EVERY SATURDAY RELIGIOUS LIFE

Southland Times, Issue 23380, 11 December 1937, Page 12

EVERY SATURDAY RELIGIOUS LIFE

(By

POPOKOTEA)

MOTION PICTURES AND THE CHURCH In last Wednesday’s issue of The Southland Times there appeared a Press Association cablegram giving the answer to a questionnaire by the British Board of Film Censors. A united conference was held, when representatives of the Cinema Christian Council and the Public Morality Council sat under the chairmanship of the Bishop of Southwark. They concluded, that Biblical stories in films should be told in Biblical or congruous language. Motion pictures in silent or talking versions open up a new field of interest to the Church. The Church must accept and recognize motion pictures as one of the greatest means of public education. S. W. Powell, writing in The Expositor and Homiletic Review asks: “Why wait until an idea or an invention is antiquated before using it to promote the Kingdom ana thus stamp ourselves as outmoded and satisfied with second-rate things? Let us use the most modern means available for getting the ageless message of Christ into the minds of both youth and age. Today it is the motion picture?” The churches of the United States of America lead the world m the utilization of motion pictures. Some of the screenings are in churches, others in church halls. Indeed in the U.S.A, a complete motion picture equipment is considered a vital part of the machinery of an up-to-date congregation. In New Zealand the light has scarcely dawned. The churches are letting a great opportunity pass. An American clergyman invited a group of four friends to make the church a Christmas gift of a complete motion picture equipment. They gladly complied with his request. The clergyman found that with his thronging engagements he was completely out of touch with the boys and girls of his Sunday School. He therefore arranged to screen his pictures every Saturday morning. A small charge was made. Children began to arrive at nine o’clock and by the time the pictures began at ten o clock, every seat in a. large hall was in use, and many stood through the entire entertainment. There are several rental libraries in the U.S.A., well stocked in 16mm. films. Some of these are Biblical, others good pictures with a clear ethical intention, yet others of educative interest and travelogues. The clergyman uses a Filmo 70 camera for pictures of local scenes and events and organizations of his own church. A Bell and Howard projector is used and with the 750 watt lamp the pictures are of theatre quality. It has been found that films depicting health and welfare subjects, wholesome entertainment subjects, dramatic and classic presentations which properly reveal life problems, all have their logical places in the church s schedule of showings. Bishop Hobson of the Episcopal Church in Southern Ohio is planning to. use sound movies in the church as a method of missionary education and evangelism. He does not bemoan the fate of the modem world and the church in the face of late scientific developments that lower church, attendance. Instead, he prepares for the adaptation of worthy developments to the church’s work. Probably in 1950 most of our New Zealand churches will have motion picture equipment and rental libraries will have a wide range of subjects. And by that time we may expect every peripatetic evangelist to have a Bell and Howard 16mm. projector in his luggage.

THE BIBLICAL WINDOW THE DEEPER LIFE Acts 2:12. “What meaneth this?”

MASTER O Master, Master, let me humbly fall, In grateful adoration, at Thy feet. More, more Thou art than life, O Christ, my All, For Thou alone dost make my life complete!

Modem psychology speaks of an underlife, a sort of subterranean, subconscious self. Deep and mighty realities are there unawakened and unused, we are told, but. once stirred they give to the individual a new meaning to his life and his powers. Pentecost stirred this deeper world of life in the early disciples, and started a fire in the region of the heart, and gave signal primacy to an- inner emotional power that transformed cowardice into courage, weakness into strength, hesitancy into defiance, and defeat into victory.” —Bishop W. E. Brown.

The burden of my guilt, O Lord, I bring, Weary and heavy laden, to Thy cross, And make confession my sole offering, Contritely conscious: sin is empty dross. Thine all-pervading, all-encircling love Enfolds me, Master in its warm embrace; I see Thy hands in full compassion move; I trace forgiveness in Thy lovely face. —Victor E. Beck.