Evangelical and Reformed Church

Great Churches of America

II. Evangelical and Reformed, New Knoxville, Ohio

Rural America is predominantly Protestant. From colonial days until now, rural churches have nurtured a majority of the ministers and a considerable share of the people who later serve in or become members of town and city congregations. Equally vital is their contribution to country life. One of the greatest authorities on American agriculture, C. J. Galpin of the United States Bureau of Agricultural Economics, says: ”It is the small, weak, pastorless church, poorly located, which tends to surrender agriculture to destructive individualism. It is the strong church, with noble, permanent architecture, properly located, with a capable resident pastor, that unifies agriculture. A unified agriculture in turn unifies the church.”

A rural church which is precisely pictured by the second sentence in Dr. Galpin’s description is the First Evangelical and Reformed Church of New Knoxville, Ohio. It is a strong church of more than a thousand members. It has a noble, permanent house of worship. It is properly located in a village of around 800 souls. It has an able resident pastor in D. A. Bode, who is helped by the ministries of his wife. It constitutes a unifying and integrating force not only in agriculture but also in all other aspects of life within its parish, which reaches out into the country for miles in every direction. In turn it is itself strengthened by this strong community vitality.

At Center of New Knoxville

Nobody can visit New Knoxville and study this church as The Christian Century did, without realizing that the ministers of America knew what they were doing when they nominated this as one of the great churches of America. This Evangelical and Reformed Church not only measures up to ordinary standards of Christian influence, rural or urban, but it transcends most of them in at least one respect. It has sent 42 persons into the Christian ministry! These men and women have gone out, largely in the past generation, into church and missionary service throughout the United States and to the uttermost parts of the earth. There they serve because of this church.

The community of which the New Knoxville church is the physical as well as the spiritual hub is one of the loveliest farm neighborhoods in America. Order and beauty speak of good rural housekeeping. When the motorist driving on Route 29 reaches a spot 100 miles northwest of Columbus, Ohio, and 60 miles southeast of Fort Wayne, Indiana, he is suddenly startled by the resemblance of what he sees to the famous landscapes of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Even in these times of relative farm prosperity, the well-being of southern Auglaize County, Ohio, is noticeably higher than that of the surrounding territory.

Jail Long Tenantless

The center of this scene is the tall spire of the great brick church in New Knoxville. Its huge clock accurately tells the time and its chimes are heard downwind far out into the country. Around the church lies a village noted for spick-and-span order. Its broad, tree-lined streets look as if they were swept every day, and even the alleys are free from rubbish. Some New Knoxville houses are old and none are unusually large. But all are occupied, painted, and in good repair. Styles of architecture indicate that the town has grown slowly over the past century, and a street of new homes shows that its growth is accelerating. The village has good schools, the usual number of filling stations and grocery stores and two restaurants. It has a bank, and a large cooperative grain elevator and farm machinery store. At the edge of town one sees the tall stacks of the largest sawmill in Ohio and a new processing plant for livestock feed. The brick town hall and fire station also houses a jail which has been empty so long that nobody can recall when it held a lawbreaker.

New Knoxville is one of the 20,000 villages of less than 2,500 population which dot the American landscape. Along their shaded streets, they house something like 14 million men, women and children. These villages are not disappearing, as it was predicted a generation ago they would. Instead, smaller places are increasing in both numbers and population. Today they seem likely to stand as a permanent feature of the over-all pattern of settlement of the New World. They stand because they play an indispensable role in the religious, cultural and economic life of rural people, and hence in the life of the nation. This is the fundamental reason why the total number of small, incorporated towns has doubled in the last 50 years. It indicates why every American ought to be interested in learning how one village church is successfully meeting its great responsibilities.

Church Parking a Problem

Parking problems raise no blood pressures at New Knoxville, except on Sunday. Then you will encounter difficulty, as The Christian Century did, in finding a place for your car within some distance of the Evangelical and Reformed Church. Even though that institution has recently opened its own block-long parking lot, which is filled to capacity, cars line the curbs in every direction.

