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VALARIE SCHOMMER: Every soul is a Catholic in my relation. And that's all we believe in. That's all we've grown up with. That's what we believe in.

BONNIE ROSEN: It was very easy to be Jewish in a big town. You just took your Jewishness for granted. Everything's done for you, and it's a lot harder here.

TED: I feel like an outsider in a way, an outsider on the inside. Benedict Arnold, that's how I feel if they discovered, if they discovered my feelings.

NARRATOR: Small towns in Minnesota are essentially Christian places. It's apparent when you drive through almost any small town. Churches occupy prominent spaces. They're often the oldest and largest buildings in town. Sociologists suggest, though, that rural people are not more religious than people in big cities. The difference is in the everybody-knows-everything-about-everybody nature of small towns. In large cities, the anonymous quality of life makes religion a more personal matter.

But in small towns, where everyone's Sunday morning comings and goings can be observed at a glance, religion permeates everything. Go into the grocery store for a loaf of bread, and you're not just a customer to the person behind the counter. Chances are you're a fellow parishioner, or you attend the other church in town, or you're the rare Jew or the rare nonbeliever. In any case, your religious affiliation is known, and it matters. That's true in the Minnesota communities we'll visit in the next hour.

[CHURCH BELLS]

The church is the first thing you notice about Lastrup, Minnesota. It seems too large, out of proportion for a village with 150 residents. It sits up on a gentle rise overlooking the handful of buildings that make up the business district in this sleepy farm town 40 miles North of Saint Cloud.

On this bright wintry afternoon the church is filled to overflowing as the townspeople come together to celebrate the marriage of two of their own.

[ORGAN MUSIC]

PRIEST: Good afternoon.

ALL: Good afternoon, [INAUDIBLE].

PRIEST: I want to welcome all of you to this happy and joyous occasion when Ryan and Valarie and have pledged themselves to each other, to a life of happiness and joy.

NARRATOR: Valarie Schommer and Ryan Hoheisel stand in front of the altar at Saint John's Catholic Church in Lastrup. They're both wearing all white. They look young and innocent and nervous. They're flanked by six women in red satin dresses and six men in dark tuxedos and red bow ties.

PRIEST: I, Ryan Hoheisel.

RYAN HOHEISEL: Ryan Hoheisel.

PRIEST: Take you, Valarie Schommer.

RYAN HOHEISEL: Take you Valarie Schommer.

PRIEST: To be my wife.

RYAN HOHEISEL: To be my wife.

PRIEST: I, Valarie Schommer.

VALARIE SCHOMMER: I, Valarie Schommer.

PRIEST: Take you, Ryan Hoheisel.

VALARIE SCHOMMER: Take you, Ryan Hoheisel.

PRIEST: To be my husband.

VALARIE SCHOMMER: To be my husband.

PRIEST: I promise to be--

NARRATOR: Valarie and Ryan are both Catholic. They grew up in this church. As children, they took their first communion at the same ornate, carved altar they now stand in front of. Both sets of parents were married here under the same watchful eyes of the stained glass saints. Ryan's father and grandfather are buried in the cemetery just outside the door.

VALARIE SCHOMMER: You can't understand the feeling in your heart to know that your parents are so behind you. They are so proud that you're Catholic. They are so proud that you found somebody. Just the warm feeling that you're so used to everybody and you know all the friends around you.

PRIEST: Lord, you have shared the food of your table. Pray for our friends Valarie and Ryan, whom you have joined together in marriage. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

NARRATOR: This is Catholic country. In Lastrup and nearby Pierz, over 90% of the people are Catholic. Valarie Schommer says almost all of the 400 wedding guests that crammed the old oak pews in Saint John's are Catholic.

VALARIE SCHOMMER: Everyone in my relation is Catholic. There's not one soul that isn't. Every soul is a Catholic in my relation. And that's all we believe in. That's all we've grown up with. That's what we believe in. I don't think I even felt there was a different religion until I started going to Saint Cloud and working--

NARRATOR: Pierz and Lastrup are located in Morrison County, which has the highest percentage of Catholics in Minnesota, more than 60% of the population. The two counties just to the South, Benton and Stearns, are both well over half Catholic. This pocket of Catholicism was the work of a Slovenian-born missionary priest in the mid-1800s. Father Francis Pierz encouraged German farmers to come and take advantage of the rich farmland of Central Minnesota. Once here, he helped them establish the Catholic churches and schools that remain focal points of community life. In Lastrup, the parish priest, Father Sylvester Gall, says the whole town revolves around Saint John's.

SYLVESTER GALL: The parish is, in one way, the big entity and the big unifying thing that there is a little bit of a civil overhang because one of the streetlights is being paid for by the church. And part of the streets was paved, tarred by the church. So after all, it's their church and it's their street and it's their street lights.

NARRATOR: The Catholic church also owns and operates the school buses in the public school district, which includes the town of Pierz and the smaller communities of Lastrup, Harding, and Buckman. 3/4 of the elementary school students here go to parochial school, one of the highest percentages of parochial attendance in the state.

(SINGING) Silent night

Holy night

All is calm

All is bright.

NARRATOR: This year's school Christmas program in Lastrup plays to a full church. All 90 students at Saint John's Catholic elementary school take part. The nativity scene includes a Cabbage Patch doll resting in a burlap-covered manger. Joseph wears a bathrobe and a dishtowel on his head. Mary wears a halo.

MARY: What is the meaning of Christmas? Why does the world feel this way?

CHILD: It means Alleluia, praise the Lord.

ALL: Alleluia, praise the Lord.

NARRATOR: The audience is filled with parents and grandparents snapping pictures, nodding encouragement, trying to keep younger brothers and sisters quiet. While other parochial schools around the state and country have closed down, the Catholic elementary schools in this part of the state are going strong. They're an expensive proposition, though. In tiny Lastrup, the school is the major expense in the church budget. The small parish must raise $125,000 every year to operate the grade school. Father Gall.

