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Unto the pure, all things are pure
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Titus 1:15
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To the Puritan all things are impure
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D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930), Etruscan
Places
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Among many Protestant groups the intention that people need
not work on the Sabbath was interpreted as meaning they should
not work, then that they must not work, then that they
must rest, then that they must not enjoy themselves. So it was
that various types of sport and entertainment were made illegal
on Sundays — as they still are in some Christian countries.
The effect of this was to enforce views that were precisely
the opposite of the biblical Jesus when he noted that the Sabbath
was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
From the earliest times Christians were not permitted to enjoy
ordinary entertainments such as sporting events, theatres or
circuses. Before long the Church had made all manner of entertainments
illegal - from the OlympicGames to local horse races - and they
remained illegal for many centuries. Christian laws still constrain
many actions in Britain and throughout Christendom. Statutes
based on Christian ideas still govern activities such as entertainment,
sport, gambling, licensing and trading. Because of the combined
efforts of Christian groups and trade unionists, restrictive
laws could not be repealed until the closing years of the twentieth
century, although prosecutions were often highly selective.
Prosecutions for Sunday trading, for example, were common, but
the Archbishop and Dean of Canterbury somehow escaped prosecution
when it was revealed that their cathedral shop was breaking
the law by selling items to tourists on Sundays*.In
the US, t he Supreme Court has upheld Sunday closing laws, imaginatively
interpreting them as not being unconstitutional. *
The consumption of alcohol was especially regulated, especially
on Sundays. Under the 1881 Sunday Closing ( Wales) Act, all
public houses in the principality were obliged to close on Sundays.
This continued until 1961, when the law was relaxed and districts
were allowed the option. The last dry district (Dwyfor) succumbed
only in November 1996, although even then temperance campaigners
were still fighting to deny people the right to drink*.
It is still not possible to buy alcohol in the strongly Presbyterian
Western Isles on a Sunday - there is no law about it because
historically none was needed to ensure that shopkeepers behaved
themselves. In England it was possible to buy alcohol only at
certain times on a Sunday, an inconvenience to shops and shoppers
alike. The law was relaxed in the late 1990s, yet the times
at which alcohol may be sold are still restricted. In the USA
early in the twentieth century a Christian lobby managed to
make the manufacture and sale of alcohol illegal in many states.
Restrictions became stronger and more widespread until it became
possible for temperance groups to impose their views on the
whole country. In 1920 the Constitution itself was amended.
The Volstead Act, the eighteenth amendment to the American Constitution,
introduced prohibition — one of the greatest legislative
disasters ever. Prohibition lasted for 13 years before the law
was repealed. Congress obliged Christian forces in other ways
too. It was for example made illegal to transport a range of
goods across state borders: this applied not only to alcohol
but also to obscene literature, contraceptives and even films
of prize-fights.
In the USA so-called blue laws regulate public and
private conduct. The term was originally applied to 17th-century
laws in New Haven. They were called "blue laws” from
the blue paper on which they were printed. New Haven and other
Puritan colonies in New England passed strict laws prohibiting
Sabbath breaking, drunkenness, and excesses in clothing. The
growth of the prohibition movement in the 19th and early 20th
centuries brought more laws regulating private conduct. States
forbade the sale of cigarettes, and laws prohibited secular
amusements along with a unnecessary Sunday work. Provision was
made for strict local censorship of books, plays, films and
other media of instruction and entertainment. There are still
many areas in the United States that retain blue laws.
