17-The Administration of Service
CHAPTER XVII THE ADMINISTRATION OF SERVICE THE LOCAL COMMUNITY THE church is obligated, however, to render a wider service than to its own membership. It belongs to the community and must participate in all that concerns the community. i. DEFINITIONS. It may be well to begin this section with a few definitions. a. “What is a community?” The authorities are generally agreed that a community consists of a group of people, living in a single locality and having common interests by virtue of that fact. This describes equally well several kinds of communities the home, the school, the township, the village, the municipality, the state, and the nation. The term will be used here to designate that circle of social relationships just outside the family group in which are to be found the principal satisfactions and interests not supplied by the home. 1 The geographical radius of this circle varies greatly in length. For the villager, the community will be identical with his home town. For the city dweller, it may mean only a section of the city in which he lives his “neighborhood.” For the countryman it will mean, as a rule, “that territory, with its people, which lies within the team haul of a given center.” The motor vehicle is stretching this radius very rapidly. 2 The community always includes those families and persons who have common social, educational, economic, political, and religious needs and is the medium through which these needs are met.
*Warren H Wilson, Evolution of the Country Community, p. 92.
*Id. t p. 91
180 THE LOCAL COMMUNITY 181 b. “What is community service?” Obviously, any ministry to a community need. It may be rendered by many persons and institutions, the physician and the hospital, the teacher and the school, the business man and the institutions of commerce and industry, the officials and machinery of government, the minister and the church. c. “What is a community church?” Let us say that it is a church which takes account of every kind of community need and endeavors to organize its activities in such a way as to minister intelligently and systematically to those needs. It may, or may not, be the only church supported by the community. It may, or may not, have denominational affiliations. All or only a part of the community may participate in its management. The determinative fact is its spirit and breadth of vision. It must be committed to the social conception of the Kingdom which insists that the Kingdom is outward as well as inward, present as well as future, and embraces the life that now is as well as the life that is to come.
There are three types of community churches, each possessing advantages and disadvantages, (1) The Federated Church, in which two or more congregations worship as one while maintaining respectively their denominational integrity, (2) The Independent Church which has no denominational affiliations.
(3) The Denominational Church with a Community Program. For Methodists this ideal of service as varied as human need is a return to Wesleyan ideals. John Wesley was the chief of all eighteenth-century evangelists and at the same time one of the greatest of social reformers. John Howard was not more deeply stirred than he over the filthy jails and brutal penal methods of his day. He was among the first to agitate for the abolition of slavery, and the very last letter that he wrote was addressed to William Wilberf orce bidding him, “Go on, in the name of God and the power of 182 THE PASTORAL OFFICE his might, till even American slavery, the vilest that ever saw the sun, shall vanish before it.” In the face of great opposition he preached on political themes since politics had to do with such matters as war, slavery, the regulation of industry, education, disease, and crime. He established loan funds and dispensaries in connection with his chapels, and converted the society room at “the Foundry” into a place for carding and spinning cotton. In 1743 he made a “social survey” of London, mapping the city out into twenty-three districts and assigning two volunteer workers to each to care for the poor of his societies. He ministered no less enthusiastically to the intellectual than the spiritual needs of his people, establishing schools and editing cheap editions of good literature for them. The utter futility of attempting to redeem the individual without evangelizing the social conditions in which he lives is vividly illustrated in the story of Six Thousand Country Churches in Ohio, by Gill and Pinchot This is largely a story of eighteen counties in southeastern Ohio where churches are more plentiful in proportion to the population than in any other part of the State and also where illegitimacy, illiteracy, tuberculosis, venereal disease, corrupt politics, and superstition are most in evidence. The reason is not to be found in bad economic conditions, for poor soil itself cannot deprave a whole population. It is due to the prevalence of a type of religion which exhausts itself in excessive emotionalism without relating itself to matters of conduct. “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 fifteen hundred revival services were held in thirty years, or an average of fifty each year.) Yet a normal, wholesome religion, bearing as its fruit better living and allround human development, and cherished and propagated by sane and sober-minded people, is rarely known..., THE LOCAL COMMUNITY 183