SYLVESTER GALL: You might look at it as a hardship. But the sacrifices that they make so that the children grow up knowing God and honoring and glorifying him. God will never let them down. They're going to have more after it's all said and done. And they're going to have more happiness, more satisfaction, more peace of conscience and satisfaction than all the rest of them that don't. That's God's doings. He'll take care of that.

NARRATOR: The community's strong parochial school system is at the heart of a controversy that's been brewing in the Pierz school district since the turn of the century. Of the 600 elementary school students in the Pierz school district, only 150 attend the public school that is stuck way up on the district's Northern border. The building is old and cramped, but residents here refuse to finance a new public school when most of their children go to the Catholic school. They overwhelmingly defeated a school referendum twice last year. It's a situation that frustrates the district's non-Catholics.

Stewart and Paula Jensen live on a farm with their six children down in the Southwestern corner of the Pierz school district. The closest schools are Catholic. The only public grade school is 26 miles away. Stuart Jensen.

STUART JENSEN: We weren't raised Catholic and don't know exactly what they teach in their schools. I guess, not to say that we have no problem with the Catholics. But we just did not know that that's what we wanted our children to be raised as. And we've got our own beliefs and want to raise them that way.

NARRATOR: So the two school-aged Jensen children, Jessica and Rachel, ride the school bus a total of 2.5 hours a day to attend public school. On a recent frigid afternoon with the bus windows frosted with ice on the outside and inside, the trip seems to take forever.

SPEAKER 1: We have three buses on the way home. Clara, she takes me from Harding to Pierz. And then Jeanette takes me from Pierz to Buckman. And then Roger takes me from Buckman to home.

SPEAKER 2: Sometimes I'm sleepy when I get home.

NARRATOR: Stuart and Paula Jensen say the long daily bus ride upsets them, but they don't really have any options.

PAULA JENSEN: They get on the bus at 10 to 7:00, and they are not home until 4 o'clock. That's a very long day for kids.

STUART JENSEN: I'm taking 16 credits at Saint Cloud State, and I leave after they do in the morning, do all my classes. And I'm home before they're home in the evening, usually.

NARRATOR: Because all of the school buses in the Pierz district are owned and operated by the Catholic church, information about schedule changes is passed along from the pulpit Sunday mornings. The Jensen kids missed the bus the day the schedule changed because they had not attended the Catholic church the day before. Paula Jensen.

PAULA JENSEN: You're just outraged when you send your child on what you believe to be a public school bus to a public school and find out you have to be in a specific church on a Sunday morning in order to find out that there has been a change.

NARRATOR: Although they've lived in Pierz for 10 years now, Paula and Stuart Jensen say they still don't feel a part of the community.

STUART JENSEN: If you don't go to the church in town or one of the towns, you're a stranger. And you go in stores, you don't know anybody. Nobody knows you, and-- that's how people know who people are here is through the church.

PAULA JENSEN: And everybody's related.

[LAUGHTER]

Everybody's related to everybody. I've never seen anything like it.

NARRATOR: It's not just newcomers like the Jensens that have problems with the Catholic atmosphere of the Pierz area. 91-year-old Gertrude [? Feicht ?] is a lifetime resident. Her grandfather Herman Billig was the first white settler in Pierz. He built a log cabin on the banks of the Skunk River in 1865 and hosted the first Catholic services in his home that same year.

Gertrude, who lives in the Pierz nursing home, says she hasn't been inside a Catholic church since 1922.

[? GERTRUDE FEICHT: ?] Well, I tell you what. One fella says, never go to a town that's got only one steeple. You fall into trouble. [INAUDIBLE] this had only one steeple. The priests run it.

NARRATOR: [? Fiecht's ?] problems with the Catholic church started over 80 years ago. Her parents, devoted Catholics, campaigned to get a public school built in Pierz. It was the beginning of a long and bitter fight.

[? GERTRUDE FEICHT: ?] Those on the North side, they were for parochial. We in the South side were all public. And there was fights. Wow, dynamite set up by the parish house. All kinds of things. Afterwards, the public school that was there was fired, burnt just 10 days before the school opening. And he thought that's how they could kill the public school. That's going on since 1905. And it's going on right now yet.

NARRATOR: Jim Waytashek is a recent victim of the public school/parochial school controversy. A staunch Catholic, Waytashek was born and raised in Pierz. But his vocal support of a new public elementary school cost him a longtime position on the Pierz school board. Waytashek was defeated last year by a candidate who campaigned against a new public school.

JIM WAYTASHEK: I was told that it was even in a sermon, that one of the pastors came out and said, they had to put their own people on the board. I've heard that they say, well, if you're don't attend to parochial school, you're not a good Catholic. Well, I guess I disagree with that because I know lots of people who are separately good Catholics, who never attended a Catholic school a day in their life. Just because you attended a parochial school does not make you a good Catholic.

NARRATOR: Waytashek runs one of the many dairy farms in the area. He was born here on the farm that spreads out on a gentle hilltop just East of Pierz. A statue of Mary inside a fiberglass shrine sits in the snow-covered yard between the house and the barn. Waytashek and his wife Jan go about their chores with the rhythm of a team that has worked together a long time. When they started dating in the '50s, they were considered a mixed couple. He was Catholic. She was Lutheran. Jan Waytashek said her father was very hurt when she decided to marry a Catholic.

JAN WAYTASHEK: He was one of the very many people that thought the Catholics, once they took over, like a presidency or whatever, they would run the world and try to put their religion onto you or I or whoever. I think that's what they really thought.

NARRATOR: Jan Waytashek says there was little question who would convert when she and Jim decided to get married. She took instruction and joined the Catholic church 30 years ago. The Wituscheks' six children all attended the same school their father had, Saint Joseph's Parochial School, a sturdy two-story brick building in the middle of Pierz.