Once inside the church, you will have as much difficulty in locating a seat, if you come late, as you did in parking your car. So you tour the building to see the Sunday school in operation. From the basement, where an adult class of more than a hundred is in session, to the second floor, every room, every corner and cranny is filled with groups of young and old studying the lesson of the day. In the Akron-style church auditorium, the teachers of ten classes of adults compete for attention in a happy if unpedagogical din. Immediately above, several classes of young people are scattered through the horseshoe-shaped balcony.

Average attendance at the Sunday school is nearly 700, the enrollment being 980. Almost everybody stays for church. Then the Sunday school rooms are opened to expand the large sanctuary, and few seats are vacant. When the new pipe organ starts playing the opening hymn, entire families from children to grandparents join in the singing. A remarkable community at worship sings the great hymns of the church with the help of senior and young people’s choirs.

How remarkable this church is can be seen when one discovers that its 1,050 confirmed and 315 baptized members constitute a total almost twice the population of the village, which also has a Methodist church of 140 members. The Evangelical and Reformed Church owns, debt-free, property which could hardly be replaced for $250,000, and it is hoping to build an additional educational structure. During the past nine years, since Dr. Bode has been its minister, it has contributed to missions and benevolences over $100,000. But its greatest source of pride and its highest claim to distinction are those 39 men and 3 women it has sent into the Christian ministry and its 30 daughters who have married ministers or missionaries. If that record has been equaled or exceeded, the fact deserves publication.

No Rural Decline Here

How has this village church managed not only to keep alive but also to grow in spiritual power and numbers? Studies made by Edmund de S. Brunner showed that between 1930 and 1936 there was a net decrease of 3-4 percent in the number of rural churches in America. The 1936 census of religious bodies, inadequate as it was, showed that the rural churches of 11 of the major denominations, including the Roman Catholic, had declined since 1926 in numbers, in total membership and in Sunday school attendance. But this mortality occurred among the little churches, which went down, adding to the economic burdens and the social conflicts of the people. Churches of 200 or more members not only survived—they thrived. The New Knoxville church is one of those which had an adequate base in the community, and so it lives and grows.

This does not mean that the farmers of Washington township, in which the village is located are immune to the technological trends which have brought such changes elsewhere. It does not mean that their young men and women all remain at home, or that the people have insulated themselves against a shifting world by hostility to education or peculiarities of dress. They send their children through high school and most of the recent graduation classes have gone on to college or some other form of advanced training. Farms employ the latest devices, from gleaming up-to-date kitchens to tractors, cornhusking and hay-baling machines costing thousands of dollars. The people in the great Sunday congregations, morning and evening, in the Wednesday prayer meetings and the Saturday morning confirmation classes, wear the same kind of clothing seen in any city congregation, and with as much grace. Youngsters belong to 4-H and Future Farmers clubs, play on athletic teams, hold scout meetings. Their parents belong to the Farm Bureau, to livestock and dairying associations. Youngsters and adults place exhibits in state and national farm and livestock shows. Midweek meetings of community organizations are as numerous as in the cities.

The New Knoxville Evangelical and Reformed Church is very much alive. But life is not a simple or easily understood thing. No one factor can be isolated of which one must say: This is it! Even when outstanding characteristics are put together and described, the living entity flows through the net of words as the clear waters of the creeks of Washington Township pass through a little boy’s cheese cloth seine. But after a visit of several days in this community, after a study of its history, its beliefs and its hopes, three elements stand out as distinctively contributing to the vitality of this great church. By proceeding from the obvious but more important factors, perhaps we can learn why the ministers of Protestant America nominated this as one of twelve churches deserving of study.

