THE COUNTRY CHURCH AND THE RURAL WORKER
The difference between the urban and the rural church may easily be exaggerated. There are differences, of course, and it is natural that the rural worker and the student of country life should make too much of what is characteristic of the church ministering to country people. At bottom, however, the two types of churches share the same experiences. Therefore, what may be said in regard to one will prove also to be largely true of the other. For the purpose of giving emphasis to the work of the rural church, nevertheless, we are justified in forgetting for the moment how common to both forms of church life are the fundamental needs, resources, and possibilities.
Those who carry the burdens of church administration are generous in listening as they do to the criticism and counsels of those who stand outside. Indeed, so much has been said and is still being said in regard to the work of the country church, especially by those who are not clergymen and not responsible for the directing of church activity, that one may well hesitate to express another opinion. And yet the tolerance of those who have in charge the policy of the country church is in itself significant and invites additional suggestions regarding the function of the Christian Church in country places. It is significant because it discloses that the church leaders know that the rural churches have serious problems. It invites suggestions because it reveals that the leaders are in some measure perplexed as to what is required in our day of the country church, and are therefore not hostile to any contribution that has a constructive purpose.
Institutions tend to be self-satisfied and self-protecting. A religious institution especially is in danger of becoming content and resentful of criticism because, by its nature, it deals with matters that seem beyond the investigation that man prescribes for ordinary things, and therefore secure from the scrutiny and criticism given to common, everyday interests. Of course the Church has no right to protect itself from criticism with respect to its efficiency of service by asking that it be treated as if it were itself religion.
The fact that the leaders of the rural church are not taking this attitude is of all things most helpful. It proves that their eyes are directed outward toward their responsibilities and that the rural churches are not in danger of the greatest evil that ever befalls a religious institution—a blind leadership which cannot distinguish between success and failure and is therefore well content when it ought to be most dissatisfied.
Whether rural church leadership is willing to consider radical changes in methods of social and moral service is a question time alone can answer. The test has not yet been made; whether serious changes should be considered can at present be only a matter of opinion. At present the usual attitude seems to be that the rural church needs more skill—new methods—in the doing of what it has always been doing. There appears as yet to be little disposition to ask whether modern life requires of the rural church that it change in large measure its form of service.
With its history of past success by the use of present methods deep in its consciousness, it is certainly difficult for the rural church to consider without prejudice the possibility of its needing to change its manner of functioning. It is, however, possible that life has been so changed, so fundamentally changed, that the Church to meet its present duties and to use its present resources must make profound changes in its method of service. When the situation advances to the point where such changes receive serious consideration, some of us believe that the following questions will be asked and finally answered on the basis of experiment and experience:
1. Must not the rural church give less attention to preaching? The theological student is still taught by many of our Protestant seminaries, just as he was a decade ago, that the minister's chief function is preaching. There can be no doubt concerning the supreme importance of preaching in the past. Is not, however, its effectiveness decreasing? If the Church were starting its work at the present time, in the light of the methods of other organizations, would we expect it to put the stress upon preaching that it does at present? There are two reasons why preaching ought not to have the emphasis it has had in the past. Much of its former importance was due to influences that are now exerted by the newspaper, the magazine, the library, the public lecture, and even by the theater. The sermon no longer has the monopoly it once had in the bringing of moral truth to the attention of the people. Many people are more deeply impressed by the methods of presenting truth exercised by some of the Church's rivals for popular attention. It is also true that, since religion has tried to function more in social life and the Church has not so much tried to build up an experience of dogma within the life of the individual, the sermon has, as a means of public influence, suffered some handicap. It is largely because of this that the Church has undertaken so much new work in addition to the preaching.
There is, of course, a limit in the process of taking on new forms of service and eliminating nothing. The minister is human and he simply can not do so much as is asked of him. Charles M. Sheldon, in a very interesting essay in regard to the work of the minister,[2] says that the man does not live who can produce two good, new sermons each week. In the long run the rural church must decrease the emphasis upon preaching, if it is successfully to carry on the new work that from time to time it is adding. And the new activities come with all the momentum that belongs to service that seems to fulfil real needs.
When the Church devotes less attention to preaching, it will certainly give more consideration to its function as a leader of worship. Protestantism has never exaggerated this part of the Church's activity; it usually still undervalues the importance of the esthetic element in religion. Worship tends to emphasize the common elements; preaching necessarily brings out the differences between religious people. When there is less importance given to preaching and more to worship, there will be a decrease in sectarianism.
Of course there are orators who preach and who enjoy the influence and popularity that oratory always will have. These men, however, are outstanding and their success illustrates the continuing power of oratory, but it gives no argument for the effectiveness of preaching in general. As a person having an instinctive bias for the spoken word, I have slowly been driven to the opinion that a great multitude of people feel differently and are more sincerely and more easily influenced by other means of bringing truth home to the hearts of men and women.
Less attention to preaching will permit the rural minister to undertake the other work given in the following parts of the program here presented.
