Charles Sturt University has just set up a Rural Religion and Ministry Group, associated with the Public and Contextual Theology Research Centre, Canberra. It is a small outfit, which is currently seeking to put together a bibliography of materials on the rural church in Australia. Its director, Dr Rol Mitchell, has just completed his doctorate. Dr Mitchell conducted a study of the impact of the churches in one particular rural town in New South Wales which he refers to as Countrytown. The thesis has been published by Glenlea Publishing and is available directly from Dr Mitchell for $39.90 including postage. Contact Dr Mitchell by email: rmitchel@postoffice.csu.edu.au.

The Challenges for Rural Towns

In particular, many rural towns lose their young people when they have completed their secondary education. Often, it is the brightest of the young people who leave and this contributes to a 'brain-drain' from the rural areas. Mitchell notes that some of the people in the rural towns find comfort in the fact that some of them return in later years. However, the reality is that only a small percentage ever return.

Part of the problem is that farming is becoming increasingly difficult in many areas both economically and environmentally. Many areas have become less productive due to environmental degradation. Mitchell quotes Share, Lawrence and Gray who say, "Though only a tenth of Australian land is classed as arable, six times this amount is farmed or grazed. Soils are old, weathered, of low fertility and highly susceptible to erosion, with new soil formation virtually non-existence" (p. 17). From another book of Gray et al, Mitchell quotes:

Australian farmers will be increasingly exposed to forces which will undermine their viability and require them to adopt new and often unfamiliar methods and strategies. These, in turn, will impact upon family life and the social organisation of agriculture and it is expected, for example, that growing proportions of farmers will become uneconomic. (p.14)

These problems in farming are often accompanied by a range of other economic and social problems.

Mitchell focussed his research on one particular rural town in New South Wales. As part of this study, he undertook a general survey. He asked how the people saw a range of issues in their town. Among the major problems considered serious by the town's population, in order of most serious to those of less seriousness, were:

• few opportunities for youth
• unemployment
• banks closing
• illegal drugs
• decreasing viability of family farms
• petty crime
• alcoholism
• declining population
• racial conflict
• poor health services
• inadequate accommodation for the elderly, and
• churches in decline (p.132).

It should be noted that in this particular town there was a significant proportion of Aboriginal people and the racial conflict refers to relationships between them and the people of European descent. Mitchell also notes that there is some evidence of social stratification in the town.

The Church in the Rural Town

The town Mitchell studied had a population of 2700, and was part of a shire with a population of 4712 people. The area was served by eleven churches of different denominations. Mitchell conducted head-counts in each of these churches and calculated that on a typical Sunday a total 563 people were involved. This amounted to 12 per cent of the population of the shire. Mitchell suggests that 15 per cent of the population were regular worshippers attending at least once a month. Having examined the methods by which he comes to this figure, I suggest that this may be a very conservative estimate. He notes that, in his survey, 28 per cent of the population claimed to attend about every week.

Mitchell notes the relatively low importance given to the church in the survey of the town people. The church is seen as being of less importance to the town than the doctor, hospital, police, homes for aged, TAFE, emergency welfare and the local newspaper. He also notes that only 10 per cent said they would turn to a minister or priest in time of trouble. Many people in the town were sceptical about the role the churches played. In particular, a number of people felt that while the churches were good for the 'church people', they did little for the wider community. Mitchell quotes one person, for example, who said:

They [the churches] don't do a lot in this town. This [has] always been my thing about the church. They open up the doors and say '[you] can come in' instead of going out to the street and picking them up out of the gutter, you know. So that churches in this town don't do what I think the Christian organisation [should be] showing by doing, practical demonstration ... They are not out on the street doing, or opening up their doors. There are youth groups too, but they are mainly church kids who go. (Punctuation altered. p.167).

However, many other people were very positive about the contribution that the churches made. As has been found in other surveys, the most common affirmation about the contribution of the church was that it gives values to live by and it contributes to creating a better community (p.162).

Some Objective Measures of the Contributions of the Church to the Local Community

While public opinion about the contribution of the church to the local community varied, Mitchell found a variety of ways to make some more objective measurements. He noted some of the specific ways in which people were being assisted. For example, the annual report of the St Vincent de Paul Society showed that in one year (2002),

• 740 visits had been made to 1117 people who needed help,
• 63 people had made use of the emergency accommodation provided,
• $5850 worth of electricity vouchers had been issued,
• on 25 occasions, refreshments had been freely provided following funerals.

All of this had been done by volunteers and had been done without any regard to the religious affiliation of those who sought help (p.175).