Rooted in Good Earth

A century before scientific analysis of the soil was developed, the farmers who organized this church anticipated some of its findings by clearing, draining and starting to till the good soil around New Knoxville. Today their descendants can tell you that the light brown earth on the slopes is Crosby soil which is productive but heavy, so that it must be artificially drained. In some places it requires, and gets, contour cultivation and terracing. They point out level or depressed areas, which were formerly dotted with ponds, and they say this is the black Brookston soil. This is even more productive, but it must be tiled, and crossed with diversion ditches and an occasional grassed waterway. To maintain their fertility, both kinds of land require that crops be rotated on a four-year cycle—two years in clover, alfalfa or timothy and the other two years in corn, oats, wheat or soybeans.

So the New Knoxville church is literally rooted in the soil. The farmers cultivate our most important natural resource, the good earth, and have increased its fertility. Here the advent of machinery has not increased the area of farms, which still contain an average of 100 acres. These family-size holdings maintain their owners at a good level of living through diversified agriculture, dairying, and livestock production. Few farms are rented and seldom is one sold. When owners can work no longer, they pass their land on to their children and move to the village. Many of the names found on the original deeds, drawn up a century ago when the government sold the land for 50 cents an acre, are to be seen on the mailboxes standing beside the road today, when that land cannot be bought for $200 an acre.

Economic and Ethical Integrity

Less than 25 percent of the farms are mortgaged, and foreclosures are almost unheard-of. The local banker says he would starve if he had to depend upon farm loans. In its 40 years of history, his bank has foreclosed on only one farm mortgage and has had “less than $2500 in bad debts.” The one foreclosure came about during the depression when a discouraged farmer simply gave up trying to pay a small debt which he could have managed with a little more persistence. The largest local business, the Hoge sawmill, says that its credit losses over 30 years have been “less than one-fourth of one percent.” Washington is the only township in the county whose land never appears in the published lists of tax delinquencies. Even during the depression of the thirties, only three or four people received public relief.

Facts like these underline not only the economic stability but the ethical integrity of the people of the New Knoxville church, who make up a large proportion of the people of the community. In addition to owning his family-size farm, the average farmer is estimated to have $5,000 to $8,000 worth of livestock and upwards of $10,000 invested in machinery. That he and his neighbors in the village are frugal is indicated by the fact that as of December 31,1949, the People’s Savings Bank of New Knoxville had $1,262,408 on deposit, according to its public report. In commenting on the economic stability of this community a business man said to The Christian Century: “When depression gets this community down with its tongue hanging out, there will be nobody left in places like Chicago.”

One Church—One People

Recently the New Knoxville church voted to send Dr. Bode and his wife to Ladbergen, Germany, to represent them next June 3 and 4 at the one-thousandth anniversary of the founding of the Westphalian church. They did this because the ancestors of a considerable proportion of the New Knoxville people came from that place. Emigration from Germany started in the 1830’s and was largely completed in the generation following. The founding of New Knoxville was a small part of the contribution to the making of America given by the million and a half German immigrants who came between 1830 and 1860 and settled in the middle west. Carl C. Taylor of the U. S. Department of Agriculture says of them: “For the most part they were educated, thrifty, hard-working farmers who had left their mother country to seek political freedom and economic opportunity. They probably contributed more than any other group to the development of a stable agriculture in the new areas.

Many of the New Knoxville people still maintain contact with their relatives overseas. Since the war they have sent more than 400 parcels of food and clothing to Ladbergen, where these gifts were distributed by the pastor. Until the late war, when over 100 young men left the New Knoxville church to enter the armed forces of the United States, the German language was used in church services. Now its use is confined to a Sunday morning Bible class, taught by the minister. The prize possession of this class is the German Bible sent to them by the Ladbergen church in 1938 when New Knoxville celebrated its centenary. But German speech is still often heard when New Knoxville people meet, and the bond of common origin and culture is a very important element in their communal life.

