THE AMERICAN CHURCHES
By DR. SIDNEY M. BERRY*
MANY observers of life in the United States confidently char- acterise American society as materialistic in its motives and spirit, and no doubt there is much supporting evidence for the judgement. It is not without surprise that one finds that the United States is one of the few countries in the world, perhaps the only country, where the percentage figures for membership of the churches is increasing at a greater rate than the percentage figures for the increase of population. Whatever may be the reasons for that surprising fact, it forbids a too easy judgement about the materialism of American society. There is no doubt that attendance at church services reaches a much higher figure in America than in Great Britain, and that the life of the churches is more closely integrated with the whole life of the community. There is an even more bewildering variety of denominations, some of them almost bizarre in their titles and characteristics. It is a puzzle (and for the writer a still unsolved puzzle) how it has come to pass that the lands of the western seaboard, so free of hampering tradition and so forward-looking, should be the breeding-ground for some of the crudest expressions of outworn religious ideas.
But here there must be hesitation in generalising, for amid all the wild variety of denominations there is in the religious life of the United States a strong and a growing pressure towards Christian unity, and a deep dissatisfaction with the confusion of mind and the dispersion of energy consequent upon religious divisions. It is also a fact of great significance that this land of many sects is without doubt the land where the oecumenical movement has struck the deepest roots and where it has aroused the most intense interest among the ordinary members of the churches. During a three- months visit, from which I have lately returned, I found meetings being held in every part of the country to make known the findings of the conference at Amsterdam. At the moment there is some magic in the very title of the World Council of Churches for the Christians of America, and it is upon their shoulders that the heaviest part of the financial burden rests. Without that support, so readily and generously given, the whole of the oecumenical movement would languish ; Marshall Aid has its counterpart in the realm of spiritual relationships. Side by side with this widespread oecumenical interest, movements are on foot for a closer bond of unity among the Protestant churches in America. Some look ambitiously to an organic union of the leading Protestant denominations, while others, under the leadership of Dr. Stanley Jones, are pressing for the less
* Dr. Berry, till recently Secretary of the Congregational Union of England and Wales, is now Secretary of the International Congregational CotmciL
ambitious goal of a federal relationship between them. It seems probable that in one or other of these ways the churches of the United States may give a lead to other parts of the world. Already there is far more traversing of denominational frontiers than with us, and far less talk of historic witness and tradition, which gilds rhetoric but kills adventure.
Dominating all the detailed differences between the religious life of the United States and Great Britain is the fact that in America there is no State Church. In the days of the early settlers from England, Church and State were almost synonymous terms, and the Pilgrims carried with them the organisation and spirit of independency. But those days lie far behind, and America today knows nothing of the favour or religious prestige of establishment. In answer to those who contend that an established church is the guarantee that religion is given a true place in the councils of the nation, and that if it were abolished the influence of religion in high places would sink to a subordinate position, there is the patent fact that without caste or privilege the churches of America play an important role in the moral and spiritual aspects of national affairs. Indeed, if a comparison is to be made, the weight of Christian influence is probably felt more on the other side of the Atlantic than here in Britain.
Another factor of great significance in the religious life of the United States is that there is no religious teaching in the State schools. It is forbidden by the principles laid down in the Con- stitution. The result is that the responsibility for religious teaching is thrown entirely upon the churches, a fact which has certainly contributed towards giving them the great place they hold in the life of the community. All the churches of any size have on their whole-time staff not only the minister in charge and his assistant or assistants, but a director of religious education, trained for the work of leadership in that field.
In this whole question of staffing, the churches in the United States present a picture of organisation which seems strange to us. There is often a whole-time secretary for the administrative side of church life, a director of religious education, an organist and choir- master who is called a minister of music. In the case of the largest churches the staff may consist of as many as twenty or more whole- time officers ; indeed, in one church which I visited they reckoned the staff at forty. The premises of the churches match the stiffs. Compared with ours they seem palatial, with rooms and halls furnished comfortably for every aspect of the church's life. A kitchen is always included, for it is part of the normal programme of church life in America that every week there is a series of lunches and dinners in which different sections of the church meet together in that way.
But if on the social side the churches of the United States are equipped to that standard of comfort, there is an equal, even a greater, effort to make the sanctuaries in which Americans worship as beautiful as possible. There has been a great development in symbolism, decoration and ceremonial among churches belonging to denominations which in this country follow the way of unadorned simplicity. Often I have tried to imagine the stunned surprise which an English Free Churchman would feel in entering a church of his own denomination in the United States. He would find the com- munion table placed against the wall of the chancel, decorated with a beautiful cloth, and with cross and candlesticks upon it. He would find the service commencing with a hymn sung in procession, the gowned choir processing up the aisle followed by the robed ministers. And as the service proceeded he would find that it took almost entirely a liturgical form. In spite, however, of that unaccustomed elaboration in ceremony he would probably discover an absence of doctrinal background in the teaching given from the pulpit and an emphasis on the ethical and the practical. It would not be wise to infer too much from these developments in the out- ward features of worship. They may possibly be an unconscious effort to supply a need which is not met in the normal routine of American life. They certainly do not imply any sweeping changes in doctrine or church order.
Behind the façade of this outward aspect of worship and church organisation I discovered once again the force of the inward realities
in the lives of the members of the churches—their half-ashamed awareness of their own good fortune, the keenness and depth of their sympathies and their passionate desire to be of help. From the Eastern States, through the Middle West to the Western coast the story is the same. And if, as I hold to be true, there is nothing more nearly related to the future welfare of the world than the unity of the English-speaking peoples in aim and policy and spirit, then among the strongest links in that chain are the folk who gather in the churches of the English-speaking lands.
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