Church of Scotland Film Services.
Rev. W. M. Hannah, Church of Scotland, minister of Rothies, told his congregation recently, that he is to have a monthly film service on Sabbath, in a former United Free Church which has been turned into a cinema. Mr. Hannah said: “This presentation of the Gospel to the modern mind will bear more fruit from one film show than I could expect out of six months of preaching sermons.” In addition there is to be singing, reading and prayers. Mr. Hannah and those like-minded with him on this vain venture, do not properly regard the words of the Great Head of the Church, the Lord Jesus, with respect to bringing the Gospel to sinners of all nations, viz.: “Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature” (Mark xvi. 15). And the Holy Spirit of Truth, is He who alone can make the reading and the preaching of the Word of God, effectual unto salvation, as was the case on the Day of Pentecost. The Apostle Paul wrote, by the inspiration of the Spirit, “It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe” (I. Cor. i. 21). All the genuine revivals down through the centuries, during which hundreds and thousands of sinners were truly converted, came through the preaching of the Gospel by godly servants of Christ. We find no Scripture warrant to deviate from the means divinely appointed, having in view the conversion of sinners, namely, the reading and the preaching of the Word of God. These the Spirit of Truth recognises and by them He works savingly, when He does come in His sovereign Mercy. To Timothy, it was said, “Preach the Word” (II. Tim iv. 2). The cinema and the film are but modern methods to please the eye and entertain the mind of a modern generation, with a visual presentation of Christian history. Let Mr. Hannah and others reflect on the fact that multitudes saw much of the life of the Saviour and even of His crucifixion, with their eyes. It was when the Gospel was preached with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, by Peter, that many of those “Jerusalem sinners” were converted and brought forth fruit unto holiness. Of course, we know that conversion, in the Bible sense, is not believed in to-day by many so-called ministers of the Gospel. What they aim at and believe in, is a moral decency and a superficial recognition of general Christian principles and an attachment to the “visible things” of the visible Church. The cinema itself may well fail them in reaching out even to those objectives. The fact is, that “we must be born again,” not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, which, of course, is the Word of God; “And this is the Word which by the Gospel is preached unto you” (I. Peter i. 25).
Modern Progress.
Amidst the general clamour of opinions which characterise an age, it is instructive to hear the words of one intimately connected with the life of warfare. The following statement by General Omar Bradley, Chief of Staff, U.S. Army, is taken from the English Churchman:—”With the monstrous weapons man already has, humanity is in danger of being trapped in this world by its moral adolescents. Our knowledge of science has clearly outstripped our capacity to control it. We have too many men of science; too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. Man is stumbling blindly through a spiritual darkness while toying with the precarious secrets of life and death. The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know much more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. This is our twentieth-century’s claim to distinction and to progress.”
Primate’s Son Marries Roman Catholic.
The recent marriage of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s eldest son to a Roman Catholic lady has caused much disquiet and uneasiness among the loyal members of the Church of England, according to The Churchman’s Magazine. The following extract from an article on the subject throws light on the conditions of “mixed marriages”:—
“So according to the law of a Church which has as its head the authority in Rome, before this marriage could have taken place, certain certificates and assurances had to be given and signed.
The Catholic signs: ‘I, the undersigned, do hereby solemnly promise and engage that all children of both sexes who may be born of my marriage, shall be baptised in the Catholic Church, and shall be carefully brought up in the knowledge and practice of the Catholic religion; and I also promise that (according to the instructions of the Holy See) my marriage in the Catholic Church shall not be preceded nor followed by any other religious ceremony.’
The Archbishop’s son signed: ‘I, the undersigned, do hereby solemnly promise and engage that I will not interfere with the religious belief of . . . my future wife nor with her full and perfect liberty to fulfil all her duties as a Catholic; and that I will allow all my children of both sexes, who may be born of our marriage to be baptised in the Catholic Church, and to be carefully brought up in the knowledge and practice of the Catholic religion.’
The Protestant man who signed that document surrendered the headship of his home to a bachelor priest, and separates himself from his children before they are born. The future of such a marriage will reveal much perhaps. . . . The system which burned Archbishop Cranmer for being a Christian cannot be a Christian church. Two cannot walk together unless they be agreed. A marriage between a follower of the anti-Christ Pope and a follower of Christ cannot be one which heaven with all its mercy can bless.”