Sunday sport has appeal the institutional church lacks

A letter by Richard Ferguson (‘Breakers of the Sabbath will answer to God’, Aug 10, see link below) refers to tomorrow’s Linfield v Portadown Sunday football fixture.

I respect the freedom of others to attend Sunday games but prefer professional sport to be on a Saturday. Sunday sport clearly has a magnetism which the UK institutional Church lacks and it’s a terrible pity to see how people have ceased to engage with the life changing message of hope in the Bible.

A magnificent £3 pamphlet (‘The Light of the World’ by Peter Hayden) is available from St Anne’s cathedral shop. In 12 pages it charts how an agnostic artist embraced faith while doing a major religious commission. Holman Hunt’s-’The Light of the World’-has proven to be an evangelistic masterpiece, with original copies displayed at an Oxford chapel and a London cathedral. But the printing press and internet now allow masses more people to see the picture and consider its invitation.

Albert Camus (1913-1960) said: ‘Don’t wait for the Last Judgment. It takes place every day.’

I am not convinced Sunday football is the gravest moral crisis facing modern Britain. We saw how concealed child abuse damaged Catholicism and Adult Safeguarding problems now appear endemic in Protestantism.

We may never see massive Sunday Church attendance again in the UK. But do lots of Christians now attend home groups, midweek prayer meetings or online meetings, in preference to Sunday Church attendance?

Dr JT Hardy, Belfast BT5,

Breakers of the Sabbath will answer to God