Broadcasting Praised by the Church

Radio Record, Volume IV, Issue 37, 27 March 1931, Page 6

Broadcasting Praised by the Church

Devout Listeners-in, "THE Church in England has accepted the fact that listening-in to a service has come to stay. This acceptance is shown in a report on the religious value of broadcast services, recently issued in London and presented to Convocation. There has been a certain fear that the wireless services would act as rivals, an honest dread on the part of many of the popularisation of a farm of godliness that lacked the Church’s power, of the substitution of an emotional appeal at the fireside. The committee reporting to Convocation at Church House was quite frank. It advised clergymen to take a lesson from the B.B.C. clearness of voice and tone. The report, said the Bishop of Bly, referred to the mannerisms, tricks and curious little habits which dlergy had got into in their preaching, and suggested that the reading and singing which came over the wireless were worth studying, and in a reasonable way imitating. The report itself says: "We don’t suggest that it is reasonable for the Jaity to expect to find in every country church the standard of preaching and reading represented by picked men. But they have the right to expect their elergy to read clearly and intelligently, and this is not always the case. Indistinctness, affectation and mannerism ean spoil the beauty of the finest liturgy in Christendom." The Bishop of Hly, indeed, recommended Convocation to send a message of thanks and appreciation to the British Broadcasting Corporation. He dissented from the view that wireless services had made for neglect of attendance at church, and he denied that there was any evidence that people who listen-in in their homes sit in their armchairs smoking pipes and take the service "casually" without any reverence in their attention.