ABSTRACT
I n 1867 the angered bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Dlocese of Maryland denounced those who “forsake unfashionable neighborhoods and desecrate consecrated buildings by selling out god’s property, and go where thriving building speculations promise high pew-rent rolls, or where the aggregation of genteel society has massed together pew-holders of sufficient pretensions to suit their taste.” 1 The bishop, William Rollinson Whittingham, was disturbed that the vestries of Episcopal congregations were selling their central-city churches and building new edifices in outer-city neighborhoods. This institutional movement raised questions of Christian duty quite different from those raised when church members moved as individuals, for the church’s leaving deprived an entire neighborhood of its spiritual benefits. Important issues were thus involved: what was the duty of the congregation? who was it to serve? “Why leave the souls of the poor and go to the rescue of the rich?” asked a Baptist leader; “Why let … [the poor] go to perdition and go after the more favored of the human family, who have greater opportunities of helping themselves?” 2
