Sensational Pulpit Advertising in Daily Newspapers

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, June 24, 1880

FromAdvent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 56, No. 1

Sensational Pulpit Advertising in Daily Newspapers

—Some of our religious exchanges are disgusted with the sensational advertising of pulpit themes of which the daily papers are the medium. The Examiner and Chronicle sternly rebukes the class of preachers who “substitute eccentricity for earnestness,”—truly saying that “a glance down the special Sunday notices of our daily newspapers is enough to sicken the heart of the average Christian. On a recent Saturday morning a New York minister advertised his sermon subjects as ‘Divine Photographs,’ and ‘Heaven’s Special Police.’” Mr. Moody, it appears, has been preaching on “Mr. Lot,” using vulgar and common language to make himself understood. Says the Christian Worker: “We recently instanced the sensationalist preacher and his theme, ‘The Heavenly Suitor,’ founded on the text, ‘Lydia, whose heart the Lord opened.’ Now comes the announcement of a sermon on the subject of ‘The Model Walker,’ not a go-as-you-please pedestrian, but Enoch, who ‘walked with God.’ Very clearly, the ‘reverend’ Harlequins and Pantaloons have not yet perished from off the earth.—Ex.