XXII The Protestant Church and the Immigrant
The one institution in America most gravely concerned with the coming and staying of the immigrant is the Protestant church. Each ship-load of people from Southern and Southeastern Europe increases the already crowded Roman Catholic parishes, lays foundations for the perpetuation of the Greek Orthodox church in the United States and enlarges the tents of Israel whose camps encircle the dying churches.
The Protestant church, in our great cities, pointing to the decrease in her membership, as evidence of her peril, and bravely singing “Onward Christian soldiers, Marching as to war,” moves into the suburbs, away from the congested masses and among the attenuated few.
That the Protestant church has endured thus far, that its ideals are still dominant, that its preachers’ voices are still heard in the tumults of our Babels, is direct evidence that somewhere her foundations rest upon bed-rock and that the Christian faith and practice, as she understands them, are essential in the solution of the problems of our civilization. Because I believe this, I am not frightened by figures but am concerned with forces. It is not a question of the ability of the church to increase, but of her willingness to decrease, if necessary, in the attempt to communicate to these masses, from all races and religions, her passion for humanity and her devotion to the Divine.
I am not at all concerned regarding the inability of the Protestant church to adjust other men to her creeds or to adjust herself to theirs; but I am deeply concerned with her inability or unwillingness to make good her professions of democracy, and to relate herself in some vital way to these new citizens who are satiated by creeds, but are hungry for brotherhood; upon whom, like a curse, rest the damp and mould of tombs and chapels, but who have been untouched by the power of the living, redeeming Christ, as He has incarnated Himself in His followers.
So long as these people are within the sphere of Foreign Missions, in “Greenland’s Icy Mountains,” or some other remote and romantic place, they are the subjects of prayer and the recipients of gifts of men and money; but when drawn into the radius of one’s immediate neighbourhood, they become a peril which threatens everything, from the price of real estate to the foundation upon which the church rests. There is no question that in many cases the Protestant church is facing this problem in an admirable spirit; although very often expressing it in a way calculated to alienate rather than to attract. On the whole there is a growing desire to serve this new host of men, to help them adjust themselves more easily to their new environment and to make of them conscious human beings, consecrated Christians and efficient citizens.
There are to-day increasing numbers of Protestant Christians who have broken away from the old prejudice against the Roman Catholic church. It is not their desire to alienate faithful communicants from the church in which their individual and national life has root and being; but they recognize certain facts.
First, that in this new influx of immigrants there is an appreciably large number of men who have fallen heir to Protestant traditions, without fully realizing their spiritual inheritance and their moral obligations. To these, the American Protestant churches owe the duty of interpreting their common faith in its practical terms.
Second, the church realizes that numbers of men, more than are commonly supposed, among Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox and Jews, are lost to their respective churches. Many of them revert to infidelity and Paganism, and the Protestant church is under obligations to interpret its faith in rational terms to these, who have been touched by the rationalism of our times.
One cannot believe that it is good for such men to be left under the influences of these reactions which may become dangerous to the well-being of the individual and of the State.
Third, the church finds itself surrounded by large masses of men, ignorant of our language, of the laws of health and of the land. They come from countries in which neither Church nor State has attempted to lift them out of ignorance and its attendant superstition; and whenever the churches in whose bosoms these people have starved in the Old World do not make amends here in the New, the Protestant church is called upon to lift them into a better knowledge of the nature of religion and into a better conception of human relations, both for her own sake and for the sake of the communities which she wishes to serve.
This she must do, even if it brings her under suspicion of proselyting; although with my knowledge of nearly all the agencies engaged in this task in the United States, I am convinced that the spirit in which this work is undertaken is not the spirit of the proselyter. Indeed, one of the growing weaknesses of the Protestant church in America is the loss of those deep convictions which make proselyting easy; while the number of those who have the courage zealously to pronounce their shibboleths is growing smaller every day.
The spirit of the following letter justifies its quotation, for it is an admirable example of the way in which one Protestant church is trying to meet the immigrant problem.
—— Avenue Congregational Church,
Hartford, Conn.,
Pastor’s Study, December 17, 1907.
I am writing this letter to you as an office-bearer in the church and one who is influential in forming church sentiment and policies. It concerns the relation of our church to the Jews who are crowding into the streets about the church in ever-increasing numbers. The Standing Committee has earnestly and sympathetically considered the subject, as befits a matter of the first importance to our church.
