RELIGION BROADCAST

Radio Record, Volume I, Issue 52, 13 July 1928, Page 5

RELIGION BROADCAST

ARCHDEACON TAYLOR’S VIEWS

MAY INCRHASE CONGREGATIONS. (THE chief objection that is raised to the broadcasting of religious services is-that-this practice affords a new temptation leading people to stay at home and listen instead of going ‘to church to take par in the gervice," says Archdeacon Taylor, in an aricle in the St. Luke’s (Christchurch) "Parish Magazine." "Personally, I think it will not have this effect. Of course, a certain number of people will give as their reason for stopping away from the chureh the plea, ‘Oh, we have he wireless and we always listen in to the service on Sunday evening.’ But would those people go to church in any ease? Or is it only just a new excuse, readily welecomed by those who know in their own hearts that all the old excuses are inadequate? If people don’t want to go to church they won't go. If they think they ought to go and yet don't want to go, they will deceive them-

selves and try to deceive otners giving some excuse or other, and the wireless one has a great advantage for his purpose over the Sunday headache, the stuffy church, the poorness of our preaching and all the other wellworn excuses. But if people want to take part in the worship of God, they will not be satisfied with what they get over the wireles for, wonderful as it is, it is not really the same thing. Only in a very few cases can it be anything like the same thing. One such case is that of a sick person listening-in in silence and _ soliude.

Sueh a person may well thank God for this wonderful new invention which enables him to associate himself so closely with his fellow-Chrisians before the Throne of Grace. Another case might be a group of péople in a remote country place gathered together ‘by common consent for the express purpose of joining in the service as broadeasted, In his case they will kneel for the prayers, stand for the hymns (and, of course, join in the singing) and sit only for the lessons and the sermon.

‘Bet I do not believe that people who could go to church and lon’'t would join in a wirelessed service in that way. I picture the family sroup round the fireside. Father is in the big armchair and his pipe is going well. He has the Saturday evening paper at hand in case he finds the service uninteresting. Mother is or the other side of the fire, perhaps thinking that on the whole it would be more restful if she were really at church. Then there are the young people, including the daugher's young man. What do they think about it? The boys, of course, are interested in the new scientific toy. They all like to have a background of music or some other sound and are used to carrying on their conversation to it without any embarrassment. It is quite a pleasant picture. But is it worship? Frankly, I do not believe it. And if at any time some of those people feel a desire for worship, or even for the fellowship of their fellow-Christians, they will give up the wireless and go to church next Sunday.

N the long run, tL@n, I feel sure that very few people will be kept away from church because of the wirelessed services. Is it possible to believe that 1. adeasting will ever tend to i 1p-ove church attendance? Yes; I think so. Surely sick people who have found comfort in the church's prayers will want to take a fuller part in them when they are well. And even the most listless of listeners will sometimes hear something that will set them thinking about the great realities. There is another point. People who have never been in the habit of going: to church regularly do not know what our service is really like. People who haven’t been for years have forgotten. Many of these find through the wireless that church services are not so dull or so meaningless as they thought. Others realise that there is something in the church service

which they can appreciate now out could not appreciate when they were ~ -anger, or more careless, or perhaps more self-willed. Such people find themselves gradually being drawn back to the Heavenly Father and to the Ohurech which He has established among us to be our spiritual Mother, and to His House which is our true spiritual home."