re of the soul. And a program that fails to
take into account every approach to the individual can at least be but
partial.

Again, it will be necessary to revise popular impression as to just
what is spiritual. The farmer who after having a most unusual
"spiritual experience" at a revival service angrily opposed a local
movement for consolidation of schools because such a move would
increase taxes had an idea of religion that was strictly personal--and
anti-social. The church leader who feared that the encouragement of
social-center activities by the church would ultimately result in a
condition in which the social activities of the church would
overshadow the "spiritual," had in mind a distinction that must be met
and understood if the church is to broaden its program without losing
its identity as a religious institution. The minister who, while
praising a community-club movement which had brought to the community
many improvements and a better moral condition, stated that it was
injuring the "church," either saw a real conflict between "spiritual"
and "social" welfare or had a misconception as to what is spiritual.

The problem seems to arise out of a tendency which has crept into
theological thought to limit "spiritual" things to mystical personal
experiences. With this definition of spiritual things there seems to
have come a tendency to look upon any type of activity that was of a
practical nature, such as providing for the recreational needs of the
community, organizing a campaign for better reading facilities for
country people, or for better farming, as not spiritual, and
consequently be sedulously avoided by the church. Perhaps there is no
thought in American rural life to-day that causes more trouble to the
aggressive rural minister of the modern type than this. His young men
and women want to broaden the scope of the church, but the trustees,
and those whose word counts toward the selection of pastors and their
removal, often oppose anything being done by the church which is not
customary and accordingly, as they think, not spiritual.

Christ said "I am come that ye might have life, and have it more
abundantly." If this statement is accepted at its face value, then we
have the foundation for judging every activity in which the church may
partake. Does the activity tend to increase the material and spiritual
welfare of the community, so that the influences that tend to the
extermination of the group are l