[? MARCELLA BORAS: ?] Let's open our books to page 108 this morning. Let's have Jason, would you read, please?

JASON: Today we know these brave settlers as the pilgrims. In England, where they lived, the law said that there was only one church, the Church of England. The pilgrims had different ideas. In England they resented jails for their beliefs.

NARRATOR: Marcella [? Boras's ?] fourth grade class at Saint Joseph's Catholic School in Pierz is in the middle of a social studies lesson.

[? MARCELLA BORAS: ?] It's very, very important to us to know that all of these freedoms we have in America, but we're not thrown in jail for them if we don't abuse them. We can be a Catholic. We can be-- we talked about some people are Lutheran. Some people are Baptists. Some people are Protestant. But are we today thrown in jail for our religious beliefs, class?

ALL: No.

MARCELLA BORAS: No, that's really something very, very important to us.

NARRATOR: Principal Sharon Bichler says at Saint Joseph's school they try to incorporate religion into everyday lessons. It's also important, Bichler says, in this all Catholic community to teach the children that there are other faiths in the world.

SHARON BICHLER: You have to expose them to it, or they'll never know that it's there. They're not going to come in contact with many other religions other than Catholic really, unless their relatives are of a different faith.

[CHILDREN CHATTERING]

NARRATOR: Twice a week, the elementary students file across the street to attend mass in the huge Gothic church with the steeple that can be seen for miles in all directions. They noisily settle into the hard wooden pews, a knot of students for each watchful teacher.

(SINGING) Hallelujah, hallelujah.

PRIEST: The Lord be with you. A reading from the Holy gospel according to John.

ALL: [INAUDIBLE]

PRIEST: And Jesus said to his disciples--

NARRATOR: Saint Joseph's Catholic Church is the gathering place, the social center, the religious home for almost everybody who lives in Pierz. Father Robert Landsberger has been here for five years.

ROBERT LANDSBERGER: There's some really marvelous people here that really have the faith. And in fact, that way is better than most parishes. It really is. If you have a choice of all the parishes of the diocese, then Pierz would be up there pretty high as far as the real faith is concerned.

NARRATOR: Landsberger and almost all of his parishioners are of German descent. In the old days, the sermons were delivered in German. Now, the only German spoken is in the confessional. Landsberger says he knows just enough of the language to translate their sins.

ROBERT LANDSBERGER: The Germans have their certain good qualities. They're willing to work hard. The Germans are hard workers. They're willing to be disciplined. Germans love discipline. And they're willing to-- and when they're committed to something, boy, they stick to it. They love their faith, and boy, they're going to stick to it no matter what. See? That's a good quality.

NARRATOR: Pierz' German heritage is reflected in the town's number one tourist attraction, Thielen's Meat Store.

JOHN THIELEN: This is our fresh pork section. Then we get to the fresh beef. And then as you go down we come to our sausage products. We have a homemade bratwurst.

NARRATOR: Manager John Thielen's German grandparents started this store in 1926. Today, it's one of the larger employers in this town of 1,000 people. Six men work side by side in the gleaming white kitchen behind the long meat counter.

[SAW WHIRRING]

They're making sausage, grinding beef, and keeping an eye on the two steaming smokehouses filled with homemade country Polish sausage. The sharp smell of burning woodchips and roasting meat fills the store and spills out onto the street. It's almost always busy at Thielen Meats. John Thielen says his regular customers come as far as 60 miles to shop here. Tourists on their way up to the North woods stop off in the summer to fill up their coolers. Thielen says there's slow business days in this Catholic town. Come on Fridays during Lent.

JOHN THIELEN: People do really-- they still will observe the Lenten absence of meat on Fridays. Yeah. We sell a lot more fish during Lent than we normally do.

LEROY HOHEISEL: My name is Leroy Hoheisel. I'm mayor of Pierz. I've had this position for two years and will have it for two more.

NARRATOR: All of the elected officials in Pierz are Catholic, including Hoheisel, the entire council, the treasurer. They all worship at the same church, but Leroy Hoheisel says there is a clear division between the city and the church.

LEROY HOHEISEL: The church has their financial things to do, status, whatever. And so does the city. So it's two different businesses really.

NARRATOR: But that separation was a new concept for the Germans that settled the Pierz area. Rural sociologist Jim Creel.

JIM CREEL: Remember, most of the people who came to this country came from countries where there was a state church. Separation of church and state was an American phenomenon.

NARRATOR: Most ethnic settlements in Minnesota have diversified over the years, but the Pierz-Lastrup area remains almost exclusively German Catholic. Creel, who works for the Blandin Foundation in Grand Rapids, attributes that to a number of factors.

JIM CREEL: There's lots of dairy farming out there. Those farms get passed from generation to generation. They're very good compared to other ethnic groups, and this holds for Germans across the Midwest-- insofar as studies that I'm aware of-- are very good at expanding their holdings. They'll save their money. When Davey grows up and gets married and wants to buy a farm, we'll have the money to help him put some money down, and we'll help him pay the rent. And besides that, that's what Davey and his wife want to do. That's what the educational system provided. That's what family values provided. Being a success does not mean going to the cities.

NARRATOR: Valarie Schommer and her groom Ryan Hoheisel say they have no desire to leave Pierz. Their dream includes buying a dairy farm and making a living the same way their parents did.

VALARIE SCHOMMER: Well, last fall when we got engaged we thought, let's farm. My fiance was pretty iffy about it. He wasn't sure. But I said, let's buy a bunch of heifer calves. If we decide to farm, we got them. If we don't, it's just like a savings. Now they're well over-- yeah, now they're going to be almost a year old, and they're doing great.

RYAN HOHEISEL: 24 of them.

VALARIE SCHOMMER: We can name every one for you.

RYAN HOHEISEL: Yeah.

VALARIE SCHOMMER: Freckles was our first one.

