Your ShelfYour Projects

The Theater

8%

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jul 15, 1913

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 27.

Read the full edition

The Theater

[From an article on “The Minister and the Theater,” by Dr. A. C. Dixon]
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 jester’s bauble.
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.