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.” 3
2. COMMUNITY INTERESTS. In approaching community problems it will be noticed that all of them “hang together.”
Pick up the problem of industry, for example, and the problems of sickness, dependency, delinquency, education, and politics come up with it. For purposes of thought, however, we may make a logical separation of these interests and consider the more important of them as though they were unrelated. It scarcely needs to be said that within the limits imposed upon us, it is impossible to do more than suggest these problems in outline and hint at the contribution which the church can make, as a rule, to their solution, a. Religion. In the light of what was said concerning worship, it must be clear that the most important collective interest which any community has is religion. Current criticism of religion from the standpoint of the community makes two serious charges. First, the type of religion that is generally taught is too subjective to establish any but the slightest relations with the present world. Second, many believe that the divisions and strife within the church itself render it incapable of bringing to mankind the boon of salvation. There are high-souled idealists outside the church who, far from expecting any help from the church, regard it as a part of “the social problem,” and have set for themselves the task of Christianizing the church! This criticism is not always careful to appreciate the wholesome influence which the church is now exercising in society, but there is a good deal in it nevertheless.
3 Reprinted by permission of The Macmillan Company, from Si# Thousand Country Churches, p. ax, by GUI and Pinchot THE PASTORAL OFFICE The question of religion as a community affair requires, then, that the church shall teach a type of religion that is socially valuable, relating itself helpfully to the whole of life. This does not mean merely that the church shall render “social service,” binding up the wounds of those who are hurt in the on-going of the social order. It means, rather, that the church shall make an ethical appraisal of the order itself, inquiring if the reason so many are hurt may not be due in large part to the prevalence of nonChristian methods and motives in the order as a whole. This is primarily an educational task, and the agencies by which it is to be accomplished are the pulpit and the classroom. In the next place, it will be necessary for churchmen to practice this gospel as well as teach it. An important factor in the present social confusion is that some of the staunchest defenders of prevailing methods in business, finance, and diplomacy which work hardship on many, are conspicuous laymen and ministers in the church. No individual can be held accountable for things being as they are. We are all caught in a scheme of things which no one person can change, and many are compelled against their will to “play the game according to the accepted rules.” But there is no need that Christian men shall defend these rules as ideal.
They can admit their pagan character and work earnestly for a change 1.
Furthermore, the church must become social toward its several parts and be filled with the spirit of cooperation toward all other community institutions. It must learn to think of itself, not as an end, but as a means (and not the only means) of Christianizing society. It must lose the self-consciousness which has exalted denominational interests above the kingdom of God, and be willing to disappear from a given community if that will unify the religious forces and promote the cause of religion. For it is quite conceivable that in some communities there would be more religion if there were fewer churches. Moreover, it THE LOCAL COMMUNITY Z 8 5 must regard any agency which contributes to human welfare as its naturalally, not an enemy. The redemption of life is a task so formidable that we should welcome all possible assistance from the lodge, the school, the grange, the business club, and give our best to them in return. That may mean that the church assist in keeping them true to their highest ideals. b. Recreation. The amusement situation in America is characterized by three unfortunate features professionalism, commercialism, and immorality. 4 Professionalism is the result of the American habit of taking recreation by watching others play. Witness the vicarious play of 20, 000,ooo people at the motion-picture theaters every day, of probably 50, 000, 000 baseball “fans” congregated about the bulletin boards and newspapers when diamonds are inaccessible during the baseball season, of as many as 70, 000 persons crowded into a single stadium watching the struggles of twenty-two men in the center. Is this the best that a great civilization can do in providing recreation for the multitude employ professional entertainers to play for them? Is there no way to get the people to stretch their own muscles and exert themselves?
