Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/841

 PROBLEM OF RURAL COMMUNITY 821

lems wastes energy and delays the solution of the problem. A conception of religion which emphasizes its defensive agility instead of its aggressive qualities deprives the church of its inspiration and leadership. An undue exaltation of the clerical office and of the functions of public worship draws away the sense of divine agency and appointment from other offices and functions, and tends to divorce religion from the people, who feel that the clergy is exalted instead of the church, and that the community is sacrificed for the church instead of the church for the community.

A false conception, moreover, of the world-order as " perma- nently and necessarily corrupt " deprives the church of a large part of its proper influence. This view causes the church to neglect the general interests of society, and makes religion something external, to be gotten by special experience, a sys- tem of dogmas to be accepted, and of forms to be regarded, instead of consecrated devotion to the best interests of the com- munity. It brings forth a scheme of redemption simply for the salvation of individuals instead of society. It postpones the hope of eternal life to a place beyond the grave, instead of helping one to enter into it in the everyday life.

Finally, the cause of low ebb of church influence in the rural districts is the failure to study the problem scientifically, and to adapt its program of reform along sociological lines instead of the traditional polity of the apostolic fathers.

IV.

Having traced the causal relations and conditions of the pres- ent degeneration of country life, and having uncovered the weaknesses in its social structure, the next step is to present the methods of amelioration actually in use, weigh them, and derive therefrom the regulative principles for a rational program of reform. As the great need of the rural communities seems to be for the socializing of education and culture, and for the "initiative of the resourceful in their social, political, and indus- trial problem," the present methods of amelioration naturally fall into certain institutional forms of betterment.