THE SOCIAL CHALLENGE TO THE CHURCH
The task of the minister is primarily to deal with man, either in his
own personal life, his relations to his Maker, or to his fellow-man.
Unlike the farmer, whose interest lies in the control of animal or
plant growth, or the mechanic, who controls and molds the forces and
conditions of inanimate nature, the minister has to do with that most
delicate and elusive subject of all--the human soul. His business is
to tune the individual soul instrument so that it will harmonize with
the musical vibrations of the Infinite Will; and to bring about such a
relationship between the different instruments in his little group
that all together will produce a heavenly harmony.
The Christian religion, except when it has degenerated into formal
Pharisaism, has been an ethical religion; and the ethical conduct of
the individual has been a criterion of the depth of his religious
experience. Ethics have primarily to do with the relation of man to
man, so that the conclusion is logical that the church is vitally
interested in the ethical problems of humanity and in anything that
tends to lower or raise the moral standards of the individual or the
community.
There is no other agency more vitally interested in moral problems
than is the church. Business organizations may be interested, but
their efforts have apparently not been to conserve moral standards,
even in business. The school is interested, but its emphasis has been
placed more on mental development without regard to moral
implications, or on utilitarian objectives. The church has been
preaching right living, and other objectives have been incidental.
Since this is true the thesis is advanced as the basis for this
chapter that it is the business of the church to provide building,
equipment, and leadership for conserving the moral life of the
community. Since the moral welfare of any community finds its
expression largely in its social and recreational activities, such
provision involves providing for the social and recreational
interests. This is a function which is not to be encouraged and then
turned over to other agencies, but is to be retained by the church
itself as its legitimate service.
In view of the fact that the efforts of various agencies have not been
in entire harmony with this point of view it deserves further
consideration. For many years it has been argued that the schoolhouse
should be so built that it could be made the community center for all
types of activities. Without intending to limit the public schools in
any laudable endeavor to enrich rural life it should be noted:
1. That so far as villages and open country schools are concerned it
is not believed that the agitation for the wider use of the school
plant has yet resulted in any marked nation-wide response to such
agitation further than to provide room for physical training of
upper-class students.
2. In general, the schoolhouse is so located that it is not suited for
community service. It is usually located on the outskirts of the
village, where plenty of ground may be had for outdoor school games.
When people gather for social life and leisure they do not go away
from the lights of the village street but move toward them. The
well-lighted poolroom near the village store will attract more boys
than the building on the village edge that must be reached through the
dark. Villagers have their downtown as well as do the great urban
centers.
3. The school teachers and principal are busy five days in the week in
the classroom. The schools cannot assume charge of community center
activities without danger either of overworking the teachers or of
having to hire special assistance for this service. Many villages
cannot afford to hire special workers for this purpose alone.
4. It has been argued that the school is the democratic institution
since it is tax-supported, and thus every one may go there as a right.
To this it may be replied that, as with the church, only those
contribute who have resources from which to contribute. The only
difference is that in the public school the majority decide that all
those who are able must contribute to the support of public
institutions, thus it falls short of complete democracy, which must,
in the last analysis, be a purely voluntary association. In the
church the only force compelling contribution is personal desire and
public opinion. Thus it is as democratic, if not more so, than the
school.
5. On the other hand, a large part of the time of the country minister
is available for pastoral service. The establishment of community
service activities under the auspices of the church bids fair to
rescue pastoral calling and service from a routine of personal
visitation by giving it a definite community service objective. Again,
in the beginnings in the medium-sized and larger villages and probably
continuously in the smaller places the pastor is the only salaried
servant of the community with free time during the week for the
organization and direction of community service.
6. The church building and parish house can be located conveniently at
the center of the village, thus obviating the objection to the school
building for this purpose.
7. True religion is a loyal supporter of everything that is safe in
social and recreational life. It is subject to the control of the
community in the same way as the school; excessive puritanism need not
be feared under its auspices more than under the auspices of other
agencies.