Commercialism follows directly upon professionalism in play. The community depends for its amusement upon the promoter who, however valuable his services may be, exploits the normal instincts for play in the interest of commercial profits. Mr. R. H. Edwards observes: “In no phase of our whole great modern struggle against excessive profits for the few and in favor of human values for the many is the battle any keener than in this ’superficial’ question of popular amusement. As the congestion of city life thickens and the daily struggle for a living wage grows sharper, the human need for release through real recreation becomes sharper also... If spontaneous, wholesome, and well-ordered play is a profoundly educative and moralizing force, then the substitution of cold, profit-seeking amuse *R. H. Edwards, Christianity and Amusements, p. I2<
186 THE PASTORAL OFFICE ments, artificial and often nasty, can but exercise a correspondingly profound effect for demoralization.” 5 And out of these two comes the third, immorality. Who is not familiar with the struggle in every community to keep the theaters free from indecent suggestiveness; sports free from gambling; and the dance halls and public parks free from vice? Professor Rauschenbusch’s generalization is not too sweeping that pleasure resorts run for profit are always edging along toward the forbidden. The particular responsibility of the church in connection with this matter would seem to be, first of all, the creation of an intelligent body of public opinion on the subject of play, developing in the community a sense of collective obligation to provide adequate facilities for recreation for young and old. This is another part of its educational task to be accomplished through the pulpit and the class. Besides this educational work, the church may insist upon the strict supervision by the community through proper officials of all public amusement places. Unsupervised parks, playgrounds, gardens, theaters, dance halls, are a menace to the moral health. In the event that no other institution in the community has a major responsibility in the matter, the church should make of itself the center of social and recreational activities. The church in the country or the small village often has an exceptional opportunity to do this. The play life of the community is thus brought under the direct control of the church and no one will be to blame but the church itself if the social atmosphere is uncongenial to spirituality. To make itself thus the center of social life will require a considerable expenditure of money for buildings, equipment, and additional workers. For the pastor cannot become the director of boys’ and girls’ clubs and at the same time do all that he should do as preacher and shepherd. And however many salaried workers may be employed, *Christianity and Amusements, p. 17, Reprint^ by permission of Association Press. THE LOCAL COMMUNITY 187 they must have tools to work with. It is advisable, then, for the church to make sure that some other institution cannot do this work more effectively and economically before entering upon such a program of service. In that event, as indicated above, the obligation of the church would be to cooperate with such an institution rather than enter into competition with it, supplying it with financial resources and leadership, and keeping, its ideals of service true. c. Industry. Concern for its own interest, if no higher motive, would impel the church to relate itself to the problems of workaday life in the community which it serves. If the present industrial order is giving us a depleted manhood and womanhood, that means a depleted church. For “the church cannot thrive where society decays,” And if the church is indifferent to these which are the paramount interests to a majority of the people, the alienation of great industrial groups is inevitable. As a matter of fact, this alienation is already an accomplished fact in many industrial and agricultural communities. The chief contribution expected from the church in the solution of economic problems is not mere remedial activity, such as the maintenance of relief agencies which will make tolerable the misery of those who feel acutely the pressure of these problems. It is more important that the church should deal directly with the great causes of this misery and exalt a new set of ideals which, if permitted to control, would Christianize industry. Its work will be largely educational. The aim must be, not to change industrial and social forms, but to put a new spirit into whatever industrial organization is approved by society.
(i) In her teaching the church will interpret certain great ethical ideals exalted by Jesus. The first of them is respect for personality. Jesus put human welfare above every other consideration. Men were of more value to him than things, such as grass, birds, lilies, oxen, and sheep. The religious institutions of his day were made for them the law, the temple, the Sabbath. Children were precious, i88 THE PASTORAL OFFICE for of such is the kingdom of heaven. Womanhood was reverenced even though it had been ravaged by man’s lust.
Human life was regarded so highly that he made it his one business to nurse it back to strength after it had been enfeebled by sin, disease, superstition, and ignorance. A thoroughgoing application of this principle of respect for personality would correct every social wrong against which the workers of the world protest.
(2) A second principle that must be emphasized by the church as essential to gj^jdeal economic; pr^ec, l^nnjberation.
Competition and coercion stand thoroughly discredited as instruments of social advance. The champions of the doctrine of the “survival of the fittest” never were able to defend it from the standpoint of Christian ethics. Jesus’ gospel of love is utterly at variance with any philosophy of force. The doctrine was justified scientifically by reliance upon a misinterpretation of Darwin’s theory of the development of life. The great Englishman himself pointed out that there were two factors which explained the survival of life in its various forms struggle and mutual aid.
Popular thought seized upon the first and magnified it until the second was lost to view. Before his death it became clear to Darwin that his message would be hopelessly misrepresented. “I am beginning to despair of ever making the majority understand my notions... I must be a very bad explainer,” he said.