NARRATOR: In the meantime, Valarie and Ryan continued to commute to their jobs. Ryan, who works construction in the Twin Cities, travels over 200 miles a day to get back and forth from Pierz. Valarie drives 80 miles every day to her office job at a large manufacturing company in Saint Cloud. But she says it's worth it to live in the community they grew up in.

VALARIE SCHOMMER: Everyone you know goes to church on Sunday. You know that once during the week you're going to see everybody. And I just love Catholics because I think they are so giving. I'm not saying other people aren't, but this area is just so wonderful because everybody thinks about God. Everybody tries to think about God. Everybody tries to do the right thing. And in doing that you're going to be friendly. You're going to be warm. You're going to be outgoing. And it just makes it a nice area to live in.

SPEAKER 3: Ladies and gentlemen, I'm very happy to present you with Mr. and Mrs. Ryan Hoheisel.

(SINGING) [INAUDIBLE] bread and wine

We'll share each others dreams and life

Hand in hand we'll make our way

Our wedding day

In a while the anger's gone

And we forget--

[SINGING FADES]

NARRATOR: More than a million Minnesotans are Catholic, 1/4 of the population. Mennonites, by contrast, don't even register 1%. Statewide, there are fewer than 3,000 Mennonites. The largest share of them live in Mountain Lake, a town of 2,200 in Southwestern Minnesota. Mennonites are often associated with the Amish, who are known for their frugality, their simple way of life, and their pacifism. Mennonites were once part of the same religious movement as the Amish, and some present day Mennonites are nearly as conservative and unworldly as are the Amish. Mountain Lakes Mennonites are not so far removed from secular society, but their presence does make Mountain Lake unique in Minnesota.

Walk the streets of Mountain Lake, and you'll get no immediate clue that 1/2 the town's population is Mennonite. Mountain Lake seems like any other struggling farm belt community of the 1980s. The cars on Main Street are American sedans and pickups. There's not a horse-drawn carriage in sight. The people wear jeans and colorful ski jackets, not black hats or long, dark dresses. And in order to see homes with no electricity and no telephones, you have to go to the edge of Mountain Lake, to the Heritage House Museum.

HENRY CLEAVER: The old pioneers built quite a few buildings like this on the farm. But the only difference was they had larger barns because they had a lot of animals.

NARRATOR: Henry Cleaver shows a guest around an old settler's homestead, which is part of the museum. Cleaver has lived in Mountain Lake for all of his 84 years. His parents were among the Mennonites who emigrated to this spot of prairie from czarist Russia in the 1870s. It's said they picked this spot because it reminded them of the Ukrainian flatlands from which they'd come. Those immigrants spoke a low German dialect. They were German, Dutch, Danish, and Swiss Mennonites who'd gone to Russia to avoid military service in their countries. Cleaver explains it was when the tsar began imposing the draft on them that they came to America.

HENRY CLEAVER: The Mennonite people have a strong tradition against conflict or war and such. So that was the main reason they left there. And when they found out about the vast area that was open in America, why, they thought that was the way to go.

NARRATOR: The Mennonites are a small denomination. There are only 200,000 to 300,000 of them in all of North America. The Mennonites ancestors were the Anabaptists, who broke away from the early Protestants in the 1500s over disputes about baptism. The Anabaptists split into several groups, including the Mennonites and the Amish. Donovan Diller, pastor of Bethel Mennonite Church in Mountain Lake, says the Amish and the Mennonites parted company in 1599. That's when Amish leaders declared that to keep up with cultural changes in dress and farming technology was worldly. And they equated worldliness with sin.

DONOVAN DILLER: The leaders of the Mennonite Church, which have continued the Mennonite Church, at that point said, hey, wait a minute. Just changing culture is not sin. Just because you change a dress and have a new style, that's not sin. And it was over those things that the churches then separated.

NARRATOR: Still, there are Mennonites, mainly in Pennsylvania and Canada, who dress and live as frugally and simply as the Amish. Diller says the difference is that the Mennonites are free to choose their own way. They differ widely from one sect to another and even from church to church. In Mountain Lake, there are five Mennonite churches of varying stripes. All Mennonites still differ from most other denominations in baptizing their young people in their teen years rather than in infancy.

But most of the Mennonites in Mountain Lake seem more comfortable comparing themselves with mainstream Lutherans and Presbyterians than with the Amish. Henry Cleaver says, in the last couple of wars, perhaps 1/2 of Mountain Lakes' Mennonites who were drafted served in the military rather than declaring themselves conscientious objectors. And he says, it's common now for Mennonites to marry non-Mennonites, something he or his parents wouldn't have done.

HENRY CLEAVER: See? The old forefathers were brought up very strict. Well, as time went on, this relented a little more, a little more. And like I say now, they're keeping up some of these traditions. But it isn't nearly what it used to be.

NARRATOR: Maybe it's not what it used to be, but religion is still a powerful force in Mountain Lake. This is a church-going town. Besides the five Mennonite churches, there are five more representing other Protestant denominations. There's a church for every 200 people. And turnouts are good, not only on Sunday mornings, but on Wednesday nights as well.

(SINGING) Do Lord, oh, do Lord, oh, do remember me

Do Lord, oh, do Lord, oh, do remember me

NARRATOR: Bethel Mennonite is the largest Mennonite Church in Mountain Lake. About hundred people gather at Bethel on Wednesday nights for children's activities and adult Bible classes. These elementary school kids are in one of several adventure clubs, groups in which they play games, sing songs, and study the Bible.

ALL: From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded. And from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. [INAUDIBLE] Luke 12:48b.

SHELLA FRANZ: We just found that the club program promoted more enthusiasm among the kids.

NARRATOR: Shella Franz coordinates the Wednesday night children's activities at Bethel Mennonite.