2. There is a second question that we may expect the rural church some time to consider—must not the Church make more of modern science as a means of developing social and individual character? This question is likely to reveal different ideas as to what religion is. One who thinks of the spiritual as the flower of complete living, who wishes every possible wholesome condition provided for character-formation, will naturally regard science as the friend of religion and the basis for moral progress. There is no one who does not wish the Church in some degree to take advantage of the means for its wider service provided by discovery and invention. Must not the rural church undertake to distribute to the community life the helpful information science has, unless it is willing to give to some other institution a great moral service that at present it can best perform? Until it assumes in a greater degree and in a more conscious manner the distribution of science in the small community life, can we expect any amount of exhortation to make the community life what it should be? The people need, to meet their problems, concrete information that furnishes specific answers to their difficulties.
At present the average minister realizes that his training has been philosophic rather than scientific. His outlook upon life is from a different viewpoint than that from which most men face experience. He often builds his service for men upon a basis which no other professional man except the lawyer—and he in a smaller and decreasing degree—is attempting to use in practical effort. If the minister had been given more science in his preparation for life, there is little doubt that the Church would have accepted, especially in small towns and villages, its opportunity to popularize science by bringing men and women skilful in presenting useful information into the community and by this time would have been regarded as socially the most valuable instrument for the distribution of science.
3. Another question the rural church must soon face. Must there not be less emphasis given to individualism and more to social control? This is a question the schools are already facing. A philosophic outlook naturally tends toward an emphasis upon individual responsibility in a way science does not justify. Science (medicine, abnormal psychology, and the social sciences especially) is showing more and more why men act as they do. One's very personality is social in origin. The pressure of early influences and of later public opinion is very great. Moral results follow influences that belong to diseases, abnormal experiences, unfortunate suggestions, defective inheritance, and a multitude of causes understood by science. If religion is the supreme experience of a wholesome, normal individual, there can be no doubt that increasingly we must regard our moral problems as social more deeply than individual. This will force the rural church to give up its present unreasonable emphasis upon individual conduct and lead it to assume a much larger social responsibility.
4. Finally, do not the currents of modern thought and feeling appear to lead to a greater emphasis upon Christianity as a service rather than as a system of thought? Will not the rural church consider whether it must not put more emphasis upon itself as a function and less upon itself as an interpreter of doctrine? This is the big question. At present the Church wishes to increase its service, but it has only slight inclination to reduce the attention it gives to doctrine. The essential element in Christianity, service—largely as a result of the work of the churches—has now widespread acceptance, but many are not captivated by the doctrinal side of church activity. Such men must understand the meaning of faith to Paul by the meaning of religion to Jesus. They respond to the appeal of service; they do not take interest in matters of doctrine. To such the Church is a function, not an interpreter of dogma. What represents religious sanity in such a movement it is for time to reveal, but the current now flows toward service and away from a system of doctrine.
Service brings religious people together; doctrine separates them. It is therefore natural that with the present tendency toward making religion an activity, there should go a profound movement toward religious consolidation. The reaction from narrower and narrower division, smaller and smaller groups, within Protestantism is very determined. What a blessing this is proving for the rural people! The burden of sectarianism is hardest for them to endure. Someone has said that every argument for the consolidated school is equally strong for the consolidated church. If activity proves a working basis for the fellowship of Christian people, we may in time have the community church attempting to serve all the people in every possible way, and in association with other churches assuming the same function. At present this appears very distant and we are satisfied when we find churches federating, while still assuming the seriousness of doctrinal differences.
Our entire social life seems in a state of flux. It is commonplace thought that changes are taking place. We are too closely related to the movement to know just what is to be the outcome. A more stable condition must some time come. It now appears that rural life is entering upon the period of flux which heretofore has been more characteristic of the cities. It is folly to suppose that church life will not at all change during such a social experience as that upon which we have entered. The rural worker must in every way possible help the Church in the work it is now doing. He has no right, however, to be content with merely doing this. He also should seriously think over and over the problems of possible changes in church activity, that new social demands may not be ignored. Since he knows the work of many churches, he has a basis for wide-minded thought. This will prepare him to serve those churches that attempt new service. In other words, the best type of rural worker will not merely assist the Church that now is; he will also have sympathy and understanding for the Church that is coming to be. This second task is more difficult than the first. It will require critical thought, vision, patience, courage, and good judgment.
Perhaps a sufficient criticism of this program is contained in the question, "Why doesn't the author try to put his program in practice?" The force of this challenge has been felt, even by one who is imbedded in a different occupation and who has peculiar obligations that would seem to forbid entering a new field of service. This much is certain, were I a minister in any degree successful, I would be unlikely to feel the need of any radical change in the program of the rural church; were I a failure, I would have no courage to suggest the change. As an outsider I have come to think that some change of program is sure to come, but not quickly. Meanwhile it is wisdom for us all to remember that the mission of the Church is a larger matter than its methods.
FOOTNOTE:
[2] "Man or Superman," Atlantic Monthly, January, 1917.