And Time magazine reports: “As many as 3,000 Protestant clergymen are leaving U.S. pulpits every year.”

John Wesley Downing, director of another such agency, predicts that more than half of the 450,000 Protestant ministers and Catholic priests in the United States will quit by 1975.

Protestant ministers also are quitting en masse, even though there are no restrictions on their marrying. To try to determine why, the United Church of Christ conducted a survey of 231 of its former ministers. The findings revealed that disillusionment and frustration with the church were the key reasons why the ministers quit.

One former minister explained: “When the church I was serving refused to declare church membership open to all (race issue), I resigned.” Another stated bluntly: “As I search through the corridors of the institutional church, I find only an emotional and spiritual void.”

In Canada, the former United Church minister George Doney explained what finally prompted him to quit: “I grew convinced that by staying I was perpetuating the false distinction between the clergy and the laymen.” He said that in his graduating class of twenty-three ministers in 1961, five have already left the organized church and five more are ready to leave.

In the eastern United States a Baptist minister obtained a copy of the Bible-study aid The Truth That Leads to Eternal Life in October 1968. He read it in two nights and recognized the ring of truth. His congregation agreed to consider the rich spiritual food contained in this Bible-study aid. They were delighted with what they learned. So, in time, the church building was sold and all families but one began studying with Jehovah’s witnesses and now are attending meetings.

In December 1968, after a period of Bible study, a sixty-nine-year-old clergyman of the Nazareth Baptist Church in South Africa gave a farewell sermon, explaining that he was leaving the church because he had found the way leading to eternal life. He now shares in spreading the good news of God’s kingdom with Jehovah’s witnesses.

A Pentecostal minister in Uruguay showed interest in what the Bible said about the end of this system of things. After talking with one of Jehovah’s witnesses, he attended their meetings. He was convinced he had found the truth, and was soon witnessing to others.