SHELLA FRANZ: I think they're feeling more ownership in the church or more belonging to the church. And this gives them a good chance to invite other kids to our church and expand the church body a little bit.

NARRATOR: Franz says much of what goes on at Bethel Mennonite on Wednesday nights and, for that matter, on Sunday mornings would be familiar fare in other Protestant churches. What's particularly Mennonite, she says, is an emphasis on service to others, on social action. That's something one hears a lot about in Mountain Lake.

SHELLA FRANZ: We've got Mennonite missionaries over in Taiwan, who are helping to build churches, to teach the people better nutrition, Sunday school classes, teach them English. And the Taiwan--

NARRATOR: Over at First Mennonite Church Donna Lepp teaches a Wednesday night children's class about Taiwan.

DONNA LEPP: Now, tonight we're going to be eating. We're going to be cooking. All of you will be cooking and eating tuna egg foo young.

[GAGGING]

Which will be delicious. It's kind of like--

NARRATOR: Two children in Lepp's class of 8 through 12-year-olds have already lived overseas with their missionary parents. The National Council of Churches says Mennonites proportionately spend far more money than most other denominations on overseas relief and missionary efforts. University of Minnesota rural sociologist George Donahue says most small-town churches don't reach very far past the spiritual needs of their congregations. But he says the Mennonites are an exception.

GEORGE DONOHUE: They see their religion as permeating their entire life and governing the way in which they view their life. So they would be more involved. Church is not a Sunday affair.

NARRATOR: Last fall, eight Mountain Lake Mennonites went to Nicaragua to help clean up after a hurricane. And Laotian refugees, who've settled in Mountain Lake, are getting free English lessons and other help at the Evangelical Mennonite Brethren Church. That church's pastor is Jim Brandt.

JIM BRANDT: We're quite ready to lend a hand, quite ready to share our money, quite ready to give to those in need. And so when people say we're conservative, yes, in some ways we're terribly conservative. In some ways, we're terribly liberal.

[LAUGHTER]

NARRATOR: Mountain Lake's Mennonites seem to welcome the chance to explain themselves. As a small religious group, they're used to being misunderstood and even discriminated against. Irma Harder, who is 70 and member of Bethel Mennonite Church, tells of having trouble finding a job when she moved to the Twin Cities in the 1940s. She says employers were wary when they heard she was from that strange sect down in Mountain Lake. She also says that during the Second World War enough Mountain Lake men filed as conscientious objectors for the town to be considered unpatriotic by its neighbors.

IRMA HARDER: Of course, there was an intense rivalry between Jackson and Mountain Lake and Windom and Mountain Lake. They were both larger towns, and they would sometimes call us yellow, or they'd call us [? Roosians ?] in just a nagging little way just because some of them did believe in nonviolence. There are a lot of fellows who went in the service, though, too. And some of them, of course, didn't come back.

NARRATOR: Mountain Lake's Mennonites also have a reputation for abstention from alcohol. Whether that reputation is earned depends on who you ask. Pastor Diller of Bethel Mennonite guesses that only about 1 in 10 of his parishioners drinks. He points out that there's no liquor store in Mountain Lake. And the only bar in town, Walt's Rec, is allowed by local ordinance to serve nothing stronger than beer. But Walt Krahn, who owns Walt's Rec, says such facts are misleading.

WALT KRAHN: This town isn't any different than any other town as far as drinking is concerned. They drink just as much as any place else. They just don't do it in town.

NARRATOR: Krahn says he was raised Mennonite but now attends Mountain Lake's Presbyterian Church with his wife. He says his bar does good business, though it's empty on this weekday afternoon. Krahn says a lot of Mountain Lake people go out of town to do their drinking because they're afraid of being seen.

WALT KRAHN: People here, they just been brought up that way, and they're just keeping on that way. I thought by the time I got my age it would change a little. But some of these people that are my age, and even some younger, they've been drilled in it so hard that they just aren't going any other way. There's a lot of good people. They're very good people. It's just that one way of thinking, and that's all.

NARRATOR: Mennonite Irma Harder insists that Mountain Lake people are not narrow minded. She says they're basically tolerant and accepting of one another despite differences in belief or behavior. But she says most people in town know which church everyone else belongs to and that it does matter.

IRMA HARDER: Just sometimes in talking, then we'll talk about something. And then they'll say, well, so and so belongs to that church. They probably wouldn't go along with it. It's never-- you wouldn't say it in front of them ever. But it does happen occasionally. I think it's getting less and less.

NARRATOR: John Friesen and Karna Jungas are seniors at Mountain Lake High School. Both are members of Bethel Mennonite. They say their church is probably the most liberal Mennonite Church in town as far as things like drinking and dancing are concerned. They say among their friends, mostly Mennonites and Lutherans, religion is mainly a source of friendly joking.

JOHN FRIESEN: Kind of like a joke between the two-- it's like the Mennonites and the Lutherans basically. And the Mennonites have their potato salad, the potato salad that they mix in the [INAUDIBLE] and the [INAUDIBLE] and the cold baloney and cold ham. And the Lutherans is the thing that there's the communion line with the cup, and it's a continuous circle that they keep on going around and around. So it's just kind of ribbing, but it's nothing religious gangs or anything. We're not the Crusades or anything.

NARRATOR: But Karna Jungas says there have been tensions for school-aged members of Mountain Lake's more conservative Mennonite churches.

KARNA JUNGAS: It's like they couldn't go to dances that the school wanted to have.

JOHN FRIESEN: They would organize--

KARNA JUNGAS: They would organize youth activities for the same night so that the kids couldn't go. Now it's more open than it was. But for so long, it was a competition between the kids because they wanted to go to the other churches that could go to dances. But their parents wouldn't let them.

NARRATOR: Pastor Brandt of Evangelical Mennonite Brethren, one of the stricter churches in Mountain Lake, says his church no longer forbids teenagers to attend school dances and parties. But he says parents in the church are encouraged to exercise judgment.