It is not an exaggeration to say that the Evangelical and Reformed Church does more than any other community institution to preserve and build upon this heritage. One often hears references to its first minister, F. H. W. Kuckhermann, who came as a young man from Ladbergen. First he worked for 25 cents a day helping dig the Miami and Erie canal, which runs a few miles to the west of New Knoxville. Then he became a schoolmaster. But the little log church needed a minister, and so the schoolmaster was ordained. From 1844 to 1890 he served as pastor of the slowly growing congregation. He lived on in the community until 1915, and his grandchildren and great-grandchildren are there today. Early in the ministry of his successor the main part of the present church, including the tower, was built. The church has been added to at various times since, but its original stately architecture remains.

Religion the Vital Factor

Names of the charter members of the church are still borne by many present pillars of the congregation. They include such unmistakably German designations as Fledderjohann, Lutterbek, Kuck, Huedepol, Meckstroth, Hoge, Holtkamp, Kaetterheinrich, Wierwille, Nuessmeier, Schroerlucke, Schroer, Kattmann, Niemeier, Elshoff, and Finke. A common biological heritage therefore adds to community stability. More important still is the persistence of common traits, attitudes and folkways. The kind of husbandry one sees here, the courtesy people exhibit in their dealings with each other, their diligence in work and in study, are a part of this heritage.

Stronger still is the relationship of this endowment to religion. New Knoxville parents expect to be held morally responsible for the religious nurture of their children. It is a part of their strong sense of rightness that their children should be baptized in infancy and confirmed at the beginning of adolescence. Families are brought up to hear the reading of the Bible in family worship, to have the pastor come when they are sick or in sorrow, to gather around when he reads the Bible and prays, to go to church in a body on Sunday. These people hold the Christian ministry in high esteem and expect others to do so.

Today more newcomers than formerly are moving into New Knoxville. They find work in the lumber mill, which prepares wood for industrial uses as well as for buildings, in service jobs or in industries in near-by towns. They soon learn that their neighbors expect them to join a church, to pay their debts, to work hard and to take good care of their own. If they meet community standards, they are accepted into its fellowship. If they fail, they probably come to resent what must seem a clannish resistance to the outlander. But this insistence on certain standards is the means by which the community has conserved over more than a century much that has had value in a thousand years of Christian culture. It seeks almost instinctively to protect this heritage now. Much depends on whether it is able to convince erstwhile strangers of the rightness and importance of what it is trying to do

Influence of Ministerial Sons

More significant to the New Knoxville church than its economic, ethnic or cultural stability is its Christian faith. This faith opens the way by which spiritual power is added to stability. The New Knoxville church holds and propagates its faith with zeal, conviction and diligence. Those 72 ministers, missionaries and wives of the manse who have gone out from its membership were sent as well as called! Dr. Bode says that if he should neglect for only a few weeks to mention in his public prayers or in his sermons the claims of Christian service and the necessity of supporting those who have entered it, a member of the board of elders would be sure to remind him of his duty.

There is hardly a family in the community that has not freely contributed one or more members to the Christian ministry. Nearly everybody has a son, brother, uncle, daughter, sister, aunt or cousin in church service. Each of the sons of the church, before he finishes high school, finds himself under silent but unremitting pressure to give serious consideration to the claims of Christian vocation upon his life. Those who have gone out from the community into church work write and many of them return periodically to the old home. Accordingly their problems, hopes and achievements enter into discussions at New Knoxville dinner tables, in grocery stores and filling stations.

