Ministers at the Theater

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

Ministers at the Theater

In the Literary Digest of Jan. 11, 1913, appears an article under the above title, which we consider worthy of reproduction entire. The importance of the Christian’s maintaining a right attitude toward that institution which is doing so much to undermine character, and turn the attention of the people away from divine things, can not be too strongly impressed. The article follows:—

A clergyman is quoted as saying that he goes to the theater occasionally, and would like to go oftener, but refrains for the sake of the young people to whom he has to act as a guide. Ministers who attend the theater from whatever motive must be more or less common in these days, for not infrequently we hear of performances at which they make up, by invitation, the entire audience. The motive of this particular one for not going oftener seems “very incongruous” to Dr. A. C. Dixon, who writes from London to the Examiner (New York). He takes the position that “if it is right and profitable for him to go to the theater at all, why should he not go often, rather than occasionally, since he frankly confesses his desire to do so?” The inconsistency of the minister’s attitude seems to Dr. Dixon to lie in his desire for his own pleasure, and his wish to guide the young into other channels for theirs. Dr. Dixon does not show himself a warm friend of the theater, but he puts an old position in a fresh light. Merely the restatement of such an old position helps us to see the question as a mile-post along the way we are traveling. He writes:—

“The minister doubtless means that he would guide them in selecting the best plays and would take them to the best theaters. Well, there may be some good plays, so far as acting a part can ever be good; but, so far as we have been able to learn by rather careful investigation, there are no good theaters. Sir Henry Irving tried to make the Lyceum a good moral theater, and failed. Edwin Booth determined to make his theater in New York such a place morally that parents might take their children to it without fear of contamination, with the result that the enterprise went into bankruptcy and the building was sold for a warehouse. Hannah Moore wrote some good plays, full of Christian sentiment, but they did not pay.

“We have been searching for a theater on earth in which a play that appeals to the baser natures of men and women is never acted, and we have not yet succeeded in finding one. The theater as an institution is bad, as is admitted by its friends, whatever may be the quality of occasional performances. When our ministerial friend leads his young people to the theater occasionally that they may enjoy together what he considers a good play, he may be assured

that he is leading them to the bait which is almost certain to allure them to the bad play also; and even if it does not, he has linked himself and them in association with an avowedly bad institution, and has violated the principle which the apostle Paul adopted in dealing with the question of eating meat offered to idols. Paul refused to do so, not because it would hurt him, but because it linked him with the great evil institution of idol-worship, and would thus lead to his loss of influence for good.”

Taking Sir Herbert Tree’s observation that “the church and the stage have now come together and are on friendly terms,” as a text, the writer retorts: “If so, it is not because the stage has been lifted to the level of the true church, but because the church has fallen to the level of the stage.” Dr. Dixon’s position is that “the difference between the church and the stage is an impassable gulf.” He goes on:—

“The purpose of the stage is to teach people how to act a part; the purpose of the church of Christ is to teach them how to be real. The purpose of the stage is to amuse; the purpose of the church is to save. The symbol of the church of Christ is the cross; the symbol of the stage may well be the baby’s rattle. The purpose of the stage is to make money, and managers are not slow to do so, even at the expense of good morals; the purpose of the church of Christ is to make character, and good morals are not for sale at any price. The stage gives what the people want, and, sad to say, the worst plays often draw the biggest crowds; the purpose of the church of Christ is to give what people need, regardless of its popularity. The stage ministers to ‘the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, [which] is not of the Father;’ the purpose of the church of Christ is to crucify these things. The stage is a caterer; the church of Christ is a prophet. The stage in its tragedies glorifies revenge; the church of Christ teaches forgiveness of enemies and the patient endurance of wrong. The tendency of the stage is to make people childish in their feverish desire for diversion; the work of the church is to make people childlike in their faith and love and simplicity of character. The tendency of the stage is to keep the race in its childhood of self-gratifying amusement; the work of the church is to lead the race into the manhood of self-sacrificing achievement. The footlights are suggestive of the fact that the lower tendencies of human nature are there brought into prominence; the church of Christ would magnify the head-light and heart-light that reveal and develop the higher attributes of our being. In a word, the real church is the incarnation of the spirit of Christ, pure, humble, self-sacrificing, and forgiving; the stage is the incarnation of the spirit of the world, lustful, proud, selfish, and revengeful. And what God hath put asunder, let no man join together.”