THE COUNTRY CHURCH AND PROGRESS
The only way to an understanding of the relation of the church to rural
progress is through an appreciation of the place which the church as a
social institution may have among other social institutions affecting
rural life. Moreover, to know the value of these institutions one must
first know the rural social needs. May we not then, even at the risk of
repetition, take a brief survey of these needs and institutions, in
order that we may more clearly attain the proper point of view?
At the outset let us be sure that we have sympathy with the countryman
as such. It is often argued that the rural question, or any phase of it,
as for instance the question of the rural church, is important because
the country supplies the best blood to the city--and a roll-call of the
famous country-born is read to prove the point. This may be all true.
But it is only a partial view, for it places the emphasis upon the
leaving of the farm, whereas the emphasis should be placed upon the farm
and those who stay there. We may praise the country because it
furnishes brain and brawn for the world's work; we may argue for country
life because it possesses a good environment in which to rear a family;
we may demand a school system that shall give the country child as good
a chance as the city child has. In all this we do well. But we do not
yet stand face to face with the rural problem.
For the rural problem is the problem of those who farm. It is the
problem of the man behind the plow. It is he that is the center of
interest. His business, his success, his manhood, his family, his
environment, his education, his future--these constitute the problem of
the farm. Half our people make their living from the brown soil. In
virtue, in intelligence, in real worth, this half compare favorably with
the other half who saw wood, and shovel sand, and pull throttles, and
prepare briefs, and write sermons. The business of agriculture provides
directly for the material welfare of nearly forty millions of our
people. It supports gigantic railway systems, fills the hulls of immense
ships, furnishes raw material for thousands of industries. This rural
hemisphere of American economic and social life is surely worthy the
thought of the captain of industry, of the statesman, of the economist,
of the educator, of the preacher. We may also, without danger of being
put to confusion, assume that the tiller of the soil is in essential
character very much like other people. Farmer nature is usually a fair
specimen of human nature. Nevertheless the environment of the farmer is
a peculiar one. Individually as well as socially he is comparatively
isolated. He meets but little social friction. The class to which he
belongs is largely a segregated class, physically and socially.
All these things give to the rural social problem a distinctive
character and give rise to the great social needs of the farmer. What
are these needs? I name three: (1) _Completer organization._ Farmers do
not co-operate easily. They never had to co-operate largely under the
old regime, for pioneer farming placed a premium on individualism. The
present century however, with its emphasis upon organization and
co-operation, calls the farmer to the task with the warning cry that
unless he does organize he is in danger of losing his present
industrial, political, and social status. (2) _Better education._ The
rural schools may not be so deficient as to deserve all the scorn heaped
upon them by educational reformers; but it is little enough to say that
they can be vastly improved. They are not keeping up with city schools.
The country is especially lacking in good high-school privileges. Of
technical training too, in spite of forty years of agricultural
colleges, the country is sadly in need. Neither in primary grades, in
high schools, in special schools, is there an adequate amount of study
of the principles of agriculture--principles which an age of science
demands must be mastered if the independent farmer is to be a success.
(3) _Quicker communication._ Isolation has been the bugbear of farm
life. It must be overcome partly by physical means. There must be a
closer touch between individuals of the class, and between farmers and
the dwellers in the town and city.
These social needs are in some degree met by the farmers' organizations,
by the rural and agricultural schools, and by the development of new
means of communication. There is a host of minor agencies. In other
chapters I have tried to show how these various institutions are
endeavoring to meet these rural needs. So important are these factors of
rural life that we may now raise the question, What should be the
relation of the rural church to these needs and to the agencies designed
to meet them? In dealing with this phase of the subject, we may best
speak of the church most frequently in terms of the pastor, for reasons
that may appear as we go on.
There are three things the country pastor may do in order to bring his
church into vital contact with these great sociological movements. Of
course he _may_ ignore them, but that is church suicide. (1) He may
recognize them. This means first of all to understand them, to
appreciate their influence. There is a law of the division of labor that
applies to institutions as well as to individuals. This law helps us to
understand how such institutions as the Grange and farmers' institutes
are doing a work that the church cannot do. They are doing a work that
needs doing. They are serving human need. No pastor can afford to ignore
them, much less in sneer at them as unclean; he may well apply the
lesson of Peter's vision, and accept them as ministers of the kingdom.
(2) He may encourage and stimulate them. The rural pastor may throw
himself into the van of those who strive for better farming, for a
quicker social life, for more adequate educational facilities. He can
well take up the role of promoter--a promoter of righteousness and peace
through so-called secular means. Thus shall he perform the highest
function of the prophet--to spiritualize and glorify the common. But the
rural pastor can go even farther. (3) He may co-operate with them. He
may thus assist in uniting with the church all of those other agencies
that make for rural progress, and thus secure a "federation," if not "of
the world," at least of all the forces that are helping to solve the
farm problem; and he may thus found a "parliament," if not "of man," at
least of all who believe that the rural question is worth solving and
that no one movement is sufficient to solve it.
We come now to the most practical part of our subject, which is, how the
proposed relation between church and other rural social forces may be
secured. There are four suggestions along this line.