Colony of Heaven

Everybody treasures the story of Herman H. Cook, whose aged mother still lives in New Knoxville and always urges those who call on her to “pray for Japan.” Her son died in that country in 1916, after fourteen years of incredibly hard work as a Christian missionary. Rev. and Mrs. Gilbert Schroer also served in Japan for many years, and Richard Lammers is teaching in North Japan College now. According to the anniversary record published by the church in 1938, the first minister to volunteer from the church was graduated from Heidelberg College in 1875. One other graduated before the century was finished, eight more in the first decade of the 20th century, seven in the second decade, 12 in the third and 13 since 1930, six are now in theological seminary. Most of them have gone to Mission House Theological Seminary at Franklin, near Sheboygan, Wisconsin, an institution which formerly belonged to the Reformed branch of what is now the Evangelical and Reformed Church. A former New Knoxville pastor Dr. Josias Friedli, is now acting president. When they complete their studies, most of the New Knoxville young men are ordained in their home church, whose pastor graduated from Mission House in 1912. The close identification of the church and its people with so many who have gone so far and done so much for Christ and the church has had a profound effect on both. One visitor who had many opportunities to glimpse this effect was deeply intrigued by it. How could it be defined? It is affectionate pride in and tender concern for individuals, but it is more. It is spiritual oneness with their work and it is sharing in their ministry through support of and loyalty to the church, but it is more. It is a missionary spirit and it is an evangelical commitment, but it is more. It is something organic, something the people are as well as something they think and do. Well, what are they? A phrase in Moffatt’s translation of Philippians 3:20 seems to fit better than any other that comes to mind. This church is “a colony of heaven.”

Not all the New Knoxville people are saints any more than were the Philippians to whom Paul wrote. But their dedication of life as well as of means to Christian faith and service has left its distinctive stamp upon them and their children. A visit to the three Saturday morning confirmation classes revealed that. Children begin these classes at eleven and finish the course at thirteen. On a dismal, raw morning in January the attendance was 48 out of an enrollment of 51. The only thing that was exceptional about that was that three was regarded as a high number of absentees.

What Does the Church Teach?

The doctrinal basis of the preaching and other religious instruction in this church is the Heidelberg Catechism, which was first published in 1563. After the Elector Palatine adopted Protestantism, it was drawn up by Ursinus and Olevianus on orders from Frederick III. It defined the belief of the German Reformed (Calvinistic) Church and was adopted by most of the Reformed churches of the Continent. To the German ancestors of the present residents of New Knoxville and vicinity the catechism constituted a bond with the church they had left behind and a guide in the complexities of life in the New World. Their progeny, who now people a town named after a descendant of Jon Knox, have no desire to change it.

So they teach their children that man’s redemption from his sinful human nature must be accomplished through regeneration by the work of the Spirit of God. The free gift of God’s grace is given to those elected to receive it. Unmerited by them, it cannot be won by good works, which are however the fruit of grace. Their faith may be summarized by the first question and answer which the confirmation classes at New Knoxville learn:

This catechetical instruction culminates in an annual reunion of all confirmation classes on Palm Sunday evening when one of the ministerial sons of the congregation preaches. On the January Sunday when The Christian Century visited New Knoxville, Dr. Bode preached on “The Common Faith,” taking his text from Titus 1:4. He then ordained new elders and deacons and installed a new trustee. These officers had been elected by the members under the Presbyterian system of church government. Dr. Bode outlined the duties of the officers as defined by the common faith found in the New Testament. The elders look after the spiritual life of the congregation, the deacons see to its material responsibilities and the trustees care for its properties. The pastor declared that the common faith (1) teaches us the sinfulness of man and (2) the love of God, who (3) “wills that all men be saved” body and soul through faith in Jesus Christ, which salvation leads to (4) works of kindness, hospitality and zeal in service of the church and community and eventually to (5) eternal life.

During the morning sermon Dr. Bode commended the businessmen of the community for a new effort they are making to form an association for common endeavor and denounced a proposal to open the next county fair with a Sunday show of “daredevils.” He spoke approvingly of the sacrifices parents make to educate their children and urged all men of the consistory to read the Messenger, the E. and R. church paper which comes to the New Knoxville post office in numbers almost equal to the Ohio Farmer. At the evening service the pastor preached on “Saved to Serve,” illustrating the theme from the life of Herman Cook. He said that Cook’s sacrifice had done much to create the deep interest in missions and in Christian service which is characteristic of the church, as demonstrated by the fact that it now has six students in the seminaries. Maintain this faith, he urged, so that this church, like Ladbergen, will keep going for a thousand years.

