A Hard Question: Should Church Pews Be a Comfort Zone?

Tradition: Unpadded Wood; But Some Devoutly Desire A Softer Seat of Worship

By Robert Johnson, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

(re-printed without permission for educational information only)

PALM CITY, Fla.--The Rev. Dexter Kessler watches worshipers at Sunday services slide into shiny wooden pews that he loves but they don't.

Accustomed to a more cushy life outside church, parishioners here and elsewhere are deciding in increasing numbers that there's no sin in being comfortable in a house of worship.

At the newly built Episcopal Church of Advent here, Father Kessler's church, the beautiful oak pews will soon be topped by thick mauve cushions. That will add $5,000-plus to the $50,000 cost of the pews, but it's money well spent to many of the church's 375 members, especially some of the oldsters.

"For a lot of people, the padded pews will be more inviting," says Phil Leber, a retired Army engineer.

Believer in Austerity

Still, the change troubles Father Kessler. "I'm a traditionalist," he says. "I think a church should be austere."

An elderly anonymous benefactor, a member of the Episcopal Advent, put his money where he sits by donating funds for the new cushions, which will be delivered any day now. Says Father Kessler, reluctantly, "It's pretty hard to turn down a large donation even when it's for something that I personally don't want."

The market for restoring or replacing church pews has doubled to about $200 million annually in the U.S. since 1990. Some affluent members are pushing for creature comforts over custom.

At Hagerstown Bible Church, 50 miles west of Baltimore, leaders recently decided to install cushions on newly renovated pews. "When we noticed that some people bring their own cushions to church, that alerted us to the need," says William Lowry, a board member.

The Rev. David Miller, whose Faith Presbyterian Church in St. Petersburg just spent $70,000 on new upholstered pews, says, "I love the Lord, but there's no reason to hurt for an hour while doing so."

Church suppliers and renovators say that at least 50% of their orders are for cushioned seating today, compared with 20% five years ago. And cushions can cost as much as the pews themselves.

"I think it's a sin to cover up beautiful wood with upholstery," says Fredrick Taggart, who owns a church remodeling company in Mount Joy, Pa. Mr. Taggart, who concedes that cushion demand is good for his bottom line, is forgiving: "I understand that the baby boomers are starting to feel a lot of aches and pains--and they're the ones moving into church leadership now."

Theater seats now account for about 15% of all new church seating, up from about 3% in 1990. That, too, is controversial. Those chairs, some think, detract from the communal worship experience, and they keep kids from resting their heads in parents' laps.

"A lot of churches are agonizing about this," says Douglas Grabber, a salesman at Sauder Manufacturing Co., a pew maker in Archbold, Ohio. The conversion to cushions certainly wasn't easy last year for the Rev. George "Sparky" Pritchard at Immanuel Baptist Church in Richmond, Va. "We had a battle," he says.

His 1,000-member church was built in the 1950's The pews are made of rich mahogany. Most of them were in relatively good shape, he says, "except for some carving on the back rows : 'I was here,' and that type thing."

Still, some members pressed for padded pews during a $330,000 renovation that included ventilation improvements, a new sound system and a remodeled choir loft. Whenever vendors get a whiff of big spending plans, some inevitably tempt to congregation with cushions.

Salesmen offered Immanuel Baptist the option of full padding, three inches thick, on both the seats and the backs. One concern, says Mr. Pritchard: "Would you be sitting up so high that your feet wouldn't touch the floor?" Immanuel Baptist's leaders settled on blue removable cushions. They rejected back pads.

Padded church seating was almost unheard of 50 years ago. And historically, many churches didn't even offer seating, except to the sick and elderly, until the 1500s. Before that, most people stood and kneeled on the floor at worship services. While Roman Catholicism and the early Anglican churches embraced magnificent edifices and stained glass, they didn't believe in making congregations too comfy, and some of their churches today still have unpadded kneeling rails. American Puritanism tended to reject the soft life in church even more, partly to emphasize its break with Catholicism.

Debe Tighe, office administrator at Grace Presbyterian Church in Lanham, Md., which is unpadded, sings in the choir and also plays in the chime group. "One of the reasons not to have cushions is they absorb sound," she says.

At Palm City's Episcopal Church of the Advent, where the decision in favor of cushions is a done deal, the debate lingers on. Jane Rose, the church's volunteer office manager and former president of the Episcopal Church Women, says older members may actually have "a harder time sliding in and out of pews with cushions" than on smooth wood.

As an alternative, one Advent teenager suggested in an essay that the church return to the ancient religious practice of worshipping outdoors--sitting on rocks. "That sounds very wonderful and idyllic," says Valerie Graham, Advent's director of youth and education. "But I think most of our kids are looking forward to sitting on padded seats, not stones."

Father Kessler, who came to the ministry 13 years ago after a career in accounting says his objection to padded seats has a practical side. "They have to be cleaned and repaired when they get torn," And, he continues, "Wood reminds me of old churches, old-time religion."

But as in so many debates, where you stand on this one depends on where you sit. Father Kessler himself regularly takes a seat in a throne-style, high-backed chair behind the alter. "What do I know?," he says. "My chair is a beautiful antique someone donated years ago, and it's quite well-padded."

COMMENTS:

Only one person caught it--only one person mentioned that pew cushions can have an effect on the sound in the room. Depending on your worship style, the acoustics of your room, and other factors, the addition or removal of pads on pews may have a good or bad effect. The addition of pads may help control certain problem frequencies of sound, or they may reduce the natural reverberation so much that intelligibility and the musical quality of the room is lost. Be sure to consult a church acoustics expert before making such decisions.