Back in Europe almost any activity carried out on a Sunday
was prohibited: working, trading, transporting goods, travelling,
or even "profanely or vainly walking". Staying away
from Church without good reason was also punishable. Churches
opposed all manner of fun, relaxing their condemnation in modern
times only when their stance was in danger of making them look
foolish. Amongst the activities that have excited their condemnation
are singing, dancing, laughing ("Jesus never laughed"),
drinking (partially because it might encourage laughter ), nude
bathing, mixed bathing, sex, theatre, games, sports, racing
and gambling. In theory all games of chance were prohibited
because they were disrespectful to God. God was thought to decide
who won (based on Proverbs 16:33), and it was impertinent to
require him to waste his time on mere pastimes. But the practice
was not always so straightforward. In medieval times gambling
was permitted to the privileged classes but prohibited to everyone
else. During the Crusades, knights and clergymen gambled with
each other for money, while ordinary crusaders were not allowed
to. The general feeling was that the lower orders were not safe
to be trusted with the temptations of gambling. Christians opposed
lower class gambling right through the twentieth century, notably
numbers in the USA and premium bonds, the football
pools, and the National Lottery in the UK.
Every sort of enjoyable activity was seen as a threat. Acting
and wit were dangerous, not merely because the Church Fathers
had condemned them , but because they encouraged laughter, and
laughter was well known to subvert Christianity and promote
scepticism. Besides, misery was good in itself: "Sorrow
is better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance
the heart is made better" (Ecclesiastes 7:3); "Woe
unto you that laugh now! For ye shall mourn and weep" (Luke
6:25). An ordinance in 1647 decreed that anyone who had acted
in a London playhouse was to be punished as a rogue. The following
year it was held that anyone who acted in public was liable
to whipping, and anyone who watched was liable to a fine. Kissing
anyone except one's own spouse was a mortal sin until 1956
when the Catholic Church reconsidered the position and determined
that it is only a venal sin if there is no intention to “fornicate”*.
Whatever Christians disapproved of, they associated it with
the Devil in order to discourage participation. Dice were the
Devil's bones. Playing cards were the Devil's Bible. Tobacco was the Devil's weed. Any
sort of new music was generally branded the Devil's music. The term has been applied to the waltz music, blues,
jazz, reggae, rock-and-roll, punk, rap, heavy metal, house,
and numerous more recent styles. The General Assembly of the
Church of Scotland once defined the theatre as "the actual
temple of the Devil, where he frequently appeared clothed in
a corporal substance and possessed the spectators, whom he held
as his worshippers". This obsession with people having
fun has led to a huge range of victimless crimes that are not
crimes at all in countries that have abandoned religious constraints.
Christmas had its own specific restrictions. The Calvinist
John Knox put an end to Christmas in Scotland in 1562 and it
was reintroduced as a major festival there only in the second
half of the twentieth century. In 1644 a Puritan Parliament
forbade the observance of Christmas in England , and it is still
technically an offence to do the most innocent things on Christmas
Day. It is illegal to eat a dinner of more than three courses,
or to eat mince pies or Christmas pudding, or to ride rather
than walk to Church, or to engage in sports other than either
archery or "leaping and vaulting"*.
In earlier times, almost any trivial piece of fun could incur
the death penalty. While in western Europe people could be executed
for eating a mince pie, in eastern Europe they might be executed
for "drinking tobacco"*.
Nine pin bowling was another victim of Christian moralists.
When it was made illegal in the American colonies, an additional
pin was added to create a new sport of ten-pin bowling, which
was not technically illegal. Calling a special ice cream a Sunday
ice cream was tantamount to blasphemy so it had to be renamed
as a Sundae, which seems to have made it more acceptable.
Travelling during the Sabbath was regarded as evil, and in
1809 the evangelical Spenser Percival succeeded in stopping
Parliament sitting on Mondays, to save MPs from the evil of
travelling on Sunday. Travelling for pleasure was even more
of a threat. Already in the eighteenth century Christians had
become concerned about the growth of travel literature. Such
literature was held to encourage comparisons between customs
and practices in various parts of the world. It also revealed
the scale of natural disasters and extent of pointless suffering
throughout the world. Such knowledge was thought to encourage
speculation on two uncomfortable subjects: comparative religion
and the problem of evil. Clearly, it would be better for all
concerned if information about other places were suppressed.
