100years ago in The Record

Sunday, Sept. 30, 1917

The “open Sunday” continues to be hotly debated across New York State as churches demand that the Christian Sabbath be kept holy, while the sports and entertainment industries argue that working people need a day of leisure and amusement after grueling six- day work weeks.

Rev. E. W. Gould of Watervliet’s Third Avenue Methodist Church believes that “community righteousness is dependent upon Sabbathkeeping more than upon any other matter of public concern.” In his sermon today, as published in Monday’s Record, Gould argues that if working conditions put pressure on the Sabbath, they should be reformed before the holy day is compromised further.

Gould summarizes the relevant Bible verses on the Sabbath, from the commandment to Moses to keep the Sabbath day holy to Jesus’s saying that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

“Opinions at variance arise in the interpretations of these expressions,” Gould notes, “Some hold that the needs of men are to be better supplied by altering the use of the Sabbath made for man while leaving conditions causing such needs unchanged.

“Others say that the same end is secured by preserving the high spiritual purpose of the Lord’s day, while compelling correction in the actual causes of those needs.”

Church leaders have taken three different approaches to the Sabbath question. The “conservatism of ecclesiasticism” leaves social conditions as they are. An overly liberal approach “may open the Lord’s day for much needed recreation, but at the expense of its spiritual power.”

The best solution, Gould claims, will “operate to remove all the evils of the six days, but also to fill the hours of the Lord’s day with moral and spiritual uplift both in the church and out.” In other words, give workers more leisure time during the rest of the week.

Enforcing the Sabbath alone won’t remedy the “over- tired bodies and underfed nerves and feelings worn threadbare” during the work week, Gould contends. Nor will using Sunday as a safety valve solve the real problem.

“There is no reason in a plan which tries to supply a physical and mental refreshment at the sacrifice of that which alone can feed the highest moral and spiritual nature,” Gould says, “As well tell a man to grow fat by sucking his own blood.”

The Sabbath debate is largely a debate over movie theaters and sporting events. New York State bans “public amusements” on Sundays, but inconsistent appellate court rulings have encouraged inconsistent enforcement of the rule. Troy ordered its theaters to close on Sundays earlier this year, but didn’t oppose their reopening a few weeks later.

— Kevin Gilbert