Six Thousand Country Churches

by Charles Otis Gill; Gifford Pinchot

The larger the number of churches in proportion to the population, the more difficult it obviously becomes to secure, support, and retain resident pastors. In proportion to the number of churches, the Eighteen Counties have a comparatively small number of ministers. (See [Map 6] and [Table A], column 6.) In the State as a whole, about one-third, or 34 per cent, of the churches have resident ministers. In only three counties outside the Eighteen is it true that less than one-fourth of the churches have them. These are Delaware, Coshocton, and Pickaway, and the latter is one of the bordering counties. But in 13 of the Eighteen Counties less than one-fourth of the churches have resident ministers. It will be noted that less than one-fifth of the churches in Scioto, Pike, Lawrence, and Meigs Counties have resident ministers, one-sixth in Morgan County, and less than one-sixth in Jackson, Hocking, and Gallia.

In the Eighteen Counties the number of resident ministers in proportion to the population, as well as in proportion to the number of churches, is small. (See [Map 7] and [Table A], column 7.) There are 24 counties in Ohio in which there are more than 1,000 persons for each resident minister, of which 13 are among the Eighteen Counties under consideration, and three among the bordering counties. Noble County has a resident minister to every 1,240 persons, Gallia to every 1,396, Lawrence to every 1,450, Pickaway to every 1,458, while Hocking has only one to 1,693, or nearly 1,700 persons. Here, as in most rural sections, an absentee ministry is necessarily ineffective. (See pages [50-51].)

The foregoing facts afford convincing evidence that the church in this region is rendering poor service—how poor the reader may judge from the following description of the religious and ecclesiastical conditions found by Mr. Gill in his personal investigation on the ground.

For the most part the farm people of these Eighteen Counties are very religious. This is attested not merely by the large number of churches, but also by the frequency of well-attended revival services, held in spring, summer, autumn, and winter. (In Pike County, for example, no less than 1,500 revival services were held in thirty years, or an average of 50 each year.) Yet a normal, wholesome religion, bearing as its fruit better living and all-round human development, and cherished and propagated by sane and sober-minded people, is rarely known. The main function of a church, according to the popular conception, is to hold these protracted meetings, to stir up religious emotion, and, under its influence, to bring to pass certain psychological experiences. The idea seems to be dominant in nearly all the denominations and churches that the presence of the Deity is made known mainly, if not solely, through states of intense emotion which may be stimulated in religious assemblies. Such emotion is held to be not only a manifestation of the Deity’s presence, but also a proof of His existence. No man is held to be religious or saved from evil destiny unless he has had such experience. It becomes, therefore, the business of the preacher of the church to create conditions favorable to the experiencing of these emotions.

Officials of denominations to which more than two-thirds of the churches belong encourage or permit the promotion of a religion of the excessively emotional type, which encourages rolling upon the floor by men, women, and children, and going into trances, while some things which have happened in the regular services of a church in one of the largest denominations cannot properly be described in print. The leaders of a religious cult commonly called Holy Rollers seem to be most efficient in this direction. The character of their services and activities produce the results desired, according to the traditions accepted and proclaimed for generations by ignorant preachers to a nonprogressive people.

A Holy Roller movement was started in Pike County in the year 1902. It has steadily been gaining ground ever since, and has never been more flourishing than now. It is the livest sect in this and neighboring counties. Its meetings are large and full of enthusiasm. Except the churches of this cult, very few are now left in the western half of Pike County which show any activity whatever. In one district of 150 square miles (in which there are 1,200 children enrolled in the schools and in all 1,600 young people from the ages of six to twenty) no churches were holding services in 1917 except those of the Holy Rollers.

The seasons of protracted Holy Roller meetings often last for several weeks. Frequently they begin each day at 10.00 A. M. and continue until 2.00 A. M. the next day, with intermissions for meals. These meetings are characterized by much singing, with music well adapted to rythmic motions of the body, by dancing and clapping the hands, sometimes by shouting and joyous screaming, rolling upon the floor, tumbling together of men and women in heaps, trances, while at least one of their preachers has exercised hypnotic power over some of his followers and has put them through stunts in no way differing from those of the professional hypnotist showman who, in times past, for the price of admission, has amused and astonished his audience with exhibitions of his skill.

In one village where Mr. Gill attended a church belonging to this movement, it was the only religious organization holding services or showing any signs of life. Although at this service the building was full to its capacity, as is usual with meetings of this kind, the church not only had no Sunday school, but its leaders kept the children away from one which a missionary of the American Sunday School Union was trying to start in the neighborhood. Three-fourths of the parents of the fifty pupils in the local school were adherents of this cult, yet its leaders opposed having better day schools. The school principal, under the direction of the County School Superintendent, tried to hold literary meetings for intellectual and social improvement, but under the influence of the Holy Roller leaders, the parents refused to let their children attend, and the enterprise was defeated. Apparently no meeting for any purpose is to be tolerated except the Holy Roller meetings themselves. These theoretically and in fact take the place of all other gatherings.

The Holy Roller church in this community, as elsewhere, in its total influence promotes immorality. It has a tendency to break up families and destroy the peace and harmony of the neighborhood. In the judgment of the more sober-minded people, the Holy Roller movement spoils the life of the community wherever it goes.

Although the Holy Roller cult apparently was not started in this region until a few years ago, it would seem that the religious activities of the older denominational churches were but a good preparation for it. In fact, good soil is found for sprouting the seed of Holy Rollerism in many sections of the State. The difference in religious beliefs and ideals between the Holy Rollers and the preachers of other denominations in the Eighteen Counties too often is not easily detected. Denominations to which at least two-thirds of the churches belong employ many men and women as preachers who are extremely ignorant.