Serving Status Seekers

At the 1959 Midwest regional meeting of the Congregational Christian Churches an official spokesman lamented that his denomination was largely serving status seekers. Churchman Joseph W. Merchant, secretary for urban church work of the Congregational Christian Churches’ Board of Home Missions, said that his denomination was catering to “business men, professionals or white collar workers.” He added: “So far as the so-called lower classes are concerned, main line Protestant groups are leaving Christianity to Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Salvation Army or the storefront sects. . . . I am fearful for our souls if we tend to become a chaplaincy to the status-seekers, counting our Ph.D.’s as though these were our pearls of great price.”—New York Times, October 15, 1959.