Broadway Entertainment

A tall, lean minister sat in a Manhattan church one night last week, weeping gently into a handkerchief and bowing his bald head over a bouquet of yellow roses. What moved Dr. Christian Fichthorne Reisner to tears was the presence of 1,200 pious people in his Broadway Temple (Methodist) to celebrate the beginning of the 25th year of his work in the Manhattan corner of the Lord's vineyard. For three and one-half hours they listened to songs and praiseful speeches by churchmen, municipal officials, businessmen, Kiwanians. Said New York's District Attorney William C. Dodge, who worships at Broadway Temple: "I am going to God through Christian F. Reisner." Said Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia: "Whenever God wants a job done he sends Dr. Reisner."

In 24 years Christian Reisner, A.B., S. T. B., D.D., has earned the distinction of getting his name and his works into the public prints more frequently than any other Manhattan pastor. An amiable showman, he runs his church like a business venture. Born in Atchison, Kans. 62 years ago; Dr. Reisner went to Manhattan from successful pastorates in Kansas City and Denver. Decade ago he envisioned a great 44-story Temple which would include apartments, recreation rooms, offices, shops and an illuminated cross visible for miles. An expert on church advertising and publicity. Dr. Reisner raised $5,000,000 before Depression halted his project. Broadway Temple is at present a roofed-over basement and some clumps of apartments but its pastor still hopes to get RFC money to complete construction.

A staunch Dry who asserts he became tipsy on beer at 14. Dr. Reisner toured Manhattan speakeasies during Prohibition, described his experiences in full to the Press. But no dour cleric is he, for he heartily aims to amuse, soothe and edify his parishioners, especially at Sunday night services. Every summer Dr. Reisner holds a snow service, with scrapings from an ice plant. He has held whistling services, given away apples, oranges and bread in literal demonstration of scriptural tenets. Other Broadway Temple entertainment includes newsreels, secular singers, bell-ringers, trumpeters and Mr. & Mrs. Vanderbilt Shrump, bird imitators. Before a mirror Dr. Reisner fancies he sees a resemblance between himself and George Washington; once a year he likes to dress up like the Father of his Country and preach a sermon. He has also impersonated Joshua.

Said Dr. Reisner to a Herald Tribune reporter last fortnight: "New York's really big men are as sweet and gentle as kittens. . . . The other day I was visiting in the home of Owen D. Young--I know all the big men of New York and regularly visit them and talk religion with them--and he personally followed me to the door and put his arm around my shoulder and said: 'Things are going to come right, Dr. Reisner.' . . . I've written thousands of prayers in odd moments. ... I don't see why these prayers won't go over all right. . . .* "I get in the papers all I can, but it is not personal publicity I seek--I want my Christ played up. ... I talk straight out religion to men and they talk it back. Why, Owen D. Young was just saying to me the other day when I told him that my boy was going into the ministry. 'The day is coming when we will need our brainiest men in the ministry!' You know that list that Roger Babson got out of the 50 men who run this country?* Well, I know 27 of them and they are all from godly homes. "You take a man whom I converted-- [District Attorney] Dodge--he's as clean and straight as a sugar plum! . . . What we need is more of the old-fashioned thrill of religion--the thrill that converted a drunkard in a minute."

*Sample prayer: Deliver us, Giver of Graces, from a proudly demeanor, a greedy ambition, a gingerly spirit, a gangster sociability, a glib egotism, a glittering, shallowness, a ghoulish sarcasm and a godless life program.

*Presumably Dr. Reisner had in mind the list of 59 rulers of the U. S. issued by James W. Gerard in 1930.

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