Fun & Fact

Sex and gambling, two ancient battlefields of the church v. the world, were cautiously invaded last week by contingents of the Church of England.

There is nothing wrong with gambling, said a report released by the Social and Industrial Commission of the Church of England's Assembly, as long as it's all in fun. But "whenever it ceases to be an amusement, it becomes indefensible, and indeed dangerous." To those who hold that gambling "is a pursuit unworthy of Christian attention," the report retorted that "it would be presumptuous and impertinent to lay down detailed rules for a Christian's use of his leisure."

As for the "gambling trade": in its "present inflated condition [it] undoubtedly does much harm . . . Let it rectify this or, if that is unlikely to happen, let the state impose wise restrictions, and there will be no need to condemn the trade out of hand."

Also published last week was a booklet on sex, marriage and the family, prepared by the Church of England Moral Welfare Council, which declared that sex "is the basic human fact and therefore the ground of all social life." If the church is to "save the world from its own despair," the council concluded, "she will have to take more seriously than she has so far done her duty to help men & women understand and accept, in the deepest sense, their sexuality, and to see in it a clue to their very nature."

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