Obviously, the effort of “social Darwinians” to justify the principle of competition in trade and politics was wholly misguided. Commerce and industry are saving themselves in our day only by turning away from this principle to that of cooperation. Employers do not regard each other any longer as enemies to be devoured, but as friends to be helped. Hence, the development of the trust, and employers’ associations. Laborers, likewise, refuse longer to eat each other up in bloody competition, and now associate themselves together in mutual helpfulness in trade and industrial unions. Industrial peace waits only upon the fur THE LOCAL COMMUNITY 189 ther application of this principle. Competition now is between classes rather than individuals. Producers combine together against middlemen, and middlemen against producers. Laborers unite against employers, and employers against laborers. And both groups are capable of working together in exploiting the consumer. The Christian ideal requires that all groups having to do with the production and distribution of wealth shall learn how to work together, not in the interest of one or two parties, but in kindly helpfulness to all people.
(3) Another ideal upon which the church must insist is that the Christian motive of service shall be substituted for the pagan motive of self-interest. To the uncontrolled desire for gain can be traced all the chicane and iniquity of modern trade. It tempts the merchant to take advantage of the ignorance of the purchaser. It prompts the producer at times to curtail production and at other times to surpass the economic needs of society. It impels the “middleman/* the distributor, to gamble in the necessaries of life, and even to destroy vast quantities of food and goods for personal gain. It sends a bargain-hunting public racing after shoddy goods that have been produced by “sweating” their fellow man under intolerable conditions. It drives “big business” to do some very small things secure monopolies that are protected by law, make industrial accidents a charge upon the community, especially upon the family of the unfortunate worker; pay wages so meager that workers have to get free board and lodgings at home or supplement their earnings by sin. And it has sometimes caused an organized group of laborers to violate contracts for no other reason than they had the power to do so.
If the practicability of service as a motive in industry be called in question, let the fact be remembered that long since all the great professions have passed under its control.
Evidence of the predatory spirit in the minister, the teacher, the physician, and the lawyer is punished swiftly by a loss of caste among his professional peers. Any legitimate form 190 THE PASTORAL OFFICE of business is a service to society, and can justify itself only on this ground. By what right, then, does business ask exemptions from the control of an unselfish motive while the professions gladly acknowledge the obligations of service?
Business must “professionalize” itself! The church may employ several methods in performing this work of education. The pastor should often call attention to these great principles from the pulpit. It is understood, of course, that he will not speak until he has informed himself fully concerning them, and that he will not lose his sense of proportion so that he comes to have nothing but a “social message.” Besides this, it may be possible to organize study groups in connection with the Sunday school or the midweek service for the consideration of social and industrial themes. Some pastors conduct “forums” for the candid discussion by competent persons of any matter vital to the welfare of the community. These discussions are held frequently on Sunday afternoon or on a week night. Often they are substituted for the Sundayevening service of worship. Their value lies in the fact that an opportunity is given for questions from the floor and everyone has a chance to express himself who cares to do so.
Individual churches may find it possible to supplement this educational work with activities designed to advance the economic interests of the community. For example, many rural churches promote “pig” and “corn clubs” among the boys and girls, and cooperate with agricultural colleges in conducting fairs and institutes which bring the whole countryside together. Many city churches organize vacantlot garden clubs and establish industrial departments which give employment to large numbers of persons. The “Good Will Industries,” which are fostered by the Board of Home Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church in a number of cities, are illustrations in point. d. Poverty. Every community, rural and urban alike, must reckon with the fact of poverty in larger or smaller THE LOCAL COMMUNITY 191 degree, for there are always some who do not have sufficient income to maintain themselves in health and physical efficiency. Before the World War the average wage-earner and his family in America lived constantly on the brink of poverty. A prolonged illness or a considerable period of unemployment brought them face to face with actual want. And in spite of the higher wages received by all classes of workers at the present time, it is a question whether they are relatively better off, for the increase in wages has hardly been proportionate to the increased cost of goods. If the average wage-earner is living all the time on the poverty line, there are many who live constantly below that line. Not all of them are paupers, that is, dependent upon public or private charity, but all of them are underfed, insufficiently clad, and badly housed. For them a period of sickness or unemployment means such a degree of want that they are pushed over the line into pauperism. In 1904 Robert Hunter estimated that there were not far from 10, 000,ooo persons living in poverty in the United States. At the time many regarded this as an exaggerated statement.
Later researches, however, have confirmed rather than discredited it. Ward declared in 1915 that 4, 000, 000 persons in the United States were living in destitution.
