Higher Calling, Lower Wages: The Vanishing of the Middle-Class Clergy
David R. Wheeler reports at The Atlantic that many Protestant churches are cutting back on full-time positions as church attendance and giving decrease, making hopeful ministers take on multiple jobs in order to make a living. For rural pastors of small congregations, Wheeler reports, working multiple jobs has never been unusual; but for seminary grads with thousands in debt, the trend is problematic. “What’s new is the across-the-board increase in bi-vocational ministry in Protestant denominations both large and small,” Wheeler writes, “which has effectively shut down one pathway to a stable—if humble—middle-class career.”