Guest commentary by Michael Isaacs
In his memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” J.D. Vance tells an intertwined story of his life, the Eastern Kentucky-infused culture of Middletown, Ohio, and the white working class of the United States. In some ways, each narrative is representative of the others. As the pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Middletown, I realize that Vance’s experience of Middletown is vastly different from that of the majority of the people in the congregation I serve. We are trying to figure out together what that means.
Vance’s grandparents from Jackson, Kentucky, were recruited by Armco Steel to work in the mill in Middletown. That geographic migration was difficult for his family, and so was the social mobility associated with it. The white working class of Middletown, Ohio, was made up of poor, rural families from Eastern Kentucky. Middletown to this day is somewhat derisively referred to as Middletucky. Vance tells a story of learning to overcome some of the class limitations that he encountered, including a rotating door of father figures, family addiction, and the challenge of managing social mobility without understanding social capital.
The street names of Middletown read as a history of First Presbyterian Church. In many senses, members of this church built Middletown. Armco’s founder, George Verity, was a member. Some members of the congregation were recruited from Appalachian communities in Eastern Kentucky or West Virginia, though they worked predominantly in research and engineering. For the most part, it was members of our congregation who recruited for Armco the white working-class people whom Vance endearingly calls hillbillies—though I am not certain I am entitled to use that word freely.
Vance suggests those working-class jobs at the steel mill offered people in Appalachian communities a better life, and this was not an empty promise. The steel mill put on free concerts, funded community initiatives, and always had strong representation on city council. Executives were required to live in the city. Every day, I hear stories about something Armco quietly did for Middletown.
Flash forward to today: Middletown is now a city emblematic of the Rust Belt, with a heroin epidemic and schools struggling to meet state expectations. Vance writes that 20 percent of entering high school students will not graduate. I struggle to think of a family within my congregation with a child currently in the Middletown City Schools. That reality is not the fault of any of the dedicated educators in the system, either from the congregation or beyond. Vance says that when he returned to Middletown after graduating from college, he realized his optimism had turned him into an alien.
A theologian once advised me that every new pastor should stake off a ten-mile radius of his congregation and walk it. When I arrived in Middletown in November of 2015, I walked around the city and talked to business owners and passersby. The people I spoke to expressed frustration and disillusionment.
One person said everything was being torn down and nothing rebuilt. He described a place that once thrived as feeling unattended and forgotten. Another person was angry. He no longer felt safe in certain parts of downtown. He was concerned about the drug deals behind his business and other illicit transactions along Central Avenue. The people who were the most hopeful — those looking at the city’s emphasis on development in a downtown entertainment district — were the ones who had the most connection to my congregation, though I wonder if their hope has more to do with class than religious affiliation.
First Presbyterian Church is a congregation in search of an identity within a city where the future and cynicism have locked horns with one another. Vance describes a “brain drain” in Middletown, with the people who have resources often leaving for places with greater opportunities. He notes that in post-industrial cities, people with the means to move out often do so, leaving behind communities of poor people. He notices that every groomsman from his wedding has moved out of Middletown.
Each passing generation in my nearly 200-year-old congregation has more children living in nearby Cincinnati or Dayton. Retired doctors and lawyers in the congregation have always lived in Middletown; most of Middletown’s current professionals commute from the suburbs of Cincinnati and Dayton. In 1993, Armco merged with the Japanese company Kawasaki, forming AK Steel. In 2007, AK Steel moved the Middletown offices 30 minutes south. For First Presbyterian Church, there are no new retired steel executives to participate in the life of our ministry.
Our membership topped off in the 1960s with around 2,000 members. On any given Sunday, we now have between 150-200 people in worship. It is a challenge for us to conceive what ministry looks like for us today and tomorrow. We are a people who like to succeed. We do our best to hide our failures. Many of us are perfectionists. We love our city and don’t like negative stories being told about it. The long-decline in membership or the increasing risk of having a shortfall in the program budget undoubtedly feels like a letdown for our folks. We are trying to learn a new language to evaluate our ministry for effectiveness and growth: How faithful are we being to Jesus Christ? Perhaps that is the only thing worth measuring; everything else seems to be outside of our control. We are not used to that reality, and we don’t particularly care for it.
We won’t measure our faithfulness to Jesus Christ by doubling down on the past. Our historic identity seems more and more alien in the Middletown of today. If we are now the wandering Arameans in a place we feel we know so well, where might Jesus ask us to wander to trust God and be received in new ways?
Watching the congregation respond to “Hillbilly Elegy” is encouraging. After a committee discussion on the practice of hospitality, one elder said, “I am reading this book right now. And I wouldn’t know how to welcome this population at our church.” Another commented on Facebook that she appreciated the book because a little sympathy goes a long way.
It would be easy to say that we are becoming more alien because we are hope-filled people living in a city on the brink of change, and if we are not a hope-filled people, I am not interested participating in the ministry of Jesus Christ. We are also increasingly alien because the demographics in our community have radically shifted. While we know how to give $500 in utility assistance each month, winter coats to Rosa Parks Elementary School, backpacks for the new school year, and weekend lunches for students who are food insecure, we find it harder to give ourselves.
Here is the rub: I am pastor of a congregation that is largely representative of WASP culture (white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant): professional, astute, highly educated, well-traveled, and sometimes a bit too stoic. Presbyterians are the second most highly educated Christian denomination. We are used to setting agendas and plans, and to unflinchingly wielding cultural influence. We have so much to offer as a people to our community, and they have so much to offer us. The future of our ministry is not based on our primarily being “givers,” even as we offer the best of who we are. We need to be received into this alien place. We need to be welcomed into the place we helped build.
That is utterly perplexing to me. And, perhaps, it is the place we can be faithful to Jesus Christ.
Michael Isaacs is the pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Middletown, Ohio.
