The Evolution of the Country Community: A Study in Religious SociologyWilson, Warren H. (Warren Hugh)
Religion
The Evolution of the Country Community: A Study in Religious Sociology
Wilson, Warren H. (Warren Hugh)
Christian sociology; Country life
It must be remembered, too, that the rural free delivery and the
telephone have entered the country community in the past twenty years
and their effect has not yet been recorded. It has probably been in the
direction of chilling instead of warming the social life of the
country. The old acquaintance and the intimate social relations of the
country community have not been helped by the telephone: and along with
the presence of aliens in the community, one-fourth or one-half or
three-fourths of the population, the telephone has had the effect of
lowering the standards of intimacy and separating the households in the
country one from another. The rural free delivery has put country people
into the general world economy and for the time being has loosened the
bonds of community life.
In those states in which the trolley system has been extended into the
country, for instance Ohio and Indiana, the process of weakening the
country population has been hastened. Sunday becomes for country people
a day of visiting the town and in great numbers they gather at the
inter-urban stations. The city and town on Sunday is filled with
careless, hurrying groups of visitors, sight-seers and callers, who have
no such fixed interest as that to be expressed in church-going or in
substantial social processes. For the time being inter-urban trolley
lines have dissipated the life of the country communities.
The duty of the church in the country under these conditions can be
accomplished only under a widened horizon. The minister and the leaders
of the church must lift up their eyes. They need not be discouraged if
for the time being they accomplish little, for the period of
exploitation must come to an end normally with the exhaustion of its
forces, before the better day can come. But this period is one of
enlargement. The units of social life will be spaced farther apart. The
country community will advance as soldiers say, "in open order." This is
true for the family life, in which the father, the mother and the
children have greater freedom from one another; as well as in the
community, in which neighbors become less intimately dependent on one
another. The church must therefore preach the world idea. At this time
of transition the country church should undertake its foreign missionary
service. The great causes of the Kingdom which are world-wide should be
presented to country people when they are lifting up their eyes from
local confines to look at the world and the city and the nation. As the
daily paper comes into the farmer's household the farmer's church should
interpret the history of the time in missionary terms. The literature of
the great missionary agencies should be distributed in the farm
household. Wherever the catalogue of the big store in Chicago or New
York is found on the center table, beside it should be placed a modern
book expressive of missionary evangelism. As the mind of the countryman
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account