Churches and Sunday Theater Laws
REV. FRANK DIXON, of this city, as reported by the Morning Times of January 16, has the following on the question of closing the theaters on Sunday night by law:— What right indeed have the churches to combine to close the theaters? No more than the theaters have to combine to close the churches. Suppose there should be such a movement started. Would we not become indignant to the very center? Would we not fight the war out with all our might and strength and resources, without yielding? Then why should we attempt to gain our ends with the same means which would cause such indignation if used against ourselves. We have no right, no moral right, to do so. God has given no such right. His ministers, his people, his church, are ministers of the gospel of peace, not of law. That, we mean, is the Bible plan. The great apostate church, "the mystery of iniquity," we are aware, reversed that plan, and modern churches are still drinking of the wine of fornication, but "the mystery of God" is still the gospel of Christ, backed by the power of God, not to coerce men, but to win them by love.