Theater-Going by S. S. Times

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 16, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 27.

Theater-Going.

By S. S. Times

A NEW YORK correspondent wants a little more light on the question of theater-going. He writes:—

“I have been for a long time a teacher of boys and youth in the Sunday-school, yet I find myself unable to give satisfactory answers to some of the questions referred to me. That about the theater is, perhaps, one of the worst; since you have made the matter of card-playing so clear to my mind, I have ventured to ask if you will, through your column of ‘Notes on Open Letters,’ kindly help me in an answer to the following question from a Christian young man. ‘When I am away from home on short business trips, and a guest, for the time, of theater-going people,—men with whom I am more or less associated in business,—is it right for me to accept of an invitation to accompany them to places of amusement which they consider perfectly proper, and where I might offend were I to decline?’ Your opinion of the above matter will be a great help to a constant reader of the Sunday-School Times.”

Back of the immediate question here presented, as to our duty while visiting those who are theater-goers, is the question of the right or wrong of the theater itself. If, as we believe, the theater itself has no right of existence, then it is not right to sustain the theater by our presence. Our objection to the theater is not primarily to the theater as it is now managed, but to the theater at its best. We object even to the ideal theater; to the theater as it might be under the purest Christian management,—and the actual theater, it will be admitted by all, is no improvement on the best theater imaginable. To those who take this view of the theater, there is no question concerning theater-going under any circumstances. And as to the matter of giving offense by over-strictness, there is one hundred times the danger of lowering ourselves in the estimation of others by over-laxity at just such points as this. Men of the world want men of the church to have a high standard, and to stick to it. The Christian minister or the Christian layman who goes to the theater, or who plays cards, or who dances, or who drinks wine, or who uses tobacco, is sure to lower himself thereby in the estimate of those who do the same things, whatever may be the effect of his example in this line on those whose practice is different from his own. Never fear that you will lose influence for good by being positive and unbending at a point of principle or of practice, where there are two opinions as to the right or wrong of the case.—S. S. Times.