Mourners Bench
Set aside for mourners and repentant sinners and is usually found at the front of a revival meeting or evangelical church.
Mourners bench. 4 generations are at the center of this story. Noun at religious revival meetings a bench or seat at the front of the church or room set apart for mourners or penitent sinners seeking salvation. Sarah is 8 years old and her single goal is to be baptized in the summer of 1964.
The practice was instituted by john wesley the founder of the methodist church. The mourner s bench also called an anxious bench was a ritualized prayer technique used extensively by nineteenth century christian revivalists. American heritage dictionary of the english language fifth edition.
Mourner s bench is a well researched and commendable debut effort that expands and complicates the body of literature written about the civil rights movement by asking readers to lend equal consideration and weight to the roles age gender and religion played. That night i was escorted to the front row and placed on the mourners bench with all the other young sinners langston hughes. Mourner s bench is a work of historical fiction that presents a real unfiltered look at how the movement affected the lives of african americans in the rural south.