Travelling for enjoyment on a Sunday was doubly evil, and therefore
had to be prohibited wherever possible. In Canada the matter
was decided in 1925, when the Canadian Province of Manitoba
permitted Sunday excursions. A Christian organisation called
the Lord's Day Alliance opposed such enjoyments
in court, but lost its case on appeal to the Privy Council.
When ferries started sailing on Sundays in the Hebrides in 2009
there were still enough local traditionalists to mount legal
challenges and protests — then prayed for the nation to
"turn its back from sin and wickedness" as women wiped
away tears and prayed for a return to the Lord's commandments*.
By the nineteenth century evangelical Christians found themselves
unable to ban many popular activities, so they mounted political
campaigns to tax them instead. A popular target was alcohol,
but there were many others. Among them were public entertainments
(theatres, operas, playhouses), sporting guns, parties (as well
as music, visiting cards, masquerades), gambling (cards, dice,
racing), prints, magazines and Sunday newspapers. Prize fighting
was another Christian issue well into the twentieth century.
It was opposed not so much for modern liberal reasons (that
it is barbaric), but rather because it provided popular entertainment
and encouraged gambling. A fight between Jack Johnson and Bombardier
Billy Wells due to take place in 1911 at Earl's Court had
to be cancelled after campaigning by Baptists and other Free
Church Christians. The year before, American Christians had
succeeded in banning a fight between Johnson and Jim Jeffries
in California.
Trading restrictions were another major area of Christian concern.
However much one person wanted to buy and another wanted to
sell, Christians felt obliged to stop them doing so on a Sunday.
In England the Churches supported the Sunday Trading Restriction
Bill in 1928, as they had supported every attempt to retain
Sunday trading restrictions since the Sunday Fairs Act
of 1448. But the public mood had now changed. The Shops
(Sunday Trading Restriction) Act of 1936 attempted a compromise
but succeeded in making the law a laughing stock for decades.
It became legal to sell tins of clotted cream on a Sunday, but
not evaporated milk. It was legal to sell fuel for cars, but
not for cigarette lighters. It was legal to sell razors to cut
corns with, but not to shave with. A new Shops Act
in 1949 perpetrated the Sunday anomalies. It was still legal
to sell magazines (including soft pornography) but not books
(including bibles). One could buy fish and chips from a Chinese
take-away, but not from a fish and chip shop. In certain areas
and at certain times it was legal to buy gin, but not tea.
Other Sunday restrictions were also coming into question. Churches
supported the Sunday Performances Bill in 1931, as
they did every attempt to maintain the restrictions on Sunday
activities. The Sunday Entertainments Act of 1932 was
another compromise. It allowed cinemas to show films on Sundays,
but subject to special levy. Musical entertainments were permitted,
but not variety entertainments; zoological gardens and botanical
gardens could open to the public, but not amusement parks. Museums
and galleries could open to the public, but not theatres. And
of course Sunday sport was still not permitted. Circuses were
still banned under the 1625 Act, as were public concerts. Representatives
of the Lord's Day Observance Society were still
stopping Sunday charity concerts into the twentieth century
— including one in 1961 in aid of the National Prevention
of Cruelty to Children.
There is almost no area of enjoyment that the Church has not
tried either to control or suppress. If the Church could harness
an activity for its own purposes then it did so (Church art,
Church music, mystery plays, printed lives of saints, and so
on.). If the Church had no use for it then it was suppressed.
Only in two spheres did the Church permit unfettered enjoyment.
One was ridiculing chained lunatics, the other was attending
public executions. Hanging days were holidays, observed along
with Christmas, Easter and Whitsun, well into the nineteenth
century. As long as the proceedings did not get out of hand,
all the mainstream Churches thought it thoroughly wholesome
for men, women and children to enjoy a good hanging*.
Apart from a visit to Bedlam, it was the only form of family
entertainment that was both popular and improving to Christian
morals.
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