The usual argument against serious consideration of the church as the
center of community life is that religious agencies are so divided up
by dogmatism that it is impossible for any one religious organization
to assume leadership in this respect without incurring the opposition
of other agencies. While this is true in many cases, it should be
remembered that dogmatism does not have the influence in more highly
developed communities that it once had. Moreover, considerable
progress has already been made toward intergroup agreements, including
the two great divisions of the Christian Church giving responsibility
for community leadership to one denomination or another. In cases
where local adjustments have not been made it may be necessary to
depend on other agencies to conserve the social and recreational life.
In these cases the church loses its rightful heritage.
8. The popular response to projects of building community churches and
parish houses in small communities leads to the belief that the
general public accepts as the correct one the principle that the
church should provide these facilities. The Methodist Episcopal
denomination alone, through the aid of its Church Extension Board,
aided in 1920 in building or remodeling over four hundred church and
parish houses equipped to provide for all or a part of a community
service program; it is not known how many more made such advances
without outside aid. The question of whether the church or some other
agency than either the church or the school should provide community
service facilities may be answered in much the same way. In some
States local communities may levy a tax for the building and
maintenance of community buildings. Where this is possible there seems
to be no serious objection to such a course. But a community building
without adequate supervision is likely to become a center of moral
deterioration. On the other hand, such a public building can be
located more strategically than can a schoolhouse. The objection to
stock-company-owned community houses is much more serious. These are
likely to become mere pleasure resorts, often of a very questionable
nature.
The judgment of the American people seems to be rapidly determining
that the safest plan is to look to the religious agencies for
conserving the social and recreational life; and this judgment is in
harmony with the thesis advanced at the opening of this chapter.
If the principle is accepted that it is the business of the church to
conserve the social life of the community, then it is next in order to
consider some of the problems of social life that are a challenge to
the church at the present time.
The social organization of this country in its smaller communities as
in the larger centers, such as it is, is the product of undirected
uncoordinated efforts of special interest groups. A general
classification of the types of rural organizations may be made, first,
into political, including the incorporated village, towns, townships,
counties, and political parties; economic, including special
associations around specific interests such as farm bureaus, stock
breeders' associations, potato-growers' associations, etc., and the
increasing number of cooperative organizations, such as farmers'
elevators, fruit-marketing organizations, live-stock, shipping
associations; social, including the Grange, the various types of
farmers' clubs for men and women that perform much the same function
as the Grange, and the more or less permanent groupings for purely
recreational purposes, such as dancing parties, card parties, etc.;
and the conventional religious organizations as represented by the
denominations and their many subsidiary groups for special purposes.
As was pointed out in the chapter on definitions, each of these
various groups has a customary center for coming together. But owing
to the fact that each interest has grown largely without reference to
the others, their centers of activity have been determined largely by
conditions of local convenience. Now, these centers may have been well
adapted to the times when they were established, but as time has
passed shifts of population have come, road improvements have been
made, and new interests developed so that the traditional centers not
only tend to lessen community solidarity but also tend to prevent its
accomplishment. One of the first tasks of the community leader is to
make a study of his proposed field of activity for the purpose of
determining what are the present centers of group interests, what
changes have taken place in rural life conditions which make
reorganization and readjustment of centers desirable, and then, in
consultation with representatives of the community, to organize a
community plan toward ward which the entire community may work. City
planning has long been an accepted principle for service in the more
progressive larger centers. The time has come when plans for the most
efficient organization of village and open country communities should
be made. It is interesting to note that already in many sections of
the United States the movement toward community planning has made
considerable progress. It is now generally recognized that with rare
exceptions the village rather than an open country point is the normal
basis for such a plan. In accordance with this, movements are now
under way to displace the traditional township boundaries created as
political limits for government and to replace them by boundaries
conforming as closely as possible with those limits that careful
investigation indicates are now and probably will continue to be the
most representative of what the future limits of rural communities
will be. In like manner educational work is being reorganized to
include the community territory instead of the political areas
inherited from the methods of survey adopted under the ordinance of
1787. As this movement continues, doubtless farm bureaus, and even
religious agencies, will try to adapt themselves as far as possible to
the program of other agencies.
