Church comity; a study of coöperative church extension in American cities

Front matter

NOV 9 1929 as

Sia, BX 8 .D65 1929 if . Douglass, H. Paul 1871-1953. | Church comity

- q J voi i

Preface

The following chapters report the results of a first-hand, objective field study of comity as practiced by federations and councils of churches in twenty of the major American cities, and by the Massachusetts State Federation, with collateral information from a considerable additional number of cities. Following certain preliminary work, the study was made under the auspices of the Institute of Social and Religious Research during 1928, with the author as director and the Rev. C. E. Silcox and the Rev. Wilbur C. Hallenbeck as associates.

The investigation of comity constituted one part of a larger study of organized Protestant codperation made under the auspices of the Institute, the results of which are to appear in three companion volumes of which this is chronologically the first. It will be followed by a similar study of varied phases of Federation work comprehended within the general field of social service and by a larger — comprehensive report.’

In the present study, the following general sources of information were consulted: (a) Records of the creation, appointment, and definition of duties of comity committees; lists of committees; their composition and characteristics and attendance records; (b) declarations covering the theory of comity and its procedures; (c) records of comity cases dealt with by committees; (d) minutes of other activities with which comity committees have been concerned; (e) observation of comity committees in session and interviews with officials and members. (f) These sources have been supplemented in a considerable number of cases by surveys of some of the churches concerned, in connection with

1A full account of the origins, history of the project as a whole, and method of investigation will appear in this later volume.

vi PREFACE previous or parallel investigations. (g) The judgments of numerous constituents of federations as to the importance of comity within the total federation program were secured by means of questionnaires.

The structure of this volume requires brief comment.

Following an introductory chapter, there are two chapters dealing with the more general aspects of comity, theoretical and practical, including its sanctions, its objectives, scope, and participants.

These are followed by a section concerned with comity in action. Chapter [V deals with the machinery of comity; showing the composition and characteristics of comity committees, the amount of time consumed by meetings and the regularity of attendance on the part of members. It also discusses the techniques employed in committee administration and discussion procedures. Chapters V and VI analyze and describe specific procedures in dealing with cases. Chapter VII classifies and discusses the standards and criteria of judgment which the practice of comity has developed. All these chapters deal in the main with comity in its ordinary piecemeal application as it deals with one case after another. Chapter VI, however, includes the consideration of large-scale applications of comity which rise to the dignity of cooperative city church planning. Following the section on comity in action, chapter VIII accordingly presents an attempt to sketch a critical background for the entire prior investigation in terms of a theory of urban churchmanship.

The concluding chapter constitutes a summary of the whole investigation. It represents an effort to think through briefly, step by step, the phases of comity that have to enter into the development of a practical plan of organization and procedure for a city church federation, and is intended thus to be helpful to cities desiring to formulate their own plans.

The limitation of the study to the city field excludes more than half of the current story of comity; namely, that which is being extensively practiced in the rural field through cooperative home missionary agencies and under the fostering

PREFACE Vil impulse of the national Home Missions Council. The federaated and community churches promoted by the Massachusetts State Federation are also omitted as most properly pertaining to the rural situation. It is hoped, however, that this narrative of experience and these analyses of principles as developed under urban conditions may be suggestive to those working in the more extensive geographical areas of church extension.

The national governing bodies of a considerable number of denominations have approved the practice of comity. For example, the Presbyterian General Assembly in 1917 “solemnly charged” every agent of any Synod or Presbytery “to hold sacred all interdenominational agreements in matters of comity”; and had earlier approved such agreements in connection with church federations. Curiously no instance of formal appeal to such sanction was anywhere discovered. |

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE BEACH Merce CN UTS abe eines Tt ott Hie Vv Pern EVOLUTION |OF COMITY i aye) 66 will le \iiie I II. AUTHORITY AND OBJECTIVES OF COMITY . .- 16 II] SCOPE AND PARTICIPATION . . . - + + 44 IV. COMMITTEES AND COMMITTEE PROCESSES . . 62 GOO URES Ie OP hae Mune IE iS VI. PROCEDURES (CONTINUED) . . - - + + 95 VII. CRITERIA, RULES AND PRECEDENTS . . . - II5 VIII]. A THEORY OF URBAN CHURCHMANSHIP . . . I4I