Until a recent period poverty was generally regarded as a regrettable, but unavoidable fact. Modern leaders in social reform, however, are convinced that it is both curable and preventable. A fresh study of the prophets and the teachings of Jesus has discovered that in both the Old and New Testaments the biblical ideal is, rather, to remove the causes of poverty than mitigate the evil by mere almsgiving. The church cannot but indorse this new view, which turns out to have been an old one, and cooperate enthusiastically with all agencies which address themselves to the prevention as well as the relief of misery. As in the case of the economic problem, so here, the principal service which the church can render is educational. It may see to it that the community is informed concerning the 192 THE PASTORAL OFFICE great causes of poverty. These are, in part, personal. Mental and physical defects, shiftlessness, intemperance, gambling, delinquency, and crime are responsible for much misery among workers. In other part these causes are social and of such a nature that the worker has no power over them. Sickness is most frequently the immediate occasion for charity, and often is the direct result of the nature of the work in which the toiler engages. Unemployment figures as the next most common cause of poverty.
Fortypercentof all wage earners suffer some unemployment every year and the loss in wages is from twenty to thirtypercentof the total amount of what their earnings would be if they were employed constantly. The relation between a small uncertain income and poverty is unmistakably clear.
Furthermore, the church must regard it as her particular task to develop in the community a sense of collective responsibility for the welfare of the poor and to generate the moral power necessary to the relief and prevention of poverty. A message that is calculated to make employers socially minded and to secure a fairer distribution of the product of labor will contribute directly to this end. It is the particular privilege of the church to create an atmosphere in which social workers shall find their faith strengthened and to build up a body of public opinion which will provide adequately for the work of charitable organizations supported by the community. In addition to this educational service designed to remove ultimately the causes of poverty, the church must concern itself actively with remedial measures. Nothing that the churches can do in this connection will be more important than such a ministry to the spiritual life as will transform the shiftless, the intemperate, the impure man into a new creature in ’Christ Jesus. The regeneration and sanctification of the individual life will go far to remove the purely personal causes of poverty.
Besides this, however, most churches will find it necessary THE LOCAL COMMUNITY 193 to minister material relief to distressed families. All service of this kind should be controlled by the principles of charitable relief now universally approved by the most successful social workers. First, all such help should be given intelligently and systematically. Injudicious and impulsive almsgiving is little less than criminal. The initial step in all relief work should be investigation of each case.
Second, on the basis of facts uncovered by the investigator, a plan of aid should be worked out which will help the applicant to help himself. Third, reconstruction is essentially a spiritual process. By friendly visiting and personal interest the discouraged person or family must be brought into a spirit of faith and hopefulness. The power to carry cheer and win the confidence of the poor is more essential to a social worker than money. The relief work of the church will be directed toward two classes of poor: those who are, and those who are not, members of the church. To the former, the church is under a special obligation to provide all that is necessary for their care, as has been pointed out previously. In the case of the latter, the obligation of the church is shared by the whole community, and the church should cooperate with other organizations in caring for them. The word “cooperate” should be emphasized heavily in community relief. It is very common to find charitably disposed persons and organizations contributing to dependency by helping, independently of each other, the same families without knowledge of what other agencies are doing. This is especially likely to happen in a large community at festival seasons of the year. The moral effect of such haphazard charity upon the poor is worse than the poverty which it is supposed to relieve. Vagrancy becomes more profitable than labor, and many drift into beggary as a profession. All this implies that the pastor shall discover what relief agencies are at work in the community and establish working relations with them; and that he shall discourage well-intentioned but wholly inefficient methods 194 THE PASTORAL OFFICE of relief by the church itself, such as ostentatious distributions to the poor at Christmas and Thanksgiving. The standing committee on service should supervise all the relief work of the church and should be the medium by which the church cooperates with every other agency, private and public, in meeting its total community obligations. e. Vice and Delinquency. As no community is free from poverty, so there is none, however small or remote from populous centers, that is free from vice. In the larger towns and cities it may be strong enough to defy the law. In villages and the open country it may be clandestine and give little sign of its presence. But wherever human beings associate together in large or small numbers immorality always appears. Every community has its wild boy, and its vicious man; its incorrigible girl and its immoral woman; and some have thousands of them.
