Letters from the week of 3 - 9 October 2016
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These thoughtful comments about last week's letter were posted to our Facebook wall.
My parish, Church of the Ascension, Hamilton, Ontario, had pew rentals until 1968. They were finally terminated by diocesan canon. However, the pew rental secretary continued to take his honorarium until his death in the 1970s. I was recently speaking with a parishioner in her nineties who told of paying $2 per year for an individual seat on the pew. One of the arguments for pew rentals was that it obviated the need for constant fundraising and financial appeals. Much to be said and written on this topic! It is a major theme in Canadian Anglican worship. Holy Trinity, Toronto, was endowed by a donor in England with the stipulation that all pews would be free. And the Dean of the Cathedral in Hamilton railed against pews that were rented and empty because the owners had moved out of town but were still paying the rents.
Terry Brown
Church of The Ascension
Onterio, Canada
2 October 2016
St. John's Worthington OH was founded as a free church in 1804 - the nave was a log cabin (though with a bell and and a wooden alter brought from Boston), and the pine benches in the first Episcopal church west of the allighanies were strictly first come first serve. When the congregation built a gothic hall church out of hand fired brick they maintained the free seat policy, and inserted a brass plaque saying "all seats free" beside the front door.
I should add that this was not universal policy in the Diocese of Southern Ohio. My own parish, Trinity Newark, had pew rents until our first building burned down in the 1890s. I don't think any church in this diocese had pew rents by the end of the 1930s.
Wilt Johnstone
Trinity, Newark, Ohio, USA
2 October 2016
A "rent-free" response
St. Barnabas, Burlington, NJ (now part of Sts. Stephen and Barnabas, Florance) was formed as St. Barnabas Free Episcopal Church down the street from St. Mary's, a historic parish and one of the oldest in the state. St. Barnabas was formed an Anglo-Catholic "rent-free" congregation in response to the other parishes in the area by The Rt. Rev. George Washington Doane, the second bishop of New Jersey. Later changes in demographics led many to believe that the "free" in the name had racial connotations that were not originally ingerent
Danielle Hicks
St. David's, Cranbury, New Jersey, USA
3 October 2016
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