IX. COMITY PLANS FOR CITY CHURCH FEDERATIONS 156

MANA @ ari : f +e y itt wh ya. '¥ ) ‘ i t . iy | . ' hin J a ] 5 ; Ay ne ; : | > 4 eh | | j > 1g in ; | , 4 5 * , i ; | 1 , a ; aa ‘ , } 1 ‘ Pek etre ae Ge wets ’ Wee Eh ee atta Gea h, ’ j fh fj a) A aes OA We ee , iy | : | | CRMC Ga raraali A AALS Mi | see Ni A. et ee ea ‘ 7 L rts vs me oy 4 “4 F ; : | | | | | . i : A { 5 ) EK i 4 4 J f WE F A HLA ’ “ mi! 4 ’ ‘ \ : | A v ; \ ‘ " ‘ ‘ i it ay ¥ : / ; ah) wn wee . v ‘ ‘ a Ne a ‘ ayy , : ' a } y Fat 7 y SRY i ‘ ) ; ik f i Gin y | | a 7 ’ } We Tee , fet ye (ae AY hae Bis Baty’ ) , * , u ri 4 a Vy. ait ma ; a th “ ‘ Le 4 ei Weal i” vat i WAR Risen: WN ‘ koa) PONT ANGE Ad i ; \ ‘ yf wp VA i 4 A ; i Mas 5 : f ¥ \ ; ; ae 4 ( | i | ; ch lint i fs! vit bo : PA bah oR j | i 2 | , Ad i] , ; 7 us : i ‘ x ‘ ‘ i { dh t i Ae fi ii : i p ‘s ,* ‘ " at ae eo ie: ret ‘ ‘ > * , iah ire

Chapter I THE EVOLUTION OF COMITY

The major American cities, with their suburbs, increased their population by about seven and three-quarter million people during the last census decade, while one and one-half million more people were gained by the cities of from 50,000 to 100,000 population. An equal gain is predicted for the present decade. The results for organized religion of this stupendous growth are manifold. ‘The most obvious of them is that churches have to be found for these new millions. Many newcomers, of course, can distribute themselves among existing churches. Probably, however, at least half of them move into newer or incompletely occupied areas, outlying-or suburban, where they have to be provided for, in large measure, by the creation of additional churches.

But this growth of cities never consists merely in the location of additional population in unoccupied and suburban areas. Its most outstanding feature is that it involves a> continuous redistribution of population. A very large pro-» portion of newcomers settle at old centers or focal points of the city, and people already settled there are crowded out into remoter sections of the city. These in turn displace the existing populations of the remoter sections, who thereupon betake themselves to the suburbs. This fact is even more important for religious institutions than is the numerical growth of cities. The frequent succession of population waves undermines the constituencies of churches and repeatedly requires the abandonment of fields and the removal of religious institutions to other sites.

The relocation of churches and the adaptat.on to new populations of churches that remain on old sites thus get to be of equal moment with the creation and location of new churches.

Along with growth and the internal remaking of cities goes an unparalleled material progress, which continually modi-

Percent Gain 84.5 Detroit

57.2 Los Angeles

51.1 Indianapolis

~

43.8 Cleveland

27.7 St. Louis

0.2 Minneapolis 49.1 Seattle 18:2 Rochester 17.9 Pittsburgh 14.3 Washington

73.2. Philadelphia lll ~ 2.2 Boston 1916 1926

CuHart I—Prer Cent. INCREASE IN NUMBER OF CHURCHES 1916-26.

In fifteen selected cities which had 250,000 population or more in 1920.

fies the standard of living of city people. Ecclesiastical standards, as reflected in equipment, expenditures, and the elaboration of church life suffer a corresponding change. The city church is under constant pressure of the demand for a better quality of ministry expressed through an expanded program. Religious institutions are victims of the same terrific necessity of “‘keeping up with the Joneses” that individuals and families feel. Organizational competition is intensified and speeded up.

ATTEMPTED DIRECTION OF THE URBAN EXPANSION OF THE CHURCH

Within the two decades just passed, new experiments in Protestant codperation have been made along many lines. The most inclusive and highly organized of these is the Church Federation movement. It is entirely natural that the churches and the denominations associating themselves in this movement should have discovered one of their major common tasks in an attempt to control the obviously important processes by which new churches are created for the new millions, by which old churches are readapted or removed as the consequence of shifting of population, and by which all churches are challenged to readjust themselves to the demand for improved institutional standards, manners, and methods.

It is foreign to the purpose of this volume to expose at length the well-recognized institutional evils that have habitually accompanied the urban expansion of the church in its uncontrolled and misdirected form. That ecclesiasticism has, in many respects, a sick institution on its hands in the city church is notorious, and has been fully substantiated by competent objective investigations. It is more than easy to bring to light flagrant instances of competitive overchurching, especially in the more desirable residential sections of cities. Thus, in a recently investigated case, a certain denominational family (which is itself split into numerous subdivisions) comprised less than one-fourth of the Protestants in a well-marked urban area. But it had overindulged in the establishment of churches till it was accountable for more than half of the entire number. The several subdivisions of this denominational family were themselves in bitter rivalry. Their churches, without exception, required denominational subsidies to keep them alive. The denominational family had entered the territory in deliberate competition with other Protestant groups. Still other denominational rivalries existed in the community, some of them of long standing, bitter and acknowledged. In one instance, misdirected zeal had founded three churches of a single denomination, all drawing competitively upon the same general territory. As the result of the total situation, in an area of exceptional wealth and rapid growth, an extradesirable residential territory, virtually. all the churches were stationary or going backward. This was the consequence of a competitive crowding of denominational churches. The legitimate needs of the population for churches had been anticipated by fully thirty years.

If it would have any significance at all, Protestant cooperation must, of course, attempt to remedy situations like this, and must try to prevent their recurrence. And this is exactly what one finds. Coéperative effort in such matters under the name of “‘Comity”’ appears as one of the major activities of nearly all church federations; and along with evangelism and social service, comity constitutes almost an invariable department of their current work.

SITUATIONS INVOLVING COMITY PROCESSES

The most natural approach to an understanding of comity is to consider the situations in which the institutional expansion of one church or denomination may affect that of others, and which codperating churches may need to deal with through joint machinery. The experience of a single federation in a single year adequately illustrates the range and wide variety of these situations.

During this period the comity committee of this federation dealt with the following new situations: (1) a religious survey of new suburban areas; (2) proposed organization of congregations; (3) location or purchase of church Sites; (4) organization of Sunday schools; (5) organization of missions or branch churches; (6) selection of location for outdoor preaching.

Situations relating to existing churches which came up for joint consideration within the year were: (7) relocations of churches; (8) merger of two churches of the same denomination; (9) federations of local churches of different denominations; (10) transfer of churches from one denomination to another; (11) responsibility for fields abandoned by removing churches; (12) splits in local congregations and problem of whether or not to recognize seceding group.

Comity situations relating to new policies of work included the following: (13) undertaking of special work for foreign-speaking groups by churches of American. antecedents; and (14) abandonment of foreign-language services by churches of foreign antecedents which thus come into more direct competition with the neighboring churches.

Among general matiers of common concern dealt with by the committee were: (15) a cOoperative real estate holding company to acquire church sites; and (16) methods of making adequate surveys to determine proper church location.

The foregoing list from a year’s transactions in a single federation is fairly typical of what most comity committees find to deal with sooner or later.

THE GENERAL FIELD AND THE DISTINCTIVE SPIRIT

What then is comity? In essence it is codperative church extension; and some federations apply this term to the processes which the majority designate as comity.

It is highly instructive, however, that the term most frequently in use is one that indicates, not a process, but the spirit in which a process is undertaken. Comity signifies that the atmosphere in which church extension is to be carried on by the codperating denominations is one of courtesy and good will, with the greatest regard for the

1In a few cases, both terms are used, and the phase of work under discussion is described as that of “comity and church extension.”

respective rights and purposes of the codperating agencies. Comity is thus intended to contrast with competition in the institutional expansion and readjustments of the church.

History

The existence and distinctive place in the Church Federation movement of a body of thought and system of practice dominated by and dedicated to this spirit are illuminated and in part explained by a consideration of its historical origins and evolution.

ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION

Looking back over the history of federations, one finds that comity was almost always present as an early, if not an original, interest. One of the more naive impulses of the federation movement at the first was to undertake a good many types of service interdenominationally. Thus, the first constitution of the Philadelphia Federation included as an objective the carrying on of interdenominational work with foreigners; and here and there a good many proposals for the establishment of jointly administered institutions have been entertained first and last. This tendency was reinforced by the codperative necessities of the World War period, and was pushed to the extreme in the proposals of the Interchurch World Movement.

But in a considerable number of cities—among them New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Chicago—organization for comity preceded the establishment of a federation. As part of a growing tendency, after 1905, toward cooperation in the general field of home missionary enterprise, councils of denominational executives responsible for missionary extension had arisen. Their major concern was with church planning in its various concrete forms. In cities, these councils, virtually without exception, were subsequently absorbed into the comity machinery of the federations as the latter came into existence. The result of this absorption— in contrast with the earlier impulse, and coincident with the reaction against interdenominationalism all along the line— was to put a strongly denominational stamp upon the practice of comity. Comity processes, in short, came to be denominationally operated. The church was extended through cooperative planning, but almost exclusively in denominational forms. The genius of the movement and its procedure were alike compelled to confine themselves within the bounds of denominational regularity. Comity became a conformist impulse. As fresh forms of religious organization evolved they were persistently forced into denominational molds. Within these limits, however, comity has greatly gained in practical vogue. The recognition of its desirability has increased. Its sanctions have been strengthened. It has steadily developed greater detail and precision of procedure. This general course of evolution is to be kept in mind in consideration of the contemporary practice of comity, the sense of the concrete reality of which will be heightened by consideration of the history of comity in a specific case.

EVOLUTION OF COMITY IN PHILADELPHIA

The Philadelphia Federation of Churches, in its twenty years of existence, has seen a definitely marked evolution of policy with respect to comity. The general progress of this evolution is evidenced in theory, in machinery, in procedures and techniques, as well as in results.

The federation was established in 1909. Comity first appears by name in the constitution of the next year, which lists it as a major interest. At this period, federation talk about comity was in the loose and general terms popularized by the home-mission agencies, as a form of codperation seeking to prevent “‘overlooking’ and “overlapping” on the part of Protestant religious forces. Responsibility in these matters had been entrusted to a “church extension” committee. The earlier efforts to apply comity principles to cases resulted—so far as records show—in protests and disagreements. Ihe first step toward great definiteness of procedure was a resolution requiring a denomination to give notice in advance of an application for the approval of a church location, so that the members of the church extension committee might have opportunity to consider the matter prior to a meeting called for decision.

In rg91g the general status of comity as it had evolved through a decade was defined by a formal declaration as follows:

- “Resolved, that while the Federation claims no legislative power it 1s the sense of the Comity Committee that in the matter of forming new congregations of any denomination represented in this Federation, the representative of such denomination, prior to taking any steps looking to the organization of a new church, should submit the proposal to the Federation for its counsel and advice in the spirit of that church comity which the Federation seeks to foster and maintain.”

In 1918, the separately organized council of home missions’ superintendents had disbanded and its functions had been merged in the comity commission—thus consolidating the machinery.

The evolution of comity practice throughout subsequent years strengthened the requirement of advance notice in the case of proposals to found new churches, and that of definiteness in the description of the intended locations. More cases were handled and with better success.

In recent years, the thinking of the federation with respect to comity has been enriched by formal pronouncements upon such problems as (1) the proper attitude toward non-denominational community churches; (2) conditions under which a denominational church allotted an exclusive field may function as a community church; (3) the residual responsibility for a field from which a church is removing.

Important relationships have meanwhile been adjusted and far-reaching problems tentatively approached. Thus at the request of the State Council of Churches, the federation has assumed responsibility with respect to comity in the entire Philadelphia suburban area in Pennsylvania.

The requirement of a survey in the event of protest of location has been gradually strengthened. Additional requirements, worked out through controversy, include the following: That surveys should be made by the committee only, and not by the interested denominations; that they should be made promptly and at the expense of the denomination proposing the new location. In view of the long delays sometimes naturally intervening between the allocation of a field and its actual occupancy by a denomination, resolutions of recent date require a denomination that has been granted such a field to give notice of actual measures to perfect occupancy and to receive reauthorization from the comity committee before actually beginning work.

With respect to new and sparsely settled areas, the ideal has grown up that churches should be allotted exclusive parishes a mile in diameter. ' |

Certain subsidiary policies looking toward a more complete and positive conception of comity have developed; for example, that of making general surveys in various districts in advance of particular proposals by{denominations. Again, the denominations have been periodically called upon to file lists of all new work under contemplation, so that all current proposals might be considered in relation to one another.

In general, what lies behind these developments of policy is the growing habit of the denominational leaders in their official capacities to recognize and work in harmony with the comity committee. As a result, the Philadelphia federation now has a fairly complete theory of comity and a reasonably adequate system of practice. A similar course of evolution has taken place in other cities. Some have come on faster and gone farther, others more slowly and less far.

fo) CHURCH COMITY

RELATIONSHIPS COMITY WITHIN THE FEDERATION MOVEMENT

The practice of ecclesiastical comity in cities has already been identified as no detached phenomenon, but rather as an integral part of the movement of Protestant church federation. By virtue of this relationship it operates within certain special limitations. These should be understood at the outset.

First of all, the federation movement has geographical limitations which comity shares. The movement has little vogue in the South; and in cities on or near the border comity is practiced so feebly as to give clear evidence of its regional limitation. Of nearly two dozen cities of over one hundred thousand population which were studied on this point, Louisville was the only one whose federation failed to have a committee on comity, and Louisville naively introduces into its constitution this apologetic statement, ““Comity on the location of churches has been contemplated, but action was deferred until such time as the judgment of all members of the Council deems it advisable to establish such plan of work.” This time is not coming very rapidly south of the Ohio River.

Again, Negro churches, though rarely excluded in theory, are rarely included in fact within the working scope of comity practice. As a group, the churches have not achieved the degree of discipline and capacity for internal codperation that is necessary to make comity work.

Even beyond this, comity .s incomplete in denominational scope. A few denominations (aggregating, to be sure, but small memberships) are exc'uded as non-evangelical. Others, including some of wie larger ones, are partially self-excluded; that ss .« say. nile individual churches from within the ranks o! chese denominations may practice comity, the denominational tradition as a whole does not countenance it. This leaves serious gaps in the ranks of united Protestantism at this point. There is no fully satisfactory remedy for the

THE EVOLUTION OF COMITY II evils of competitive maladjustment while important representatives in the major denominations stand outside of the processes.

Finally, even denominations fully connected with federations, and professing the practice of comity, are not equally loyal to it. Differences between liturgical and non-liturgical churches, between the two theological wings of certain evangelical bodies, between the churches of English-speaking and non-English-speaking antecedents, work out into differences of church extension policy, and yield situations sometimes more and sometimes less pliable under comity handling.

All told then, while the evidence points to comity as something that has come to stay, its victory is by no means complete; nor can the victory of cooperative good will ever be won in merely one single field. The real problem is whether comity is having its share of success among the entire group of forces operating constructively within the church federation movement for more efficient Protestant codperation. And this only the present report in its totality can answer.

COMITY WITHIN THE CITY BUILDING PROCESSES

The expansion of the city church is a piece of the expansion of the city itself. Materially and institutionally, the churches constitute no inconsiderable items among urban phenomena. “hex are numerous, widely scattered, conspicuous, and rerrcsent vast investments. Idealism is trying to direct city growth in many phases, and the particular idealism represented 1 in the doctrine ard practice of comity 1s a stream running along beside other streams, deriving from common sources and emptying into a single one

An enumeration of a few contacts occurring “‘requently in comity experience will serve to show how weighty are its relationships with other constructive movements for the betterment of cities.

Thus, like other practical enterprises involving geographical extension of institutions throughout cities, comity is confronted by restrictions growing out of the ideals of city builders in other spheres. The attempted location of churches often conflicts with real estate restrictions or zoning ordinances. Current standards of city planning will not permit the establishment of a church that cannot make an investment in keeping with that of other enterprises of a given neighborhood. A church building, for example, must cost say six times the lot upon which it is located. These requirements sometimes work hardship; but in general they have a very tonic effect upon church practice, the standards of the children of this generation frequently being more creditable in material things than the standards of the children of light.

Another set of exceedingly intricate problems, faced alike by city planning and by comity practice, concern the relation of city and suburbs. Together these two constitute a single metropolitan community. But the respective functions, rights, and duties of the center and the circumference, and the normal and wholesome balance between them, are unsettled. In general, the city has never come to satisfactory terms with its suburbs. Comity comes into collision with this problem in many cities. The city’s churches may fall under different ecclesiastical supervision from those of the outlying sections. A comity committee thoroughly representative of the city may not be at all adequately representative of the suburban fringe. This presbytery, for example, has jurisdiction in the city. Another presbytery, perhaps with headquarters in a smaller city outside of the metropolitan zone—one cherishing a definite anti-metropolitan bias—may have jurisdiction in the suburbs, where the most active problems of church location now lie. The officials of this second presbytery may scorn the codperative arrangements of their own denomination when it is sought to apply them outside of the corporate limits of the city. Thus even the cities in which comity is best established frequently have a secondary problem; namely, that of winning the suburban denominational forces to_recognize comity as applying to them. Essentially the same difficulty is shared by almost all phases of metropolitan planning. Thus four hundred municipalities have to be considered in determining the future of the Greater New York area. Comity merely has to face a small version of a general difficulty.

The social readjustments involved in city growth present another point at which comity shares some of the profoundest of urban problems. Here, for example, in a new suburb a population of superior economic and social standards is being imposed upon an old suburban area whose antecedents were strongly rural. The plain little homes of yesterday are outnumbered and out-moded. Paths must turn themselves into pavements and streets into boulevards. Easy-going village ways must be conventionalized on a more exacting plan. The old churches are distinctly not up to the demands of the newcomers. It is exceedingly hard to mix the two types of population. Something similar happens within the city limits when new populations, say of foreigners or Negroes, move in around old churches that are distinctly beyond them in economic and social tradition.

In brief, comity concerns some of the most complicated and vital problems of human adjustment in community living. It shares all the practical difficulties which the city faces in the process of growth. The church is under the necessity of making decisions that are at once extremely far-reaching and full of danger. But so are business enterprises, schools, and other community agencies that try to keep up with expanding cities. Comity involves a codperative undertaking of these adjustments and a common facing of these dangers through and in behalf of organized Protestantism.

The business of adequately churching cities is thus something to be conceived in more than ecclesiastical terms. The matter has to be raised to the level of scientific city planning. Neither as a mode of life nor as a piece of social machinery is the city fully understood; and it is far indeed from conquered. The entire process of urbanizing the human mind 1s full of profound adventure. This tremendous half-tamed creature, the metropolis, has now to be disciplined from the standpoint of religious organization, and no one can be sure that the Robot traits in the city will not get a strangle hold on all her living people, in their religious as well as their material interests.

SUMMARY

In view of the scope and variety of the situations for which the practice of comity has been applied, and of its rapid evolution and significant relationships, its claim to appreciative investigation as a piece of the phenomena of organized religion appears unquestionable. Comity provokes stirring challenges and presents striking alternatives.

On the one hand, it looks as though the practice of comity through church federations in cities has ushered in a new day for the urban church. Codperative planning in church extension is in actual force in most of the major American cities and among the major Protestant denominations. Few churches have been organized or relocated during the last ten years without consciously facing the question, How will this affect the churches of other denominations? And a very large number of new or readjusted churches have resulted from deliberate joint agreements on the part of the Protestant forces.