The settling of these Jews close about us is easily the event of greatest importance in recent years in the field of this church. It would be folly, and in the end impossible, for us to look upon their presence with indifference. We must not drift in this matter. We must have, as a church, an intelligent and positive policy towards them. What shall it be?
Some of us have probably looked upon the coming of the Jew as a misfortune. Is he not also an opportunity? May we trace the providence of God in settling him about our very doors? I believe that we may. This faith grows in me, as one who believes that Christ is to be Saviour of all the nations.
A rabbi in Boston said recently, “The liberty and friendliness of America will put the severest strain upon Jewish exclusiveness that it has ever met. The persecutions of Europe have failed to dissolve our nationality: the kindness of America may succeed.”
In the light of this sentiment, which I share, and with a great confidence in the Gospel, I propose that we undertake definitely a Christian ministry to these Jews. I recognize that an attempt at immediate propagandism would probably be as ineffective as it would be unwise. I appreciate that probably few if any open conversions will reward our labours for many years.
What then shall we attempt? To impress upon them the spirit of the Gospel by living alongside them as Christians should: this first and chiefly. Let us do this in the hope that as their old-world superstitions and narrowness yield to the light of America, they will thus choose the Gospel instead of infidelity. Many of them are already choosing the latter.
How shall we begin? By treating the Jew as we want to be treated. In other words, by treating him not as a Jew, but as a man, each on his own merits. Recognize always that there are both good Jews and bad Jews, as well as good Yankees and bad Yankees. Make the acquaintance of both men and women: and of their children too. Give them a fair chance to show their quality. They are neighbours. They are interested in our schools. They are fellow citizens. These common interests give opportunity to know them and, if we will, their homes also.
Our government by its franchise and its schools welcomes them to an equal opportunity to show and to develop their character. The churches have not shown a like spirit. Shall the state be more Christian than the church?
This proposal of course includes our attitude towards the Italians and all other foreigners among us. I speak especially of the Jews because they are far the most numerous and most difficult to reach.
If a score or even a dozen of us should undertake to show them the spirit of brotherhood that is our Christian boast, and should seek to get our other church-members to do the same, it would not be a month before they would be feeling and speaking of our good will towards them. Meanwhile we can be watchful for opportunity for some special ministry to them or their children, a ministry which shall be welcome both to them and us. The habit of Christian neighbourliness outlined above will lay the foundation of mutual confidence and knowledge necessary for such a special ministry.
Have you faith and patience for such a long campaign? Will you quietly enlist for it and try to persuade others to do the same? If so, will you kindly tell me of it? We will undertake to keep one another informed of any news of progress.
You will understand why this letter and your talks with others about this subject should be confidential.
In the name of Him who was a Jew,
Your Pastor.
The Presbyterian church has given proof of the spirit of its intent by putting the department of Immigration in charge of Rev. Charles Stelzle, a splendid champion of the rights of labouring men, a man with the broadest social and religious outlook and a stranger to Pharisaic cant.
The Rev. Howard N. Grose, D.D., the home mission secretary of the Baptist church, and the men associated with him in the Home Mission Council of the Evangelical churches, seem to me to possess that broad outlook upon life, that appreciation of true values which render impossible their attempting any narrow, sectarian propaganda.
The action of the International Committee of the Y.M. C. A. in placing its work for “Young Men and Boys of Foreign Parentage” in charge of so competent an authority as Dr. Peter Roberts, the author of “Anthracite Communities,”—and the equipment by the State Committee of Pennsylvania of “The Expedition for the Study of Immigration” with its plans for a group of well trained college men as secretaries for immigrants, are additional evidences of the spirit which animates Protestantism in its relation to the immigrant.
There are, however, two fundamental mistakes which the Protestant church has made in her attempt to solve the problem she faces.
First, in the kind of results she tries to obtain.
Second, in the kind of men she has sent to represent her among the immigrants.
The American Protestant of the Evangelical type has carried his business into the church, but not always the church into his business. He expects in the church, results which can be tabulated under the head of profit and loss, just as he expects them in his counting-room.
“Immediate results!” is the cry of the constituents of missionary enterprises, and the result is, that where they cannot be legitimately produced, conversions are simulated for loaves and fishes.
I do not mean to say that missionaries have not so preached and practiced the Christian faith, as to produce in their hearers a desire to adjust their own lives to these new standards; for I know of innumerable cases of this kind among all races and nationalities.