JIM BRANDT: Our whole attitude, particularly on teenage relationships, is quite, I guess, quite old fashioned in some ways. We're very happy about that. We like to see our kids develop many good friendships and then that special friendship to be developed and a marriage and a family established and this kind of virtues.

And yeah, you'd find some that wouldn't exactly be real pleased with the way things run at some parties and some goings on. And so they just prefer not to let their kids go. They wouldn't tell you that's because they're Mennonites. They'd say that's because they're concerned about the moral values and that kind of thing. And I think they very rightly have reason to take that attitude.

NARRATOR: But such attitudes, of course, don't always go over well with young people. Mountain Lake's High School principal Steve [? Broughton ?] is a non-Mennonite who moved to town three years ago. He says the wide divergence between the moderate and the conservative Mennonites creates problems. And he knows a number of young adults who've left the churches they were brought up in.

[? STEVE BROUGHTON: ?] Some of the Mennonite, maybe, traditional values in the church have changed. And the elders have a different value than the younger people, which is maybe not so true in your Catholic or your Lutheran Church or your Methodist. Their values are the same as the parents, or very similar. And I think as these values are evolving I think there's some conflict that people have to deal with. And they have to find out where they're going.

NARRATOR: Most Mennonites here downplay the importance of changes in religious and moral values. 70-year-old Irma Harder says she's more concerned about Mountain Lake's economic survival. Like most towns its size, Mountain Lake is losing businesses on Main Street and having trouble keeping its young people. 17-year-old Karna Jungas says she's looking forward to going away to college next year and not because of the lack of jobs in Mountain Lake.

KARNA JUNGAS: I guess I will miss Mountain Lake some. My parents and all my family's here. But Mountain Lake is so conservative in certain ways. And certain churches are really conservative. And in that way, I don't know. The competition between the churches that I've heard of I won't miss.

NARRATOR: Pastor Jim Brandt says he was anxious to leave Mountain Lake as a young man, and he did for more than 15 years, working as a broadcaster in Chicago and Puerto Rico. He says Mountain Lake is like any small town. It has its hang-ups and gossip. But he says his time away gave him a special appreciation for his Mennonite heritage. He's sorry to see Mennonite tradition slipping and young people leaving town. But he says there's something more important than that.

JIM BRANDT: I would hope they've learned the principles of Jesus Christ so that they will carry over no matter where they go. And they may not be called Mennonites, but they'll sure know Jesus. And they'll be ready to obey him. And that is much more important than whether they lose their low German or don't know what [NON-ENGLISH] tastes like or any of those things.

(SINGING) God is so good, he's so good to me

He is [INAUDIBLE], he is [INAUDIBLE]

He is [INAUDIBLE], he's so good to me.

[HEBREW SPEECH]

NARRATOR: Five-year-old Elizabeth Rosen is sitting at home on the living room coffee table reciting the only Hebrew phrase she knows. Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, the prayer goes. Her sister Carolyn, who is 2, is squirming in the rocking chair. Several older siblings drift in and out of the room. Their parents, Bill and Bonnie Rosen have the couch. The Rosens are a Jewish family. They live in the West Central Minnesota community of Fergus Falls. They are the only Jews in town.

BILL ROSEN: I had a patient a week or two ago who said that he believed that there used to be a Jewish family here, one. But he thinks they may have died since. That was 30 or 40 years ago. So he wasn't so sure.

NARRATOR: The Rosens have lived in this town of 12,500 only since last July. They are native New Yorkers. Bill, a doctor specializing in urology, brought his family West to get away from large cities. Now he practices at a Fergus Falls clinic while Bonnie stays home with the children. There's been a lot to get used to, they say. This is a town full of Lutherans, with Lutheran buildings and radio shows. It is not at all like home.

BILL ROSEN: The difference between here and all the other places we've lived is this is the first place where there was not a synagogue. Here, the nearest synagogue is in Fargo, which is between 55 and 60 miles. In the other direction, there isn't a synagogue outside of the Twin Cities.

NARRATOR: Bill and Bonnie Rosen say they aren't especially religious. They are reformed Jews, the least strict of the three main branches of Judaism. And they rarely drive to Fargo for Friday services. But Bonnie says it's not the services they miss. It's the feeling of belonging, of living near others who share their beliefs and heritage.

BONNIE ROSEN: For me, what a temple represents is, I guess, basically traditional things. In Buffalo, I would take the children when they had a children's service, which was once a month. And they'd go on Sundays. But I guess just having a temple in your town, I didn't realize how important it was to me. And I feel very-- I guess there's a big void for me. And I feel very lost here without one.

NARRATOR: That void exists for most of Minnesota's rural Jews simply because there aren't very many of them. Of the state's estimated 33,000 Jewish people, all but about 500 live in the Twin Cities or in the smaller Metropolitan areas of Rochester, Duluth, and Saint Cloud. The rest are scattered in the small towns, a family here, two families there. And their numbers are dwindling. There are 12,000 fewer Jews in Minnesota than there were in the 1930s. Marilyn Chiat is an adjunct professor at the University of Minnesota who is researching the rural Jewish population.

MARILYN CHIAT: Many of the Jewish people were merchants. They were the merchants on Main Street. Main Street needs a viable economic condition in order to survive. The farmers have to be doing well. You do see the whole economic situation on in these small towns changing. And therefore, it's no longer attractive economically, at least, for a Jewish merchant to remain on Main Street. And it's hard for him to convince his son or daughter, often who have gone away to college, to come back into that town and continue to handle the family business.

NARRATOR: Ed Hartman is one of those who did come back to run the family business. His grandfather started Hartman Hide and Fur in Detroit Lakes in 1910. Ed now operates the business along with his brother and uncle. He says growing up Jewish was easy in Detroit Lakes because most of his extended family lived there, as did a number of other families. Now most of them have left. Only about a dozen Jews remain in the community.

