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Sometimes strong-willed ministers can get raises on their own initiative. In Detroit recently, one Presbyterian minister refused to accept a new call until the church agreed to cough up an extra $4,000. "Most of the fellows I know who are underpaid are incompetent,'' says Dr. Merle E. Fish Jr., president of the Church Federation of Los Angeles. "They couldn't make it any better anywhere else.''
Up the Ladder. Many clergymen proudly accept poverty as a badge of their vocation, and affluence so far is spread unevenly among the clerical ranks. Preachers in fundamentalist sects and in the Negro churches are still sadly underpaid; salaries in rural New England and the South lag behind levels established throughout the rest of the country. But churchmen in mainstream Protestant denominations agree that capable young pastors can indeed work their way up without much difficulty. "The church is like any other profession," says the Rev. Magee Wilkes. 44. a vice president at the Southern California School of Theology. "The best men make the most money. Churches are willing to pay for leadership."