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 rôle 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.