CLERGYMEN ENGAGE IN CONTROVERSY OVER SPORTSMEN’S SERVICE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18936, 5 December 1929, Page 9

CLERGYMEN ENGAGE IN CONTROVERSY OVER SPORTSMEN’S SERVICE.

PLAN IS DANGEROUS, DECLARES OPPONENT. (Special to the "Star”) AUCKLAND, December 5. As convener of the Public Questions Committee of the Auckland Presbytery, the Rev Lawson Marsh, of Devonport, yesterday made a reply to the published remarks of Canon James, in answer to criticism of the proposal to start a Sunday morning service specially for sportsmen. Canon James’s retorts were directed particularly to comments on the scheme made by the Rev D. C. Herron, of St David’s, on Sunday evening. “Canon James deserves at least credit for discovering a new field for missionary work,” said Mr Marsh. “Among Sunday sportsmen he finds some of the very best, and most serviceable of our fellow-citizens, and, very properly, he wants to win them into the fellowship of the church for fuller service of the Kingdom of God. He proposes, therefore, to arrange a service of minimum duration, to leave these most serviceable people free in the meantime to spend the rest of the day in sport. He says that they would be happier for it, though apparently he is not sure they would be better. “Does Canon James ready believe that those who at present have no interest in the fellowship of he Church, compared with their interest in sport, are likely to lend themselves to any scheme calculated to win them into fuller service of the Kingdom of God? If so, I shall have to concede what I have long tried to disbelieve, that the Canon’s zeal is not according to knowledge. We love him for his ingenuous charm, but are forced to conclude that he is, after all, an ecclesiastical Peter Pan. His bitter reply to recent criticism savours more of panic than Peter. He speaks as though it were an outrage to cricise so well-intentioned missionary efforts, but the Canon forgets that others besides sportsmen have a conscience about Sunday, and if his plans seem to such not only utterly futile, but dangerous, because they would tend to lead out of the fellowship, of the church many who are at present in it, surely they have a right to say so. “If Canon James had made his experiment quietly, instead of blazoning it abroad, along with some very unfortunate remarks about the hardships of having to attend eleven o’clock service, no one would have made public criticism, but the publicity given raised the whole question of Sunday services and put all those who do not agree with the Canon into a very false position. To try to meet the necessities of modern life is a duty binding on all of us, but it is one thing to provide an extra service, and quite another to suggest that the primary duty and privilege of Sunday can be dispensed with in half an hour. In effect Canon James condones Sunday sport by a special service to bless those who indulge in it. What does truth, honour or chastity matter if we end in a hole at the ceme- - Itery ? The greatest need of this age is not to be met with potted piety on a Sunday morning followed by a repetition of Saturday’s physical exercises. Only a frank and glad recognition of the claims that God and humanity make on our heart, mind, soul and strength can save our land from the vulgarity of secularism and the loss of all that makes us great. The unworthy personalities introduced and the strictures on Mr Herron’s scholarship are really apart from the controversy, and I can safely leave them to the good sense of the public. Both Canon James and Mr Herron are on the air for Sunday night sermons.