ED HARTMAN: No question about it, it does make me feel sad. But at the same time it's understandable where they would want to go to a Metropolitan area where there were more of a Jewish population where they could interact if they did desire it. In a small town, you don't get that opportunity.

NARRATOR: While the rural Jewish population is shrinking, both Hartman and the Rosens consider themselves fortunate. Neither have been targets of anti-Semitism in their small towns. 13-year-old Randy Rosen says school's no problem, even though there are no other Jews in her class.

RANDY ROSEN: They get jealous when I get off for the Jewish holidays and also for their holidays. But about it. That's the only difference, really. I have friends here, and they're not Jewish. And they ask me a few questions but not really that much.

NARRATOR: Bonnie Rosen.

BONNIE ROSEN: I'll always go in if I'm asked to come in to speak about Hanukkah for one of the children's classes. And I'll go in, and I'll go through the whole story. In all the schools that the kids have been in, I'll explain about the holiday. And then the teacher will say, well, I want everybody to thank Mrs. Rosen for coming in and explaining how the Jewish people celebrate Christmas. And that's not what we're celebrating. And that's not anti-Semitism at all. It's just--

SPEAKER 4: [? Oppression. ?]

BONNIE ROSEN: It's-- I don't know what it is. I don't know what-- it's just--

BILL ROSEN: I have not run up against any anti-Semitism, and I really don't expect to. This community is strongly Lutheran. And in fact, we have had some run-ins from time to time, really the kids more than us. And those who are in communities that were much more strongly Catholic.

[ORGAN MUSIC]

NARRATOR: On a recent Sunday, Lutherans in their holiday best arrived for the annual Christmas Cantata at the first Lutheran Church in Fergus Falls. The Cantata is perhaps the biggest event of the year here. And First Lutheran is one of the biggest churches in town with about 600 souls in attendance each week. Pastor Duane Tollefson came to West Central Minnesota three years ago from a West Coast parish.

DUANE TOLLEFSON: You can't miss Lutheran churches. They're all over the place. Any town you drive into there's a Lutheran Church. You drive through the country and you see-- countryside here and you see signs saying [INAUDIBLE] Lutheran Church or Tingvold Lutheran or Stavanger Lutheran and it goes on and on and on. You look in any direction, and there's a steeple. And you can just about bet that's a Lutheran Church.

[CONGREGATION SINGING]

NARRATOR: The influence of the Christian church in Fergus Falls doesn't end with the closing hymn. One branch of Lutheranism, the Church of the Lutheran Brethren has its national headquarters here, along with a private boarding school and Bible college. Two of the city's three nursing homes are Lutheran-owned and operated. It's estimated that one of every 15 local jobs is connected with the Lutheran Church. That's a formidable economic impact and no less of a social one. When people meet in Fergus Falls, it is often around a New Testament.

[LIQUID POURING]

DUANE TOLLEFSON: OK, should we go to prayer? Heavenly Father, we thank you once again for this opportunity to gather in your name.

NARRATOR: In the basement of the Calico Rose restaurant on Main Street, a dozen men gather on Monday mornings for eggs and oatmeal and edification. They are farmers, attorneys, retailers, Lutherans, Methodists, Baptists. They've been meeting like this for going on eight years now, and recognize that for all their denominational differences their spiritual beliefs are mostly the same. They also recognize that a Jewish person might have trouble fitting into their group or their town. Attorney Oscar Sorlie.

OSCAR SORLIE: I would think it would be difficult to go to a community where there was nothing but Hindus or Muslims. I think the fellowship of whatever faith one has is important to that faith. And I don't know. I suppose individuals could exist in the community without that, but I would think it would be difficult.

[CAR DOOR CLOSES]

NARRATOR: The Temple Beth El in Fargo, North Dakota is small and plain. It's of sand-colored brick with square corners and a flat roof. Here, an hour's drive from Fergus Falls, the Rosens have their only fellowship with other Jews. Because of the distance, they rarely make it for Friday Sabbath services. But today is Sunday, the day for children's religious training.

WOMAN: No, you're getting there, all right? In other words, what did they eat in the desert?

NARRATOR: It's an average turnout this morning, about 20 kids divided into several classrooms. Some are studying the history of Jewish Holy days. Others are playing Bible games, quizzing each other about Moses or the Ten Commandments. A decade ago, there were twice as many kids here on Sunday mornings, and the temple had its own full-time rabbi. But the number of local Jews has shrunk dramatically. Now, a part-time student rabbi is the best they can do.

STEVEN MOSKOWITZ: It's hard to get to know people when you come in every other week and you have two lives.

NARRATOR: It's Rabbi Steven Moskowitz's weekend to run services at the Temple Beth El. He flew in on Friday from Rabbinical School in Cincinnati, as he does a couple of times a month. He says being a part-time leader is difficult, not only for him, but for the people who look to him for guidance and support.

STEVEN MOSKOWITZ: Being a rabbi to a congregation, I think really there's an aspect that care for people's lives and for the congregation. And to be halfway involved almost makes that a greater challenge. So there's tons more you could do or I could do if I was here every day.

NARRATOR: Without a full-time rabbi, members of the congregation say it's largely up to them to keep the synagogue's programs and classes going.

[? ORNA LEVINSON: ?] I'm [? Orna ?] [? Levinson ?] and me and my husband came from Israel. And I'm teaching here Hebrew on Wednesdays, and I'm teaching also the third and fourth class where I'm teaching them Bible and some Jewish holidays.

NARRATOR: Israeli [? Orna ?] [? Levinson ?] lives with her husband in Grand Forks, where they're attending the University of North Dakota. She makes her twice a week trips to the temple because she says of families like the Rosens, families who are isolated in their religion, yet want their kids to grow up in the Jewish tradition.

