenes of revelry, feasting, and drunkenness. It is clearly evident that one and the same spirit for the most part actuates and controls these great sports and amusements.

What Would Christ Do?

In the days of Christ men were engaged in pleasure and dissipation the same as at the present time. Plays, exhibitions, and races in which the people of those times excelled, were of common and frequent occurrence. We have no record that Christ or his disciples attended doings of this character. Is it possible to think that if Christ were on earth today he would be found a spectator at the race-tracks? that he would occupy a box at the theater? that he would form one of the wildly cheering throng attending the games of golf and cricket and baseball? Can we conceive of his spending time in moving-picture shows? Such a course on the part of the Master is indeed unbelievable. He came to lift men up from the sordid plane of worldliness, time-serving, and selfish gratification to higher ideals of thought and purpose.

Serious Considerations

Surely Seventh-day Adventists, with the work and position to which God has called them, cannot place before themselves any less an ideal in Christian living than the life of the Master. It would be well for those who are in the habit of attending these great public plays and sports to inquire if they can do so with the same spirit that possessed the Master in his work. He is the one true example. Can they go to represent the Lord Jesus Christ to those gathered on these occasions? Can they

preach to them the everlasting gospel, and admonish them, as Paul admonished Felix, of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come? Can they go to demonstrate to their fellows that higher motives are actuating their lives than move the hearts of the multitude? Or by mingling as interested and enthusiastic spectators with the pleasure-seeking multitude, do they not show that in a measure at least they have fallen under the same hypnotic influence? By this course do they not obliterate to a certain extent that line of demarcation which should exist between the children of God and the people of the world? In the estimation of their fellows do they not lower the plane of Christian living to the cheap, common level of the worldling? Will others with less power of discrimination, and with less self-control, not take advantage of the example they see before them to plunge still deeper into the depths of worldly pleasure and dissipation?

Think on These Things

These surely are considerations which it would be well for every reader of this paper to consider, as related to his own conduct. Heaven will hold us responsible for our own conduct, and for the influence our course exerts on our fellows.

In placing before our fellows our own consistent example, we can do more to bring them to what we believe to be the standard of right than by any spirit of criticism or judgment in which we may indulge. The most evil of influences under which we may fall is the spirit of censure and unkind criticism of others. We cannot drive men to Christ by argument or faultfinding. They must be won by love and through loving, considerate service. This power, filling the heart and expressed in the life, will prove a drawing rather than a repellent force in kindly ministry. Hence while we may seek to save our fellows from what we believe to be the influence of one evil, let us be sure that by God's grace we are kept from falling under the influence of another equally as pernicious. “If a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.” Gal. 6:1.

“Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” Phil. 4:8. These are the eternal principles which should govern our own course of conduct and our relation to our fellow men. F. M. W.