'Global care' was the name chosen by a Pentecostal group. They provided weekly musical entertainment at the retirement village, family support activities and had initiated a 'safe house' for women and children in distress. One of the most significant projects was the provision of refreshments at the local court house. The magistrate observed that this had cut the consumption of liquor and had led to a cessation of 'irresponsible behaviour' outside the court (p.177).

In a time of severe drought, it was the churches that had taken the initiative in developing a drought aid program. The idea had started at a Bible study. However, the program had been seen as a community program, supported by various levels of government. Few people knew of its origins.

Mitchell notes that many of the church programs operated quietly and went unacknowledged by the wider community. For example, the Uniting Church arranged with the school bus driver to provide breakfast for children who were not getting it at home.

Volunteering plays a major role in rural communities. According to Mitchell, the members of the town community spent an average of 93 hours per year in volunteer activities. However, there were many who were spending many times that amount. Mitchell calculated that between 58% and 70% of all volunteer work was done by the 15 per cent of the population who were regular church attenders (p.180 and 214).

Mitchell also makes the interesting observation that frequent church attenders were highly represented among those people chosen over the last 16 years as 'Citizen of the Year' and as 'Senior Citizen of the Year' (p.198-199). On the other hand, among the people who were nominated in his interviews as most admired, there were clusters of people who were heavily involved in the churches and a cluster of those who were not involved at all. Those least chosen as 'admired people' were those who attended occasionally (p.197).

Several of the churches ran youth activities. Many young people whose families were not involved in the churches attended these youth activities. After prolonged observation, Mitchell concludes:

In balance and in summary, the youth work carried out by the churches in Countrytown by any standard was impressive, providing evidence that the church, at least in this particular community, does make a significant contribution to the social fabric of the community (p.218).

One group was markedly absent from many of the youth groups, and, to a larger extent, from the mainstream churches: the Aboriginal people. There was a small Aboriginal church, but only some of the Aboriginal people identified with it. Mitchell maintains that, while some people have crossed the cultural divide from one side or the other, there remains a gulf that is deeply entrenched between most people of European origin and the Aboriginal people. One type of activity that contributes significantly to bridging the divide is sport. The churches, on the whole, Mitchell concludes, have made significant and positive contributions to race relations and to the Aboriginal people of the district, but there were also some negative aspects. Mitchell notes that many of the mainstream church attenders were indifferent to the fact that Indigenous people felt excluded from their churches.

Religion and Quality of Life Issues

Through his survey, Mitchell examined a number of quality of life issues. He notes, for example, that, particularly for people aged between 55 and 75 years, there was a positive relationship between general physical health (as reported by respondents) and religiosity (p.183).

Mitchell also found higher self-reported levels of happiness and more positive outlooks on life among the highly religious. He also notes that there were higher levels of family harmony among the more religious. Again, Mitchell relies on self-reports on the level of family harmony in the survey. He found that among the one-third of the population sample scoring highly on religion, there were virtually no reports of family violence or serious conflict (p.188).

As Mitchell notes, the fact that relationships have been found between religiosity and the reported levels of happiness, a positive outlook on life and family harmony do not imply causality. On the other hand, he is convinced that religion is playing a significant role (p.188).

Some caution needs to be exercised at this point. To what extent does religion encourage people to report positively about life and family harmony, or even physical health? Would such relationships be evident if more objective measures were used which did not rely on the self-reports of people? To what extent do those who become depressed or whose families are not harmonious find that they no longer feel comfortable in the churches and no longer report high levels of religious activity? Are there also intermediate factors that contribute to people being both religious and healthy?

Concluding Comments

There are some other weaknesses in the study. From time to time, the analysis could have been a little more penetrating and a wider range of factors considered. Mitchell does not attempt to distinguish the impact of the Christian faith as a set of beliefs and people's involvement in the churches. Nor does he distinguish between the significance in the churches as organisations having an impact and the fact that many of the community leaders also had Christian commitments. In his reporting, Mitchell's Christian commitment is evident, but it is also clear that most of the time, he has gone out of his way to be as objective in his observations and measurements as the situation allowed.

Mitchell is to be commended for his sustained fieldwork over 18 months in Countrytown and for the comprehensive way that he has approached the issue of the impact of the church in the community. The question of impact always remains a very difficult one to measure. Nevertheless, Mitchell builds a substantial case that at least in this one Countrytown, based on the balance of the evidence, the churches are not social anachronisms, but continue to provide social and personal resources to help people face the challenges of contemporary life (p.235).

Philip Hughes

References:

Rol Mitchell, Country Life and the Church: The Significance of the Christian church in an Australian rural community, Glenlea Publishing, 2005.
ISBN 0 646 45217 7.