In a Bad Box | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · May 27, 1886

FromThe Signs of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 20

“In a Bad Box.”

UNDER the above heading a California clergyman writes to the Christian Advocate as follows:—

“The situation is this: I found in my charge what was called a Church Social, or Mite Society. Having no church organization in the place, this society had been managing church affairs, especially the financial department. At the first meeting of the officers to reorganize for the year, I was elected chaplain. They voted to have an entertainment, and hold it in the church. They decided, also, that the only kind of an entertainment that would draw the crowd, and make it a financial success, was comic drama. So I found that I had unwittingly become the chaplain of a dramatic club, which proposed displaying their skill in my own pulpit. When I objected, they pleaded as an excuse, and one that it was difficult to answer, that the former pastor had sanctioned such entertainments; and, moreover, the people would not come to a serious entertainment, ‘to be made to cry.’ Now I ask, Can we be consistent, and allow such things in our churches? If ministers secure their salary by thus yielding to the demands of the ungodly, will not the ones they please lose respect for them as religious teachers, and conclude that it’s the fleece rather than the flock they are caring for.”

We can’t see how any comment could set forth more plainly the seriousness of the situation. What makes it the more serious is the fact that the people will not listen to anything serious. Nothing could be a more perfect fulfillment of Paul’s words: “They shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.”