1. Sociological study by the rural pastor. This is fundamental. In
general it means a fairly comprehensive study of sociological
principles, some study of sociological problems, and some practice in
sociological investigation. As it relates to the rural pastor, it means
also a knowledge of rural sociology. It implies a grasp of the
principles and significance of modern agricultural science, an
understanding of the history, status, and needs of rural and
agricultural education, an appreciation of and sympathy for the
co-operative movements among farmers. Does one say, this is asking too
much of the burdened country pastor with his meager salary and
widespread parish? Let me ask if the pastor has any other road to power
except _to know_? Moreover, the task is not so formidable as first
appears. The pastor is supposed to be a trained student, and since he
needs to know these things only in broad lines, the acquiring of them
need not compel the midnight oil. I would, however, urge that every
pastor have a course in general sociology, either in college or in
seminary, and if he has the slightest intimation that his lines will be
cast in country places, that he add a course in rural sociology.
Inasmuch as the latter course is at present offered in few academic
institutions in the United States, it might well be urged that brief
courses in rural sociology be offered at the many summer schools.
But sociological study by the pastor means more than knowledge of the
general principles of sociology and of the problems of rural sociology;
it means a minute and comprehensive sociological study of his particular
parish. This in its simplest form consists of a religious canvass such
as is frequently made both in country and city. But even this is not
enough. It should at once be supplemented by a very careful and indeed a
continuous sociological canvass, in which details about the whole
business and life of the farm shall be collected and at last assimilated
into the vital structure of the pastor's knowledge of his problem.
2. The second suggestion looks toward the establishment of a
social-service church, or an institutional church, or again, as one has
phrased it, a "country church industrial." There seems to be a growing
feeling that the country church may become not only the distinctively
religious center of the neighborhood, but also the social, the
intellectual, and the aesthetic center. No doubt there is untold power
in such an idea. No doubt the country church has a peculiarly rich and
inviting field for community service. It would be gratifying if every
country pastor would study the possibilities of this idea and endeavor
to make an experiment with it. I have, however, a supplemental
suggestion, at this point. It is not possible to make of every rural
church an institutional church. The church is notably a conservative
institution. The rural church is in this respect "to the manner born."
Rural church members are likely to be ultra-conservative, especially as
to means and methods. Even if this were not true, we might well lament
any attempt to establish a social-service church that endeavored to make
the church the sole motive power in rural regeneration, that failed to
recognize, to encourage, and to co-operate with the other social forces
which we have mentioned. But if every country pastor cannot have a
social-service church, is it not possible that every country church
shall have a social-service pastor? There are some things the church
cannot _do_; there is nothing it may not through its pastor _inspire_.
There are some uses to which the country church cannot be put; there are
no uses to which the country pastor may not be put--as country pastors
know by experience. The pastor ought to be an authority on social
salvation as well as on personal salvation. He ought to be guide,
philosopher, and friend in community affairs as well as in personal
affairs. Is he not indeed the logical candidate for general social
leadership in the rural community? He is educated, he is trained to
think, he is supposed to have broad grasp of the meaning of affairs, he
usually possesses many of the qualities of leadership. He is
_relatively_ a fixture. He is less transient than the teacher. He is the
only man in the community whose tastes are sociological and who is at
the same time a paid man--all this aside from the question of the
munificence of his stipend. Let us then have the social-service rural
church if we can; but let us have the social-service rural pastor at all
hazards, as the first term in the formula for solving the sociological
problem of the country church.
3. Co-operation among rural churches. The manifest lack of co-operation
among churches seems to many laymen to result in a tremendous waster of
power. Of course it is a very hard problem. But is it insoluble? It
would seem not. One would think that the plan of union suggested by Dr.
Strong in _The New Era_ is wholly practicable. But the burden of the
suggestion at this point is this: Cannot the churches unite sufficiently
for a thorough religious and sociological canvass? If they cannot
federate on a theological platform, can they not unite on a statistical
platform? If they cannot unite for religious work, can they not join
hands long enough to secure a more intelligent basis for their separate
work? It seems to me that this sort of union is worth while, and that it
is something in which there could be full union, in which "there is
neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free."
4. The pastor may aid if not lead in the federation of rural social
forces. The idea involved is substantially this: Given a farmers'
organization that ministers chiefly to industrial and economic ends,
though incidentally to moral and educational ones; a school system that
feeds chiefly the accepted educational needs, though acting perhaps as a
moving force in industrial and social betterment; a church which is
chiefly a religious institution, but which touches the life of the
community at many other points--given these things and the obvious next
step is co-operation among them all, in order that a well-balanced kind
of social progress may result. This form of federation means the attempt
to solve the farm problem at all points. It suggests that the army of
rural progress shall march with the wings abreast the center. It means
that the farmer, the editor, the educator, the preacher--all, shall see
the work that needs doing, in all its fulness, and, seeing, shall
resolve to push ahead side by side.
To sum up: The rural problem is a neglected but exceedingly important
question. Out of the peculiar environment of the farmer grow his
peculiar social needs, namely, better organization, fuller and richer
education, quicker communication. To meet these supreme needs we find a
growing and already powerful coterie of farmers' organizations, somewhat
heterogeneous but rapidly developing plans of agricultural education,
and a marvelous evolution of the means of transportation for body,
voice, and missive. These needs and these agencies are selected as the
conspicuous and vital element in the sociological problem that confronts
the rural pastor. What shall be his attitude toward them? He _may_
ignore them; but we assume that he will seek to work with them and to
use them for the greater glory of God. He must then recognize them,
encourage them, and co-operate with them. To do this successfully he
must first be a student of sociology; he can then well afford to
meditate upon the possibilities of making his church in some measure a
social-service church or at least of making of himself a social-service
pastor; he can work for church union at least on sociological lines; and
finally he can do his best to secure an active federation of all the
forces involved in the rural problem.