Rural Problems of Today

by Ernest R. Groves

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.