However, the stress laid upon “immediate results,” the praise and money lavished upon those who can produce them, the “showing off” of this or that kind of converted foreigner, the neglect of those who face real difficulties honestly, and cannot humbug those who support them, put severe temptation in the way of missionaries and often unconsciously taint their whole endeavour.
If the Christian religion expresses itself in unselfish devotion to the noblest cause,—the service which the immigrant needs must be performed without an eye constantly upon church records.
The Social Settlement is under no such strain, and its work is like “casting bread upon the water” without expecting it back, “buttered” after a few days.
For a long time and even for all time with some individuals and groups, the church must be willing to follow this Biblical example set by an institution which some ill informed people suspect of being irreligious.
The error which the church has committed in sending poorly prepared men to minister to these immigrants is in many cases as irreparable as it is inexcusable.
An ignorant priesthood is more bearable than an ignorant ministry, and when ignorance is coupled with insincerity, as it is in many cases, the wrong done to both parties is incalculable.
In their haste to “do something,” and in their eagerness to get quick results, nearly all Protestant churches have pushed into the ministry “converted foreigners,” many of whom misrepresent the church which sends them and become a stumbling-block to honest seekers after truth and an insult to the people to whom they are sent.
An example of this lack of wisdom is shown in one of the most interesting missions of a really valuable type, developed in West Pittston, Pa., by a devoted young American woman who, in a remarkable degree, won the confidence of the Lithuanians there. She lived and laboured among them and created a centre of influence which gave great promise of being permanent in its effect. Her work, however, was much too indefinite and slow for the “hustling” church which supported her; so a converted Lithuanian was employed, who in his eagerness to save souls told the people whom he gathered to hear him preach, that they would all be damned if they continued going to the Roman Catholic church. The result was what one might expect. The Lithuanians immediately forsook the mission and went to the prohibited church.
As a rule, the work to be done demands American born men and women who are imbued by the spirit of service, who have some linguistic talent and much consecrated common sense.
The converted foreigner, even if well trained, will be met with suspicion by many groups; for to them he is a traitor to their religion and to their national life, the two being inseparable to them.
No such objection can be made to the American worker, who, if he brings patience to the tedious task of winning confidence, if he has an honest desire to live unselfishly for the people of a neighbourhood, if he gives everything and expects nothing as a reward, may be assured that such service will be accepted and will work out its results in God’s own time.
If converted immigrants are sent among these people, they should have a long testing time; a tutelage and training which, while giving them a thorough equipment for their task, will not spoil them for the humble work it will involve.
There are but few theological seminaries properly equipped to train men for this great work, and still fewer in which there is sufficient spirit of democracy among teachers and students to receive “immigrants” and treat them like brothers.
In many small, industrial communities where the “immigrants” are a problem, its solution is merely a question of the attitude of the churches towards them.
Nothing can be more repellent than the attitude of the average Protestant Christian towards the immigrant of to-day. As a rule he is prejudiced, is grossly ignorant of the historic and religious background of the strangers and meets every one of them with suspicion.
At a recent Summer School of the Y. M. C. A. it was my privilege to teach a class of young college men numbering about 150. They were studying this problem, and the questions asked, a few of which I quote, prove the assertion just made.
“Do not three martyred presidents prove that the immigrant is an Anarchist and ought to be excluded?”
“Is it not true that ninety per cent. of the criminals in the United States are foreign born?”
“Do not foreign governments dump their rubbish of criminals and paupers upon our shores?”
“Is the Constitution of the United States safe in the hands of people who crucified Jesus?”
“Did not our forefathers come to fight for liberty, and do not these people come to despoil us?”
The questions asked displayed such animosity and such ignorance, that to print them all would seem like slandering our Western colleges and the churches in which these young men were reared.
The churches and the Y. M. C. A.’s have no small task in converting their membership to some Christian view-point of these, their neighbours; even if they cannot be converted to a spirit of brotherliness.
The following instance, while not typical, shows the attitude of Y. M. C. A. memberships in many industrial communities, towards the immigrant. An Association in Pennsylvania wished to enlarge its building and solicited funds in the shops of its own community. Slav and Hungarian day labourers subscribed $2,000, every cent of which was paid; which cannot be said of all the money subscribed by Americans.
Some of these foreigners were anxious to learn English, and one of the rooms in the building—not the best—was opened to them and a teacher procured. When one of these boys used some of the public conveniences in the building, the American membership notified the secretary that the “Hunkies” must not be admitted to the building; and they were not, in spite of the fact that they had helped pay for its erection.
