RELIGION AND SPORT DO NOT CONFLICT

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 254, 23 July 1936, Page 8

RELIGION AND SPORT DO NOT CONFLICT

Playing the Game by God BISHOP HILLIARD AND GOOD FRIDAY By Telegraph—Press Association. Nelson, July 22. “Several contacts have been made during the year with organisations not officially associated with the church, and I was glad when members of the Rugby Union were included in the ceremonies which marked their jubilee service in the cathedral,” said the Bishop of Nelson, Rt. Rev. W. G. Hilliard, in his address to synod. “This was a symbolic act which I could wish would burn its way into the mind and imagination of every sportsman. There is no real conflict between religion and sport, and it is a pi by when men allow the appeal of the latter to interfere with the claims of the former. If we learn to play the game on the field of sport we should do our best to play the game by God. If we learn in cricket or in football that the team must not be let down we should remember not to let down the church to which we belong. If we strive to play according to the highest traditions of our game we should learn to live according to the noblest traditions of our faith. I was more than gratified by the ready, friendly response which the bowlers of Nelson gave to my appeal to them to suspend their Easter bowling tournament, during the most sacred part of Good Friday. There was no play on their greens from halfpast one to a quarter-past three, and their example has made an impression upon other parts of the Dominion, securing some official recognition of the sacredness of the day by bowlers at Christchurch, Oamaru and other places. “I know that this degree of recognition has been belittled in some quarters, and that I myself have been held to be guilty of compromise,” continued Bishop Hilliard, “but I would point out that this is apparently the first recognition of the day that has been made by any considerable sporting body throughout the Dominion, and that in a year when the Empire marked the King’s funeral by a two minutes silence, bowlers marked the memory of our Lord’s redemptive death by two hours’ interruption of their tournament; moreover, a number of them attended the service which I held in the cathedral at that time. “It may not be all the recognition all of us would desire, but it Is to be remembered that Good Friday Is not an actual anniversary; that several of the Christian churches have only recently begun to mark it. by services; that it is not even yet universally observed by Christian people, and that among the bowling fraternity there are possibly at least some who own no special church allegiance at. all. Nor am I to be deterred by that blessed word ‘compromise’ from accepting with gratitude such recognition as in the circumstances may be obtained in the hope that it will deepen in the minds of many the sense of its sanctity and realisation of the challenge and appeal of that which it commemorates. It may be that in some lives what begins with a two-hour cessation of play may lead to a thorough consecration of heart and mind and will to the love and service of our Lprd.”