The Presbyterian Church is the largest Protestant church in Northern Ireland. On August 12, 2022, a spokesman for the Presbyterian Church recently expressed the church’s view on the “Irish Football Association’s (IFA) decision to permit football matches on Sunday.” [1] The call to end Sunday football was published by The Belfast News Letter, Northern Ireland’s main daily newspaper, in an article titled: “Remember the Sabbath Day: Northern Ireland’s biggest Protestant church voices worries over Sunday football as Linfield gets ready to clash with Portadown.” The Presbyterian Church expressed the following:
- “That in light of the decision of the IFA to allow competitive football on Sundays, the General Assembly express concern about professional sporting events which hinder or diminish attendance of Sunday worship, thus interfering with Christian practice as an established aspect of societal life.” [1]
- “We recognize that attitudes in society, in relation to sporting and other events on Sundays, have continued to evolve and that they are more common place today.” [1]
- “Nonetheless, the position of our Church remains unchanged.” [1]
- “It is important that as far as possible those making decisions on sporting fixtures take account of both the views of those players who may not wish to participate, and also of those supporters who may feel excluded by regular Sunday fixtures.” [1]
Any and all Sunday rest measures are clearly intended to benefit the church by allowing people to attend church and worship on Sunday. This is what the Presbyterian Church in Northern Ireland is saying. Sunday closing laws were originally enacted to facilitate church attendance. This is no secret. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas gave a dissenting opinion against the establishment of Sunday by law in MCGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. 420 (1961): “The Court picks and chooses language from various decisions to bolster its conclusion that these Sunday laws in the modern setting are civil regulations. No matter how much is written, no matter what is said, the parentage of these laws is the Fourth Commandment; and they serve and satisfy the religious predispositions of our Christian communities.”
There is a global call for civil legislation to reinstate Sunday as a day of rest. The Presbyterian church claims that Sunday rest is a Christian practice with a long history in society. In other words, they are referring to a time when Sunday laws mandated whippings, stocks, and fines for failing to attend public worship on Sunday or for desecrating it by engaging in non-religious activities. In this case, we see a religious institution speaking like a dragon by attempting to limit the privileges and opportunities of both religious and non-religious minority groups who do not regard Sunday as a special or sacred day.
Discrimination has no place in today’s free society. Sunday laws should never have been enacted in the first place because they were historically intended to create a uniform day of rest for all of society, and they are ultimately unfair because they discriminate against other religious groups. Every week, an increasing number of daily newspaper editorials, magazine publications, politicians, and religious groups call for a return to the old Sunday laws. There are those who will not stop working until Sunday rest is strictly enforced by law.
With all of the Sunday rest measures being agitated across the world, we anticipate that Sunday laws will once again come under national focus here in America and around the world in the very near future. Religious laws, no matter how harmless or beneficial they seem to be, always appear to lead to persecution of minority groups. We must learn from history and avoid repeating the same mistakes.
We must respond to the Sunday rest movement by renewing our call for religious liberty and toleration. We must proclaim the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus (Revelation 14:12), which are being rendered void by Sunday rest agitation.
Charles Spurgeon, the famous 19th Century Baptist preacher, sums up his opposition to Sunday laws when he said: “I am ashamed of some Christians because they have so much dependence on Parliament and the law of the land. As to getting the law of the land to touch religion, we earnestly cry, ‘Hands off! Leave us alone!’ Your Sunday bills and all other forms of act-of-Parliament religion seem to me to be all wrong.” American State Papers, Bearing on Sunday Legislation, p. 737.
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