Every important study of this subject in recent years has reached the conclusions that the great causes of vice are social rather than personal, that wayward boys and girls are the victims more than they are the enemies of the community. Behind their delinquency appear poverty, lack of parental care, confused family situations, degenerate parentage, ignorance, neglect by the school and the church, and neglect by the community which has, failed conspicuously to provide wholesome recreation, supervision, and instruction, and which has handed over its youth, questioning, adventurous, emotional, to commercial interests hostile to youth. The solution of this problem involves at least three things, (i) suppression of the evil, (2} the reconstruction, physical and moral, of its victims, and (j) the restriction of supply of fresh victims. This division of labor is very clear to thought, but in actual practice one type of work shades imperceptibly into another. In abating these evils there is need of the fullest cooperation of all persons who have responsibilities therewith. Such persons are parents, teach THE LOCAL COMMUNITY 195 ers, ministers, social workers, physicians, the press, and municipal officials. The work of suppressing vice when it has become flagrant falls properly to the administrative and court officials of the community, who are under oath to enforce the law. The militant type of minister Is sometimes tempted to become an unofficial policeman with a view of making himself a terror to evildoers. This temptation is especially strong if he is morally certain that there is an alliance between the police officials and the underworld. Occasionally a minister has rendered a real service by this kind of work. As a rule, however, such experiments have accomplished little except to furnish the community with a brief sensation in watching the fevered antics of a “fighting parson.” Often it ends disastrously for the minister who, inexperienced in the ways of corruption, becomes involved in embarrassing situations created for him by the forces opposed to him.
It is equally unwise for the ministers of a community to denounce officers on hearsay evidence for failure to enforce the laws. The best contribution which the minister can make toward the suppression of vice is to become acquainted with responsible officials and go to them privately whenever he feels that there is reason to believe that the law is not being enf orced, stating his grievance and citing the reason therefor. This will not give a congregation any oratorical thrills, but generally it will make a favorable impression upon the officer. If it should be necessary, go again, this time with a group of influential citizens, encouraging him to do his duty and assuring him of the support of the best elements in the community if he will enforce the law. If he does a good thing that calls for courage, speak of that in the public congregation. But criticism is not justified unless it is absolutely certain that the law is being openly violated and that the proper officials will not do what the majority of people want them to do. If they do not enforce the law, it is because they believe the community does 196 THE PASTORAL OFFICE not care to have its laws enforced. Create a body of public opinion, however, demanding law enforcement, and they will have great regard for their oath of office. If it should seem necessary for the minister as a private citizen to proceed against the vicious elements, let him organize around himself a group of other citizens and let the action of the whole group be guided by their best collective wisdom. The duty of the minister in the matter of reconstructing lives that have been broken by vice is fairly clear. The futility of the ordinary raid on places of evil repute is that it does not put out, but only scatters the fire throughout the community. Sound social policy demands that the victims and purveyors of vice shall be seized, not for punishment but for treatment. What purpose is served by arresting a prostitute, assessing a heavy fine upon her, and then discharging her to prey once more upon the community, scattering loathsome physical and moral contamination wherever she goes? Again, what purpose is served in seizing immoral women while the men, who make them what they are, move among their fellows with perfect liberty? Obviously, every person, man or woman, who has contracted a venereal disease, innocently or sinfully, is so great a menace to the community that he should be held for medical treatment. Physicians should be required by law to report every such case, and the community should provide hospitals and other institutions where regeneration of body and soul may be accomplished. The minister can render an indispensable service in this connection by creating an intelligent public opinion concerning this matter, and helping remove the popular ignorance and prejudice which now obstructs enlightened action. In an American city of more than a quarter million of people, an appropriation was long since made for the construction of a hospital for venereal disease but it is impossible to proceed further because no section of this city wants such an institution in its midst. The same method should be followed in dealing with THE LOCAL COMMUNITY 197 juvenile delinquency. To arrest repeatedly wayward boys and girls only to punish them in ways that will confirm them in their delinquency, is the greatest social folly. They should be put under instruction and in an environment that is designed to redeem them from their sin. If the community does not provide such institutions, the church must awaken it to a sense of its obligation. The restriction of the supply of victims depends more largely upon educational than repressive means employed by police officers. Dr. Prince A. Morrow, in his treatise on Social Diseases and Marriage, speaks very positively concerning this matter: “The true remedy, the most effective remedy available to modify or lessen the appalling evils, moral and physical, which flow from venereal diseases is the general dissemination of knowledge respecting the dangers and modes of contagion of these diseases. It is by the persuasive force of enlightenment, by combating the dense ignorance which prevails among the laity, especially among the young, upon whom the incidence of these diseases most heavily falls, that these