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This page last updated 9 October 2016  

Letters to AO

EVERY WEEK WE PUBLISH a selection of letters we receive in response to something you've read at Anglicans Online. Stop by and have a look at what other AO readers are thinking.

Alas, we cannot publish every letter we receive. And we won't publish letters that are anonymous, hateful, illiterate, or otherwise in our judgment do not benefit the readers of Anglicans Online. We usually do not publish letters written in response to other letters. We edit letters to conform with standard AO house style for punctuation, but we do not change, for example, American spelling to conform to Canadian orthography. On occasion we'll gently edit letters that are too verbose in their original form. Email addresses are included when the authors give permission to do so.

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Letters from the week of 3 - 9 October 2016

Like all letters to the editor everywhere, these letters express the opinions of the writers and not Anglicans Online. We publish letters that we think will be of interest to our readers, whether we agree with them or not. If you'd like to write a letter of your own, click here.

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Comments from Facebook
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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Earlier letters

We launched our 'Letters to AO' section on 11 May 2003. All published letters are in our archives.

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