“I walked in Wednesday night for a prayer meeting and the chairs were there, and they were beautiful,” she says. “I thought, ‘Nancy Shane, even at 68 years old, young woman, you can change.’ ”
She isn’t the only churchgoer being asked to take a stand on new Sunday seating arrangements. Pews have been part of the Western world’s religious landscape for centuries, but now a growing number of churches in the U.S. and U.K. are opting for chairs, sometimes chairs equipped with kneelers.
At bottom: churches want to trim remodeling costs, maximize space flexibility with stackable seating, or create a more approachable atmosphere to draw in unchurched young people.
Perhaps I am mistaken, but I think that in the great cathedrals of England there were no pews in the medieval times when they were built.
I don’t think that suddenly removing the pews is going to make going to church popular for people who just plain think they don’t like going to church. It just seems like another trendy gesture such as moving the altar or getting rid of black at funerals, to me anyway. It is nice when kneeling or genuflecting to have something solid to hold on to anyway.
Right, Sophy, medieval churches lacked seating in the nave, although sometimes people brought portable small stools. However, benches were placed against the church walls in the aisles, or there were stone benches built into the side walls. Hence the old phrase “the weak go to the wall” where they could sit for services.
I wish pews were removed from Victorian churches. The aisles would be cleared for processions or exhibits or chapels, and the congregation could be gathered more tightly in the middle center of churches.