Religion: Protestant Problem^

Protestant Problem

How does a good U. S. Protestant feel about contemporary conditions in his native land? What makes him sorry? What makes him glad? Few Protestants, however wise, would feel equipped to answer these questions comprehensively. But last week a book report was published which attempts to answer them on behalf of all U. S. Protestants, some 32,000,000 in number. Called Social Work of the Churches, it is issued by the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America. Perhaps the most complete declaration ever made by organized Protestantism, it was compiled during several years’ work by the Council’s research and education department, directed by Frederick Ernest Johnson of Manhattan. Learnedly it indicates what Protestantism finds pleasant, unpleasant.

Pleasant. It is “a commonplace that the older materialistic and mechanistic concepts of physics have been abandoned in favor of a dynamic view of the world with which religion finds itself very much in accord. . . .

“The emphasis upon Christianity as ‘a way of life’ has become almost a movement. It cuts across all sectarian lines and transcends all credal boundaries.”

Churchmen now tend to realize the importance of both the social and individual ideals of Christianity instead of emphasizing one at the expense of the other.

“. . . The passing of the saloon has been accompanied by very great material gains to American industry and to our industrial population.”

There has been much improvement in health legislation, workmen’s compensation, child labor laws, regulation of factory conditions.

Unpleasant. “The acceptance of a scientific view of life has been accompanied by popular confusion over values and standards … in the midst of which multitudes have found themselves completely beyond their depth.”

Moral standards are changing critically, producing a tendency toward lawlessness.

Sex freedom among young people has been and still is on the increase.

Increase in divorce is statistically obvious (113 divorces per 100,000 population in 1916; 163 in 1928).

The home is ceasing to function as “a unit of human association.” Evidence shows that “high ideals and wholesome habits are acquired by children … because of exceptional home influences.”

The church has failed “to capitalize women’s ability and initiative,” in proportion to their advance in industry and the professions.

The “moral fibre in our citizenry” is not yet strong enough to make the Prohibition law effective.

“Many of the ablest leaders of the labor movement . . . pay little heed to the church. … It hardly can be said that the church is an influential factor in the lives of the working classes as a whole.”

Unemployment is rife.

So is crime.