evils can be diminished.” The United States government instituted a great propaganda during the Great War to inform soldiers and civilians of the dangers of sexual immorality, and in cooperation with State Boards of Health through their Educational Departments continues its fight on vice by instruction concerning vice. The church can throw itself into this educational work with the greatest enthusiasm, for no program of religious education can be called complete which overlooks sex hygiene. It may cooperate with physicians and government officials in spreading a wholesome knowledge of sex-life and of the train of evil consequences that follows the irregular indulgence of sexual appetites. But its distinctive appeal will be to moral and spiritual motives. It will be less appalled by what vice does to the body than to the soul of a man. It will remind the youth of the community that the body is the temple of God, and this temple must not be de 198 THE PASTORAL OFFICE filed. It will urge the control of a single standard of morals for both sexes. It will appeal to men and women to keep themselves pure against the day of marriage that the next generation may not be handicapped by an evil inheritance, physical or moral. And it will urge the spiritual dynamic that religion affords for personal discipline and self-control in the moment of temptation. The methods to be employed in promoting this instruction should be carefully determined by conference with the wisest physicians, social workers, teachers, and parents in the community.
/. Politics. It is one of the principles of democratic government in America that state and church shall be independent each of the other. Some have inferred from this that the church must have nothing to do with politics. No such inference is warranted. Separate though they are, the functions of the church and the government are identical within broad limits, and while each must respect the independence and importance of the other, there should be the fullest cooperation between them in realizing their common aims. Moreover, the church is composed of citizens of the commonwealth who must give political expression to their moral and religious ideals. Their prayers are not to be canceled but, rather, answered by their votes. The church that is in “political exile” is already smitten by death. The nature of the political service to be rendered generally by the church is determined by the demand of a democratic government for a favorable public opinion. This demand is as great as that of the lungs for air. Neither a “bad” nor a “good” government long can function in the absence of popular support. The church is one of the great agencies for creating public opinion. Its independence of state control makes it possible to criticize as well as support the administration. Whether it shall censure or approve will depend upon the regard which the administration has for policies that are admittedly ethical. It will insist that the state is under the control of morality, and the very essence of Christian morality is to serve the highest welfare THE LOCAL COMMUNITY 199 of the many rather than the selfish interests of the few. The church, speaking unitedly, can thus make it “politically safe for a man occupying a high public position to perform his duties fearlessly” and also “politically unsafe for any public official to be false to his trust.” But mere criticism of a bad administration is not sufficient to secure good government. We sweep our political house clean to little purpose unless care is taken to obtain proper tenants thereafter. These tenants, that is, officeholders, are selected primarily by small political groups and ultimately by the ballots of voting citizens, and good government waits upon the wise use of these agencies by good citizens. Because the membership of the church represents every political view, the church cannot indorse partisan programs. More fundamental to good government than party platforms is the ethical obligation of its members irrespective of party affiliations to see to it that good men are nominated for office on every ticket. When a great moral issue is involved it may be necessary for the churches to form a special organization through which they can function. The Anti-Saloon League is a conspicuous example of the church acting politically. The method employed generally by this organization was to secure the nomination of the best citizens by all parties rather than enter the field as a “third” party. The conspicuous success of this method in securing constitutional prohibition should commend its use in other great reforms.
It is the business of the church to make good citizens, and every program of religious education should provide for training in civic matters. That excellent little book, The Church School of Citizenship, by Professor Allan Hoben, is rich in suggestion as to ways in which this training can be given through church agencies to children, adolescent youths, and adults, in rural as well as urban communities. The approach, of course, wifl be from the ethical and religious points of view. g. Education. According to an old definition, the essen 200 THE PASTORAL OFFICE tial meaning of education is “to draw out” the undeveloped capacities of the young. Ideally it has to do with the total personality the physical, the mental, the volitional, and the emotional powers. In every American community the educational task is divided irrationally between the state and the church, the former being restricted to the physical and cultural aspects of the task, the latter to the moral and religious phases. The state may teach the child to think, the church is supposed to teach him to trust. The state may make him strong and alert, and the church is to make him good. It is not strange that some young Americans feel that religion has nothing to do with knowledge and power. This division of labor, regrettable as it is, at least leaves us in no doubt about the contribution which is expected from the Church to this community interest It must give itself most enthusiastically to that part of the educational task which the state leaves untouched. But it is under an obligation also to cooperate with every other educational force in the community. One thing that can be done is to make such an interpretation of religion as will not deny the science that is taught in the schools.
