Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/828

 8i4 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

membership. It would be extremely interesting to know what part of this great increase in church membership is due to a serious consideration of relig^ion, and what part is due to a desire for formal connection with the respectable element of the community.

Edwin C. Walker, New York City

T(he increase in church membership, as indicated by the figures quoted, in all likelihood is real in the numerical sense. That it means a relatively widening acceptance of the ancient creeds, is more than doubtful. It must be remembered that the standards of membership in most of, if not all, the Protestant bodies have greatly changed in recent years. The alteration has been going on for fifty years; it has been proceeding at an accelerated velocity during the later decades of the half-century. Formerly, orthodoxy of belief was the final test of fitness for membership, rigidly insisted on, no matter how exemplary the conduct of the candidate. But theological doctrines largely have lost their power to bar ; the general good character of the applicant for membership, coupled with his or her social desirability and willingness to help in practically unsectarian enterprises, has opened the way for the increase found by Mr. Coe. Even as long as twenty-five or more years ago, I know of instances in the West where men who rejected every fundamental tenet of Christianity were occupying positions of trust and responsibility in evangelical churches.

The lowering of the doctrinal fences has operated in two ways : On the one hand, the inquiry into the beliefs of otherwise acceptable candi- dates for membership has grown more and more lax, and, on the other, men who could not have affirmatively answered certain questions touching various dogmas of the creeds as formerly interpreted, and who, further- more, could not have gained their own consent to affiliate themselves with churches standing actually on the narrow doctrinal platforms of a hundred years ago, now find little or no difficulty in working within one or another of these churches for what they regard as human betterment here and in this day. In a word, the Protestant church is in a state of evolution from other-worldliness to this-worldliness, insisting less and less on belief and more and more on social usefulness, thus making it easier year by year for the non-orthodox to come into its fold.

T. J. Riley, Washington University Can Professor Coe tell whether the church is maintaining itself and gaining in both the cities and the rural districts, and if not what are the facts in the case? I would also like to know whether the excess of churches is to be found chiefly in the country districts, including the vil- lages, or in the larger cities and towns.