[? ORNA LEVINSON: ?] Now they're learning because of their bar mitzvah, because their parents want them to learn this Hebrew for being proud in their bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah ceremony. But after they finish this bar mitzvah ceremony, I think they are getting more interested in really learning the language and really knowing what's going on because when they mature a little bit, I think they understand how it's important, how it's really important.

[CONGREGATION SINGING]

NARRATOR: Back at the Rosens, Bonnie and the kids are gathered in front of the TV set. They're watching a fuzzy videotape of Randy's bat mitzvah, her religious coming of age ceremony, which took place last spring in Buffalo, New York. Peter, who is 10 years old, is next in line.

BONNIE ROSEN: If he shouldn't go to a Hebrew school and eventually become bar mitzvahed. I think I failed. I wouldn't feel that I've raised him to be Jewish.

NARRATOR: If the Rosens stay long in Fergus Falls, Peter and the others will have similar ceremonies at the Temple Beth El. If they leave, Fergus Falls will be like dozens of other small towns where the last Jewish residents have died or moved away, one culture poorer than before. U of M researcher, Marilyn Chiat.

MARILYN CHIAT: I think the sadness is that it's lost its pluralism. Minnesota then, again, becomes a white bread image, a state that really is either all Lutheran, all German, and all Northern, Scandinavian. I wonder if some of these kids now living in small towns will ever know anything about other traditions when that last Jewish child leaves the school and doesn't say, hey, you're celebrating Christmas. Let me tell you about Hanukkah. I think something is lost when that happens.

NARRATOR: The Rosens say they don't know how long they'll stay in Fergus Falls. In some ways, life in a small Minnesota town has been warm and friendly. The kids get along in school. The neighbors wave hello. Bill has taken up hunting with some of his colleagues. But the Rosens remain the only Jews in town, and when you're that far from the rest of the flock, Bonnie says, it's easy to get cold.

BONNIE ROSEN: It was very easy to be Jewish in a big town. You just took your Jewishness for granted. Everything's done for you, and it's a lot harder here.

NARRATOR: In a recent poll, 96% of Minnesotans said they believe in a God or universal spirit. Only 3% said they don't believe. What's it like to be one of the small minority of nonbelievers and to live in a small town? Meet Ted. That's not his real name. Ted lives in a small town in Minnesota. He asked us not to say which town. He's a professional, a popular member of the community, a churchgoer. And Ted does not believe there's a God. At his request, we've altered his voice.

TED: I feel like an outsider in a way, an outsider on the inside. Benedict Arnold, that's how I feel if they discovered my feelings.

NARRATOR: Ted joined a church when he moved to town because he wanted to be a full member of the community. He says he'd always wanted to live in a small town where he could walk down the street and know everyone. But his lack of religious belief presented him with a dilemma. He knew about the social importance of attending church in small towns. He knew from his own small-town childhood.

TED: There were people in the church that I went to who, for example, only came on Christmas with I can remember a particular man, who only came to church with the rest of his family on Christmas. And that was spoken of in kind of derogatory sense. Well, here's so-and-so, but he really doesn't believe. And he just comes here on Christmas. And well, of course, he must not be right with the world.

NARRATOR: It's not so much that you gain a lot socially by belonging to the church, Ted says. It's that you risk losing a lot by not belonging.

TED: Then there's a question mark that's always hovering above your head.

NARRATOR: Ted says only a few people in his town know he doesn't believe in God, a couple of close friends and the minister of his church. He says he told the minister when he joined because he sensed the clergyman would listen to him and respect his motivations. The minister did listen and accepted Ted into the church without asking him to make the usual statement of faith.

TED: He quoted to me a passage from the Bible in which Jesus says, if they're lukewarm, they'll be spit out of his mouth. Rather have some one hot or cold. So I guess I'm cold. But at least I'm thinking seriously about these issues, and he finds that, I think, to be important.

NARRATOR: Ted says he doesn't go to church just to keep up appearances. He says he likes hearing sermons that make him think about how he should live. He enjoys singing in the church choir, and he says he shares many of his neighbors values and admires the way they care about one another. A lot of that caring, he says, takes place in church.

TED: You know who's just passed away, which family you should give comfort to. You can celebrate with people who have joyous events in their lives. Those things are great. I support those, and I think you don't need to be a Christian in order to do that. But in fact, that's where this kind of thing occurs in a small town. It's within that community of the church.

NARRATOR: Ted says he's never had to lie about his lack of religious belief. He shows up in church most Sundays. And beyond that, he says ones specific religious beliefs aren't part of day to day conversation in town. Ted says he'd like to be more open about his views. But even the minister of his church advised him not to. The clergyman thought other parishioners wouldn't understand. Ted says he's not entirely comfortable playing the role of a believer.

TED: When I go to church, I feel, I suppose, alienated in the sense that I am being accepted for reasons other than who I am. The fear is that if I were totally upfront with people I would not be accepted. And I think that human beings have a fundamental need to be accepted. And I'm no different from anybody else. And that's part of what's good about a church. They accept you. You accept them. There's a community. There's a belonging. There's a caring.

[ORGAN MUSIC]

NARRATOR: There's no sign that religion is losing its importance in the lives of individuals. Church attendance all over the United States has gone up in recent years. 80% of Minnesotans say they belong to a place of worship. That's well above the national average. And though rural Minnesotans embrace a wide variety of faiths, most small towns in Minnesota are essentially Christian places, sometimes difficult and alien places for those who don't fit in. But for those who do, small towns are communities of shared identity, values, and faith.

[ORGAN MUSIC]

[CHURCH BELLS]

Articles of Faith is a production of NPR'S Main Street Radio team. It was written and produced by Rachel Reabe, Leif Enger, and John Biewen. Editorial assistance from Kate [? Moos ?] and Sarah [? Meier. ?] Engineering, Scott [? Yankis ?] and Jeff Walker. I'm John Biewen.

[CHURCH BELLS]