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Show PROBLEM FACING CITY CHURCH Bj REV. C H SEARS, General Stcretirj Baptiil Uiulont Society. IppJHE task of supplying a therapeutic for the degenerative diseases I of the soul of the oily mini is big enough to require the co-operation it of till religious faiths. It has been assumed that the problem of the city church has grown out of the rapid community changes of the last few years. The problem is much deeper; the problem of the city church grows out of Ihe changes in the city man who has to do with things and people not known and with forces not understood. In his daily qutt for the utilities, values and thrills which the city ' has to offer, he joins the daily rhythm of city life, a tidal movement of the crowds. rjnd"er such conditions an individual tends to sink into anonymity ano-nymity and to cease to feel himself a person. Moral restraints are seriously seri-ously weakened when contact? become thus impersonal and conflicting. The city man lives in a social whirlpool. Stimulation has gone beyond the danger point, both for health and for morals. Neither physical proximity nor the mechanics of communication makes for sympathy. The city man lives in isolation within a multitude of contacts; a city is where men die of loneliness in the crowd. Aggressiveness on the part of one person or group is met by a defensive attitude on the part of others. Self-assertion is a characteristic sin of the city man. Nor is there a compensating moral control for the city man. It is doubtful if religion, with its tendency toward other worldliness and the church, with its traditional aloofness, have helped to make available spiritual spir-itual forces released by the discoveries and inventions of a scientific age. The task of supplying a therapeutic for the degenerative diseases of the soul of the city man is big enough for the co-operation of all religious faiths. Tt is even bigger than co-operative Protestantism. |