While it is true that an uneducated minister ordinarily cannot satisfy the people of various denominations, and that usually he is sectarian in his thinking and point of view, it is equally true that where a well-educated man is pastor, the needs of the people of various denominations can easily be met and church unity be made possible.
(8) Community Churches
The most successful rural church is the community church. Its members work chiefly not for the church itself, but for the community. Its ambition is to serve every person in its neighborhood, to create an environment favorable to the highest possible development of every person in the neighborhood, and to stimulate other organizations and persons to serve the community in every possible way. It is conceivable that there might be more than one such church in a neighborhood, but in this discussion it is assumed that a community church is the only church in the community, for by far the larger number of rural communities in Ohio should have but one church. Since, on an average, there are five churches in a township and only 1,448 persons, the formation of community churches is evidently both advisable and important.
The community church may be a denominational church or a federated church. It is the judgment of most of the denominational officials who are members of the Committee of Interchurch Coöperation of the Ohio Rural Life Association that wherever possible churches should be united in one denominational church through the reciprocal exchange and elimination of small churches by the denominational organizations. In such an exchange church members of denomination A would unite with the church of denomination B in community M, while members of denomination B would unite with the church of denomination A in community N, and so on. A number of such exchanges have been made, and so far as can be learned, they have worked well. But the members of the small churches frequently refuse to carry out this plan. They often care more for their local church than for their denomination, and are not willing that their own church organization should be destroyed. While such exchanges will doubtless continue to be made from time to time, it is unlikely that rapid progress will be achieved by this method alone.
On the other hand, the members of a local community are usually ready to form a federated church when they understand it. This has been done in Northfield, Aurora, Wayland, Olmstead Falls, Milford Centre and Huntington, in Greene Township, Trumbull County, and in many other communities. A description of some of them may be found on pages 60-69. If the officials and superintendents of the church should become as favorable to the formation of federated churches as they are to exchange between denominations, and should actively further the movement, they could without question bring about the unification of the churches in very large numbers of communities which stand greatly in need of it.
Here then we have two possible methods of uniting the Christian people in the rural communities. One of them—denominational exchange—is favored by the officials but often opposed by the people in the churches. The other—the federated church—is favored by the people in the churches and opposed by many of the officials.
It is our contention that in the majority of cases the method preferred by the people is more desirable than that preferred by the officials. For a man to leave his own denomination and unite with another often involves action against the conscience. In some of the denominations, for example, the members have been trained to think it undesirable to subscribe to a creed. But creed subscription is required by the churches of many of the denominations as a condition of membership. In such cases the church officials may properly hesitate to urge a part of the people to do what they believe is not right.
Another reason which often makes it impossible for the church member of one denomination to unite with the church of another is a temperamental distaste for the idea of submission to some special system of discipline. To all Protestants this is clear so far as the Catholic Church is concerned. To many it is just as clear in relation to some of the Protestant bodies.
The official objections to the formation of federated churches involve no questions of moral principle, but merely those of expediency and the smooth running of existing ecclesiastical machinery. It is held by certain officials that the federated church tends to promote autonomy in the local congregations, and that it will impair the authority of the denomination. But this increase of autonomy has already taken place in the city churches, which, as a matter of practice, whatever the denominational theory may be, manage their own affairs. There is here no loss to the denomination, nor is there likely to be when the country churches are strengthened by federation.