All Offerings for Others

That the people of New Knoxville intend to keep the faith and to extend it is seen by the fact that last year their church and its organizations raised a little over $38,500, spending about half to keep their church going and the rest for others. Since farm income is irregular, the church does not use the familiar envelope system. People make their pledges when visited in an every-member canvass, then pay them as they can at the hardware store, whose proprietor is church treasurer. All money collected in church offerings goes to benevolences. Each year on the first Sunday in September a “Harvest Home and Mission Festival” results in substantial help for the far-flung work of the church.

The church pays salaries to minister, janitor, organist, choir director, to three teachers and to the treasurers of current and benevolent funds. The pastor has no assistant except his able but unsalaried wife. The church houses the minister in a comfortable brick manse and pays $500 a year toward his automobile expense. The central organization of the Evangelical and Reformed Church has recently written church consistories urging to consider raising pastors’ salaries. If New Knoxville is typical in this respect, the point was well taken. This is strictly the opinion of The Christian Century, for Dr. Bode does not complain.

The human problems of New Knoxville people are the same as those of people everywhere, and they are met by the wise pastoral ministry of Dr. Bode and his wife. In their nine years in the manse near the church, they have come to love the men, women and children of the entire community and to be loved and trusted by them. Their own six children have grown up, been sent through college, and are on their own. Mrs. Bode plays an active part in the women’s guild, the ladies’ aid and the women’s missionary society. A poet who has published three small volumes of warmly human verse, she is in demand as a speaker for women’s, church and community meetings, the latter sponsored by the Ohio Farm Bureau. Dr. Bode calls on the sick and the shut-ins and helps shoulder the burdens of heavy-laden.

Help When Most Needed

The pastor attends farm sales and never fails to show up if fire or other disaster strikes, such as the growing number of injuries from farm machinery. (Last year farm accidents cost people of this county $9,270 in doctor bills and 5,715 days work.) He is one of the cheering fans at basketball and other athletic contests, and makes it a point to go to the dressing room to cheer up his boys if they lose. He was one of the leaders in getting the town to open a multiple-purpose athletic field, equipped with good facilities, including night lighting. People know that they can call him at any time of day or night if he is needed. He pays special attention to the very young and the old. The high proportion of aged in the community was shown last Mother’s Day when the church, which gives each person over 70 a flowering plant as a token of love, distributed 117 plants.

Dr. Bode sadly recalls that he was unable to save three wartime marriages, which ended in divorce, but sets over against this failure 19 instances in which, during those troubled years, he helped preserve distracted families from disintegration. In a community which takes pride in caring for its own, he is generally the one who brings together helpers and those who need a little timely assistance. His experience as superintendent of Ottilie Orphan’s Home in Jamaica, New York city, has given him a fund of sympathy with the young and their parents which often is put to good use. His predecessor, O. B. Moor, helped to effect the transfer of a library which the church had accumulated to the local high school, where it is much more widely used, and Dr. Bode serves as a member of the library board. His command of German is often put to good use, particularly in his ministry to the elderly.

New Knoxville’s Problems

One matter which concerns the leadership of the New Knoxville church is rather surprising for a village so solidly Protestant that it has only a very few Roman Catholic families. It is the zeal with which the Roman Catholic Church is working in this as well as in other rural communities, seeking to expand its influence by gaining converts from Protestant churches. Its most effective means of reaching New Knoxville people is through pamphlets, leaflets and newspaper articles. The minister is concerned over what seems to be a persistent attempt to infiltrate his community with ideas which are alien to its whole history, and with the problems which arise when church young people marry non-Protestants. One means of dealing with this situation is the Reformation Festival on the last Sunday in October, which is a date of great importance here. Another problem arises from differences which develop between people over changing forms of economic enterprise. Half of the 2,200 farmers in the county are members of the Farm Bureau, which is developing cooperatives, one being located in New Knoxville. Some farmers and many businessmen view cooperatives as a threat to private enterprise and claim that their tax-exempt status constitutes unfair competition. But others insist that cooperatives pay their way, that farmers or consumers have a right to go into business for themselves if they desire, that cooperation is fully as Christian as competition. And they point out that they need this protection in a time when increased prices secured for their products are more than offset by rising costs, for which they blame retailers in one breath and organized labor in the next. The tension created by this situation exists among the people of New Knoxville. That it is not a problem in the church, where partisans of both points of view meet as Christians, is a tribute to the high quality of Christian fellowship which exists there.