The breakdown of social life in the open country and the very
questionable forms it often takes in the villages has long been the
nightmare of the minister of the gospel who stands for a high ethical
plane of social life. The church, with its Ladies' Aid, its young
people's societies, its occasional men's clubs, fails to reach more
than a very limited number of those living in the open country or in
the village. The lack of a definite, well-organized social program
results in all kinds of association often anti-social and lowering of
the moral fiber of the entire group. It is unnecessary to go into the
sordid details of moral conditions existing among both young and old
in many village communities. The pastor with a program of absentee
service consisting of an occasional sermon and holding a Sunday school
finds his efforts continually nullified by more powerful social and
recreational impulses expressing themselves in ways recognized as
morally deteriorating. When a plan for ultimate centralization of
wholesome and legitimate community interest has been made it is the
minister's task to organize a plan for bringing to the community an
abundance of wholesome recreational life. The traditional plan has
been to preach against dancing and card playing. Such preaching has
more often alienated the young people from the church than it has
attracted them to religious life. The modern plan is to overcome evil
with good; that is, to provide such a program of unquestioned
recreation that the evil will die of itself.
That this actually happens has been demonstrated over and over again.
The Rev. Matthew B. McNutt, on arriving at Du Page, Illinois, found a
large building near the church turned into a dancing center. Without
saying a word against dancing he began to organize his young people
for singing. In a short time the dancing mania had ceased and did not
return in the twelve years of his service on that charge. The Rev. L.
P. Fagan found dancing all the rage when he went to a little town in
Colorado. He began to develop a wholesome program of recreational
life, and before long dancing had ceased and had not returned two
years after he had left the charge. At a little town in New York
State, the young men of the town were accustomed to gather at the fire
house and indulge in cards with more than occasional playing for
money. A recreation hall opened in the village broke up the
card-playing and brought the young men into something more wholesome
and which they preferred. A village in Southwestern Ohio had a gang of
"Roughnecks," as they were called, who were accustomed to loaf in the
poolrooms and find their amusement in neighboring cities. A room in
the upstairs of the town hall was opened up and fitted for basketball.
Leadership for clubs was provided by college students training for
community service. The result was that this group of young men, of
exceptionally good native qualities but spoiling morally for want of
adequate provision for recreational life, came to the community center
and for the time being avoided the lower forms of social and
recreational activity.
These illustrations prove three things: first, the need of such
equipment; second, the fact that young people prefer and choose the
better when it is provided for them; and, third, that the church can
solve many of its most serious problems most readily by attacking the
source of corruption of the morals of young people through caring for
recreational interests. The minister who neglects this powerful force
in attempting to build a Christian civilization is failing to take
advantage of one of the greatest instruments God has placed in his
hands. Yet it is the sad fact that in too many instances ministers are
failing to take advantage of the forces at hand, and that even those
who have caught the vision of the possibilities of these other forces
are not trained to use them safely.
The number of village communities that have organized social and
recreational life is still so small that when such movements are
discovered they receive widespread comment in the public press. One
can drop into almost any village in America and make inquiries as to
what is being done for conserving the recreational life by the church
or any other community agency, and the answer will be that nothing is
done either in providing leadership or buildings and equipment. Much
good work has been done for specific groups by the Christian
Associations, and now the American Playground Association, the Red
Cross, and other organizations are applying themselves to the task of
bringing about a better condition in smaller communities. But the work
accomplished by all of them is still, as compared with the task in
hand, scarcely more than a beginning. The church with a paid community
leader in each community offers the solution for most rapid and
permanent progress; and the outlook for rapid development under
religious auspices is most hopeful.