The Rural Church and Rural Religion: Analysis of Data from Children and Youth

Abstract

The heyday of studies of the rural church was the 1920s-1940s. Even then researchers noted that structural rather than ecological characteristics were especially im portant in understanding it. A more recent focus has been on rural-urban differences in religiosity. Research done in the 1960s and 1970s indicated differences only on the ideological (belief) dimension. Data from two 1975 studies—one involv ing children in Minnesota and the other adolescents in a national sample—are reported, showing continuing rural- urban-metropolitan differences in religious belief. There are higher rates of fundamentalism for Protestants in the first two residential categories. For the first sample, the relationship between SES and fundamentalism virtually disappears in the rural area. The importance of residential (and church) propinquity of social classes is suggested as an important intervening variable, and this brings the focus full circle in terms of ecological versus structural and organizational characteristics. Finally, the future of the rural (small) church is discussed. Negative effects of inflation and the overall de cline in national church membership and participation and the positive effect of church decentralization as they impinge upon the rural church are discussed.