SUMMARY OF RESULTS
Ohio contains in its area of 41,060 square miles, some 1,388 townships. If
we exclude the townships in which the population is urban, those in which
there are villages of more than 2,500 inhabitants (the number set by the
United States Census as separating the country from the town), those which
contain parts of, or border on, large town or city parishes, there remain
1,170 townships which may be classed as strictly rural. These rural
townships have in all 6,060 churches and nearly 1,700,000 persons. Each of
them has on an average a population of 1,448 persons, with five churches,
or one church to every 280 persons. If we include with the strictly rural
townships the rural sections of townships not exclusively rural, there are
in Ohio no less than 6,642 country churches.
As these facts would indicate, the country churches of Ohio for the most
part are small and weak. According to data gathered by the earlier survey
made under the direction of the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions, the
churches whose membership is less than 100 as a rule do not prosper, and
the smaller the membership the greater the proportion of the churches
which are on the decline. In Ohio more than 4,500, or 66 per cent, of the
rural churches have a membership of 100 or less; more than 3,600, or 55
per cent, have a membership of 75 or less; more than 2,400, or 37 per
cent, a membership of 50 or less.
The membership in these country churches is distressingly small, but the
attendance is smaller still. The data available indicate that ordinarily
it is less than half the membership.
In six churches taken at random, it was found that the figures ran as
follows:
_Membership_ _Average attendance_
125 34
300 136
173 30 to 40
150 Less than 30
300 - 40
----- -----
1,048 270
In one township it is reported that the average attendance in each of its
eight churches is less than 25.
One of the most striking facts is the shortage of resident ministers.
While a reasonable degree of interchurch cooperation should result in the
maintenance of a resident pastor in nearly every township, yet in 317, or
27 per cent, of the strictly rural townships, no church has a resident
pastor. (See Map 11, page 49.) More than 4,400, or about two-thirds, of
the churches in rural Ohio, and 39 per cent of the villages are without
resident ministers, while in the open country only 360, or 13 per cent, of
the 2,807 churches have resident pastors.
The efforts of the ministers are so scattered over fields more or less
widely separated that much of their effectiveness is lost. (Consult the
county maps, pages 147-234.) More than 5,500 of the 6,642 country churches
are without the full time service of a minister; 3,755 have only one-third
or less of a minister's services; 2,500 have one-fourth or less; while
more than 750 have no regular service of a minister at all. A large number
of ministers have other occupations than the ministry.
Moreover it is a rule of nearly universal application that ministers of
country churches in Ohio do not remain long enough in their parishes to
make effective service possible. According to the official records of the
conferences of the largest and doubtless one of the most efficient of the
denominations, in the fall of 1917, 48 per cent of its rural ministers
were about to begin their first year, and 74 per cent either their first
or second year of service in the fields to which they were appointed. Only
26 per cent had had a two years' acquaintance with their parishes, while
only 8 ministers, or scarcely more than 1 per cent, had served as long as
five years. This condition is no better in nearly all the other
denominations.
Because of this, and also because the effort of the ministry is divided
among various and widely separated churches, the people who live in the
rural districts in Ohio receive too little pastoral service. The short
term also discourages the ministers from attempting to discover and meet
the needs of their communities and from formulating and carrying out any
adequate plans of community service. The churches, as a rule, are not
trained to expect such service, nor the ministers to render it.
In certain extensive areas in Ohio the country church seems to have broken
down. (See Chapters IV and V.) In regions where it has been active for a
century it has failed and is now failing to dispel ignorance and
superstition, to prevent the spread of vice and disease, and to check the
increasing production of undeveloped and abnormal individuals. Because of
the lack of an organization to cooerdinate the work of the denominations,
and to study the field as a whole, no one has been conscious of
responsibility for such failure. The conditions have not even been known
by many of the church officials who were responsible, and a situation has
been permitted to develop which threatens the welfare of the whole State
and demands the immediate redirection of the Church's missionary
activities.
The pay of the country ministers in Ohio is small, the support of the
church meager. According to the records of the Conferences held in the
fall of 1917 the majority of the ministers (58 per cent) of the largest
denomination received less than $1,100 each, three-fourths (74.6 per cent)
less than $1,200, while the average amount was $857 and free use of
parsonage. In the denomination with the second largest number of country
churches the average salary was only $787, or $680 and free use of
parsonage.
Over considerable areas a large proportion of the ministers are
uneducated. Often they are illiterate and entirely unfitted to render
service acceptable to the more intelligent part of their people. In most
of the State, the standard of education for ministers is low. It is in
part due to the failure of an insufficiently educated ministry to
stimulate the intellectual life of the people, that from 1,500,000 to
2,000,000 people in the State have no public libraries.
Unless a larger and stronger social and religious institution is created
in the country districts than is now found in the country church, the more
vigorous young people will for the most part leave the country, and an
inferior class will take their places on the farm. A process of reverse
selection will therefore set in which must result in the general
debasement of our rural population and ultimately of our nation as a
whole. As is well known, this process of decadence is already taking place
over very large areas in rural America.