Faith Works 9-8-23

Since Labor Day weekend is ahead, thought I'd get ahead before I was asked to:

Faith Works 9-8-23
Jeff Gill

Just imagining losses in the light of gains
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Living in Licking County in 2023, I find myself thinking about ministry in 1923.

The interurbans, electric railways, had seen their national premiere between Newark and Granville in 1890; both the tracks and the transportation along them grew, spurring an industry to build interurban and subway and elevated railway cars.

Preachers through this period had seen the demise of once common hitching posts and watering troughs along the street in front of their churches. In fact, architecture up to this point had always made a point of putting a high set of stairs between the street level and the main entry, to keep the door above the dust of passing carriages and buggies, much of that dust pulverized from what the horses left behind.

Older members might find that climb a barrier to church attendance, but if you kept the grit and grime and flies out of the auditorium by doing so, since you had to keep the doors propped open in the warmer months, it was a tradeoff.

And you might even remember the livery stable operators and hansom cab drivers in a state of shock as first interurbans and then Mr. Ford's horseless carriages steadily eroded their businesses, let alone the craftsman in leather and fine woods who made buggy whips. Some moved further out in the country and found work where they could still be close to the horses they understood, others sold their stock at a loss and went to work in the growing factories and foundries.

Those pastoral conversations were still vivid in your memory, even as now you were hearing from parishioners that the Jewett Car Company was laying off even more workers. Automobiles were taking away passengers and fares, so interurbans were reducing replacement rates and it was said some municipal rail systems were closing down. Strangely, north in Sandusky the interurban company was closing down much of its business and putting their investments and energy into the former weekend sideline of an amusement park they had at Cedar Point.

The local interurban was still riding high, especially in the summers when so many rode all the way to Buckeye Lake Park, but after Labor Day, the passenger cars certainly looked emptier. At least there was talk about some plants might make automotive parts for the Detroit behemoths. And Heisey Glass kept adding capacity, so they'd be in business for another century for sure.

If people still came to church by automobile rather than by buggy or interurban trolley, that was fine. There was talk among ministers, though, about the silent films that were becoming so popular. Downtown Newark had theaters on all sides of the courthouse square, and there was talk of those "movie palaces" coming to town, giant spaces with pipe organs finer than any church had, with trumpets and bells and sound effects to accent the story. If they figured out how to put the sound of actors talking with the film, how would a Sunday service compete?

And even in the home, it seemed like every other house, at least of the better off church members, had a radio set; people after church talked to each other about music and news they were hearing from Pittsburgh and Akron, and that President Harding had a radio in the White House.

With private automobiles for almost every home, radios becoming common, and movie houses getting more popular, businesses like Scheidler and Jewett cutting back, a preacher could be forgiven for wondering: how would this influence church members? Would people become even more mobile, and disconnected from family and each other, distracted more easily by increasingly intensely interesting entertainment options? Or did that even occur to them, as our modern age was being born?


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's pretty sure the worries of clergy in 1923 weren't what we'd think, looking back. Tell him what you wonder looking ahead at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads.