Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 86:341 (Jan 1929)
Article: Changing Social Conditions In One American City Community
Author: George Wales King

BSac 86:341 (Jan 1929) p. 54

Changing Social Conditions In One American City Community

And What Aggressive American Christianity Is Doing To Meet The Changing Conditions

George Wales King

What one thinks about a modern city depends upon his point of view. The aviator sees clusters of irregular boxes, strung on silver threads, flung along the curving bank of the Mississippi, and receding westward in the form of a huge fan. As he sees beneath him the myriads of pigmies moving restlessly about in the pursuit of happiness, he exclaims, “It is a great ant hill, this St. Louis!” To the candidate for public office, St. Louis is an aggregate of election districts, wards and precincts; of fickle or indifferent electors whose whims and caprices, through their exercise of the franchise, will make political fortunes, and will wreck many more aspirants’ hopes. To the Chamber of Commerce and kindred organizations, St. Louis is the embodiment of abundant opportunity for folks of initiative and resource; for them the future is most alluring and certain. More than a quarter-century ago there were men of vision, looking upon our city from afar, who prophesied that this great Mississippi valley would yet teem with population, and that St. Louis was destined to be the imperial center and the gateway to all this throbbing life. The fact is that St. Louis is not one city, but many cities. It is an artist’s city, as well as a center of trade and commerce. It is a city of music and municipal opera, of sculpture, of imposing civic architecture, as well as a unique world of social, benevolent and fraternal life. Our St. Louis Symphony Orchestra has won our city many friends throughout a wide area, while our public schools, colleges, theological seminaries, universities and graduate schools have attained an eminence that makes St. Louisans rejoice in that they are citizens of no mean city.

BSac 86:341 (Jan 1929) p. 55

The Christian church in St. Louis also is an imposing group of congregations of heroic, constructive influence even in the changing social conditions of this day and generation. It is criticized widely as self-centered, at ease within itself, indolent, short-sighted socially, and sharply challenged by radicals as unnecessary and out of date, yet its foundations stand sure, and in proportion as it is faithful to its Evangel, its witness for the glory of God is potent and far-reaching. In the face of all the materialism of this generation, of all the wealth and pomp and circumstance of modern St. Louis, the Christian church remembers the judgment of Jesus upon Jerusalem, the metropolis of his day; “and when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it.”

For the Christian social service worker’s view of St. Louis is necessarily...