Another would be to offer courses in biblical subjects which conform to the public-school standards, so that credit may be given for this work by the public schools, after the socalled “North Dakota” and “Colorado” plans. Yet another would be to cooperate with other churches in establishing “Community Night Schools of Religious Education” and “Vacation Bible Schools.” Such schools can be started by two churches as well as by a dozen. In a community where educational ideals are low and public school equipment is inferior, the church can develop a public opinion that will support the demand for better things. One country pastor in Illinois agitated for four years for a township high school and at length got it, h. Health. Good health is yet another great community interest. Once more the chief contribution wbich the average church can make to this matter is educational. THE LOCAL COMMUNITY 201
Physicians are teaching people how to keep themselves strong, and the church can cooperate with this teaching program by securing competent persons to address special groups and classes on the subject of personal and community hygiene. Moreover, it can support by its gifts local hospitals and dispensaries for the care of the stricken. In exceptional instances it may be that the church itself may establish a hospital department.
Finally, it will be in order for the church to emphasize the curative value of a genuine religious faith, as has been suggested in the first chapter of this book.
BOOKS RECOMMENDED FOR FURTHER STUDY SOCtAt IJTTERPRETATION OF RELIGION
Walter Rauschenbuseh, Christianity and the Social Crisis; Christianizing the Social Order; A Theology for the Social Gospel.
Charles Ellwood, The Social Problem; Reconstruction in Religion.
Committee Report, Federal Council of Churches, The Church and Industrial Reconstruction.
E. A. Ross, Sin and Society.
W, N. Clarke, The Ideal of fesus.
R. H. Tawney, An Acquisitive Society.
H. F. Ward, Social Evangelism; The Social Creed of the Churches.
H. S. Coffin, In a Day of Social Rebuilding.
RECREATION R. H. Edwards, Christianity and Amusements.
H. S. Curtis, Education Through Play; Play and Education.
Rural and Small Community Recreation, by “Community Service,” I Madison Avenue, New York.
Joseph Lee, Play in Education.
N. E. Richardson, The Church at Play.
Warren T. Powell, Recreational Leadership for Church and Community.
LaPorte, A Handbook of Games and Programs for Church School and Home.
Jane Addams, The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets.
INDUSTRY J. A. Hobson, Incentives in the New Industrial Order.
Walter Rauschenbuseh, Christianising the Social Order.
202 THE PASTORAL OFFICE Committee Report, Federal Council of Churches, Church and Industrial Reconstruction.
Harry F. Ward, The New Social Order: Principles and Programs.
POVERTY E. T. Devine, Misery and Its Causes; Principles of Relief; Practice of Charity.
H. F. Ward, Poverty and Wealth.
Robert Hunter, Poverty.
John Spargo, The Bitter Cry of the Children. THE CHURCH AND THE COMMUNITY P. M. Strayer, Reconstruction of the Church.
W. M. Tippy, The Church a Community Force.
R. B. Guild, Community Programs for Cooperating Churches.
R. E. DifFendorfer, The Church and the Community.
Walter Burr, Rural Organisation.
]. M. Barker, The Social Gospel and the New Era.
E. L. Earp, The Rural Church Serving the Community; Rural Social Organisation.
Warren H. Wilson, The Church at the Center.
Richard Morse, Fear God in Your Own Village.
L. H. Bailey, Country Life Movement in the United States.
E. deS. Brunner, Country Church in the New World Order.
K. L. Butterfield, Country Church and the Rural Problem.
T. N. Carver, Principles of Rural Economics.
P. L. Vogt, Introduction to Rural Sociology; Church Cooperation in Community Life.
Fred B. Fisher, The Way to Win, Chapter III.
A. F. McGarrah, Practical Inter-Church Methods.