Church Cooperation in Community LifeVogt, Paul L. (Paul Leroy)
Religion
Church Cooperation in Community Life
Vogt, Paul L. (Paul Leroy)
Rural churches
The breakdown of social life in the open country and the very
questionable forms it often takes in the villages has long been the
nightmare of the minister of the gospel who stands for a high ethical
plane of social life. The church, with its Ladies' Aid, its young
people's societies, its occasional men's clubs, fails to reach more
than a very limited number of those living in the open country or in
the village. The lack of a definite, well-organized social program
results in all kinds of association often anti-social and lowering of
the moral fiber of the entire group. It is unnecessary to go into the
sordid details of moral conditions existing among both young and old
in many village communities. The pastor with a program of absentee
service consisting of an occasional sermon and holding a Sunday school
finds his efforts continually nullified by more powerful social and
recreational impulses expressing themselves in ways recognized as
morally deteriorating. When a plan for ultimate centralization of
wholesome and legitimate community interest has been made it is the
minister's task to organize a plan for bringing to the community an
abundance of wholesome recreational life. The traditional plan has
been to preach against dancing and card playing. Such preaching has
more often alienated the young people from the church than it has
attracted them to religious life. The modern plan is to overcome evil
with good; that is, to provide such a program of unquestioned
recreation that the evil will die of itself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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