Growth—Toward What?

A third problem is posed by the fact that New Knoxville is probably changing more rapidly today than it has at any time in its history. To a church which feels responsible for the character of society, the direction of that change becomes a vitally important issue. The lumber mill alone employs 65 workers and has a payroll of $160,000 a year. The new feed mill plans soon to increase its staff. So industrialization is beginning to invade the village at the same time that it is advancing on the farms themselves. Whether the community is aware of the nature of all the problems this will pose is open to doubt.

But these problems will have to be faced, sooner or later. And they cannot be faced by an economic leadership which thinks solely in secular terms or a church leadership which fails to take fully into account its responsibility for community character. An important aspect of this issue concerns land ownership. So far the few people who have sold farms have transferred them to persons who could be at home in this community. What will happen when others are offered high prices for their farms by persons who have no intention of conforming to the community’s traditional standards remains to be seen. This is one of the situations which cannot easily be met by the independence and individualism which are characteristic of rural people and their churches and communities. It emphasizes a problem which must be met as the church faces the future. It can be dealt with only by the development of new forms of cooperative action within the church and community and between them and other communities.

Good Churchmen Are Good Neighbors

Relations between the Evangelical and Reformed and The Methodist churches in New Knoxville are wholesome and cooperative. Last summer when the Methodist church was without a minister for a while, Dr. Bode helped the church and its members in many ways. Now that a young pastor has come, the two and their churches work together in joint meetings and other enterprises. But the town suffers somewhat from isolation. There is no functioning county association of Protestant ministers, although pastors of different groups get together occasionally in denominational meetings. The Ohio state Pastors’ conference and the state council of churches mean a good deal to ministers, but effective interchurch cooperation between New Knoxville churches and their immediate church neighbors in the area around the community is almost non-existent. This is a great pity, for this church has a great deal to give as well as much to gain. The walls that have sheltered it in the past have been moved back and it is a part, whether willingly or not, of a larger community.

The New Knoxville congregation was not enthusiastic about the proposal that its denomination merge with the Congregational Christian Churches to form the United Church of Christ. If the merger is accomplished, however, the congregation will not oppose it but will seek faithfully to continue to serve Jesus Christ, the head of church. Here the innate conservatism of rural people manifests itself. This congregation has slowly accommodated its thinking to the 15-year-old merger of the Evangelical and Reformed churches, and it cannot easily assimilate the idea of another change so soon. Such things take time, even where good will is strong, as it is here. Underneath all its surface changes, rural life is still geared to the deliberate cycle of the generations, to the slow evolution of a deeply rooted way of life.

But its strength and solidity, its virtues and its power are nowhere better illustrated than the New Knoxville Evangelical and Reformed Church. In a dark age when all the proud centers of urban civilization are threatened with sudden atomic death, this church and this community are a lighthouse throwing a steady beam of hope through the gathering gloom. Here the Light of the World shines out from a communal fellowship built on an unshakable foundation. It will continue to shine, as the New Knoxville citizen declared, even if a time comes when nobody is left in cities like Chicago.

Copyright © 1950 by the Christian Century. Reprinted by permission from the February 22, 1950 issue of the Christian Century. Subscriptions: $65/yr. from P. O. Box 429, Congers, NY 10920–0429. (800) 208-4097. christiancentury.org