SPORTS AND CHURCH

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 835, 2 December 1929, Page 14

SPORTS AND CHURCH

RELIGION USED AS COMMERCE

SERMON TO YOUNG PEOPLE “if religion can be fitted in without interfering with purely worldly and selfish or utilitarian objects, some people are quite w iling to be religious.” These words were addressed by the Rev. D. C. Herron to his eongrega- ' tion at St. David’s Presbyterian Church last evening, when roundly condemning the proposed attendance at Anglican services of people in flannels and sports attire. Addressing himself particularly to young people, Mr. Herron quoted a passage in which Isaiah depicts tho idol worshipper who, after taking sufficient wood to meet his needs for warmth and cooking, made himself a god out of the piece left over—“of the residue he maketh a god.” The idea seemed to be, he said, that religion could be disposed of in thar way, and the rest of the day could then be devoted to pleasure. If religion could be fitted in without inter fering with their purely worldly and selfish of utilitarian aims, then, strictly on those terms, some people were willing to be religious. He felt at times that in New Zealand people were at the parting of the ways. The country had to get a i higher conception of life or perish, j He wondered whether the churches j were striking a high enough note.

To live the Christian life as Jesus expected it to be lived meant girding oneself and fighting. It was just the very antithesis of the spirit suggested by dropping into church in sporting attire on the way to the tennis courts or the golf links. It meant that to come anywhere near success we had to grip hold firmly on every opportunity given on Sunday for renewing one’s spiritual strength. ‘‘We are not going to build either national greatness or the Kingdom of Christ, around "a church into which men in sporting flannels drop for a little while on Sundays on their way to the playing fields," the Rev. Mr. Herron went on. At the present time there ivas a. really urgent call for young men and women who would fling themselves deliberately down to stop tho break away toward materialism and pleasure, but it was only a genuine devotion to Jesus Christ that would give them the courage to do it.