While no other such gross injustice has come to my knowledge, I know of many Y. M. C. A.’s in which an Armenian or Greek would be excluded from such a thoroughly religious privilege as taking a bath.
Wherever a church or Y. M. C. A. has shown itself hospitable to the strangers it has had as many of their souls to keep as it has cared to have; but most of them prefer to save the foreigner by “absent treatment.”
The feeling of the strangers regarding the efforts which the churches are making on their behalf in so-called missions, which are often repellently unclean and devoid of any saving grace, is explained in the following letter, written by a graduate of Oberlin Seminary, a young Pole, whose spirit and intelligence the letter itself reveals.
Brecksville, Ohio, October 14, 1907.
Prof. E. A, Steiner, Grinnell, Iowa.
My dear Dr. Steiner:—Your plan for the solution of our foreign problem, as you indicated it in your articles in The Congregationalist of last year and as you outlined it to me in our conversation in Cleveland last week, is excellent; and I wish to tell you that I am in thorough sympathy with it. My own personal experience in the foreign work convinces me that the easiest, most economical, and most effective way of solving the foreign problem is through the American church and the American worker directly. This for the following reasons: First, mission work established for the foreigner strictly in his own tongue is not particularly acceptable to him, and to some it is even offensive. The foreigner regards himself to be a Christian, and, consequently, resents the idea of mission work done distinctly for his particular benefit in order to make a Christian of him. Second, a worker of his own nationality is looked upon by him with suspicion. As you expressed it, he is regarded a traitor, and is not to be trusted too much. When I was in the work, I had that experience over and over again; I felt that my countrymen, that is, a good many of them, when they found out that I was a Pole and not a Roman Catholic, had grave doubts as to whether it was safe for them to trust me. Third, by coming to the mission, the foreigner feels that he is committing himself too much all at once—something which he is very unwilling to do. Then, too, in the mission he is too conspicuous, and thus too much exposed to persecution from his countrymen. Fourth, our greatest hope is, not in the grown-up generation, but in the growing generation—the children and the young people; and these can be reached more easily through the American church than through a mission of their mother tongue, because they want to be regarded, not as foreigners, but as Americans. These difficulties would, to a large extent, be obviated if we tried to reach the foreigner directly through our American churches and other religious organizations and through American workers acquainted with the history of the different peoples, their characteristics, habits, and ways of thinking and looking at things, and to a certain extent with their language also, and in perfect sympathy with them. Of course, the work done at present by the mission ought not to be discontinued; it has its place and its value; but it ought to be supplemented by this better and, as I believe, more effective method which you have in mind and which you propose to our churches for adoption.
Sincerely yours,
Paul Fox.
I do not quote this letter because it approves my plan; for I do not hold dogmatically to any one method. The work of saving men is desperately hard and there are a thousand ways of doing it.
More important than any plan is a right attitude; for in all human contact it is the spirit within the man or institution which counts, and not the precise method of approach.
Wherever an approach has been made in the right spirit towards the foreigners, they have responded in kind, and many Protestant churches have been enriched by their presence, by the ardour of their faith and their willingness to sacrifice for their convictions.
There is, as I have said before, no institution in the United States which will be so profoundly affected by the immigrant as the Protestant church. Without him she will languish and die and with him alone she has a future.
Already the Roman Catholic proclaims the conquest of America, and while that conquest is not complete, it soon will be, unless Protestantism wakens to the wealth of its heritage and its great opportunity; unless with a real sympathy and passion it teaches, preaches and practices the religion of Jesus.
The Protestant church need not rival the Roman Catholic church in building stately places of worship, or clothe herself in gorgeous vestments, or read ancient liturgies.
The immigrant comes from just such environment, and nothing that the Protestant church can do in this direction will be as beautiful and as impressive as that which he has left behind.
The one way and the only way in which she can enter into a successful rivalry with the ancient, Apostolic church, is in reviving the ancient, Apostolic passion for humanity.
Having quoted so many letters, I may perhaps be pardoned for quoting a small part of one written long ago, at a time when the church faced a crisis not unlike the one which she faces to-day.
“If there is therefore any comfort in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any tender mercies and compassions, fulfill ye my joy, that ye be of the same mind, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind; doing nothing through factions, through vainglory, but in lowliness of mind each counting other better than himself; not looking each of you to his own things, but each of you also to the things of others. Have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of God, counted it not a prize to be on an equality with God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross. Wherefore also God highly exalted Him, and gave unto Him the name which is above every name; that in the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”