Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/646

 626 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

The churches are opposed to the workingman, writes one man,

inasmuch as the church opposes Sunday newspapers, Sunday theaters, the Sunday opening of libraries, and every other reform of the kind that would benefit the laboring class.

Too much theology and too little practical preaching:

There is too much theology and not enough plain gospel truth in the sermon. This theology is beyond the comprehension of the workingman. He has no interest in it.

Many men who do not go to church claim that it is because they honestly believe that theology is a scheme gotten up to turn the poor man's thought away from the present life to some dim, mysterious future world, where all his sufferings here will be made up for, and in this way to prevent his trying to better himself and his class by overthrowing the system of slavery which our present method of business entails.

The ministers and churches have but little interest in the workingman :

Wage-earners fail to attend church because the ministers of the various churches fail to visit their homes. The wage-earner has an idea that, while all ministers will be courteous to him, they give all their time to the richer members of the church. They claim that the church is doing nothing posi- tive to help them in their difficulties.

The churches are sustained by rich men who grind their workmen.

We are interested more in the getting of food, raiment, and the paying of our rent than in a future life. We want a heaven on earth instead of a heaven after death. Jesus Christ is with us outside the church, and we shall prevail with God.

Other comments on this point are in a bitterer vein :

The church has, as an organized body, no sympathy with the masses. It is a sort of fashionable club where the rich are entertained and amused, and where most of the ministers are muzzled by their masters and dare not preach the gospel of the carpenter of Nazareth.

The unjust and inequitable manner in which the commercial class, which sustains and supports the churches for its own selfish purposes, has treated them, causes the laboring men to have nothing to do with the churches.

As one of the leaders has expressed it :

The American workingman hates the very shadow that the spire of the village church casts across his pathway.

The church is too fashionable a place for the poor clothing which I must wear, is the conviction of another.

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