CONTACT: Linda Green (Release # 285) June 6, 1996
ByAllison Askins *
COLUMBIA, S.C. (UMNS) -- South Carolina's United Methodists spoke out against the burning of African-American churches in the state and across the Southeast, and established a statewide fund to assist affected congregations during the annual meeting of the state's United Methodists, May 26-29.
The South Carolina Annual Conference is urging people of all faiths in the state to use worship services on the weekend of June 29-30 as a "Sabbath of Support" for congregations that have lost their places of worship.
According to the state's Law Enforcement Division statistics, 33 houses of worship and one mosque have burned in South Carolina since 1991, Most of the churches that burned were rural black churches.
A June 1 report in the Columbia (S.C.) State newspaper quotes the National Council of Churches as saying that tolerance for white supremacist ideology is to blame for the fact that South Carolina leads the nation in the number of black church fires.
The fires at the churches in South Carolina were denounced by members of the jurisdictional conference delegation -- clergy and lay people who will elect bishops for Southeastern conferences of the United Methodist Church next month -- in a resolution passed by the annual conference session.
"We felt that the South Carolina Conference should send a message of love and healing to those congregations and to send a call to our own churches to reach out with gifts of time and money," said Rhett Jackson, a layman from Columbia who helped write the resolution.
"We lament the fact that there still is too much tolerance for racism and bigotry in our state and we hope this resolution will be a call to our own clergy to speak out on the evils of racism and intolerance, and for all of us, lay and clergy, to become a part of the healing and reconciling of all human beings."
In an amendment to the resolution, conference members established a fund through the church's Ethnic Local Church Concerns Committee (ELCC) that will help distribute money to churches burned by arson. That action resulted from concern that a resolution guarantees little action whereas a fund can help make a concrete difference.
The resolution asks the South Carolina Christian Action Council (CAC), which has been tracking information about the fires, to help the ELCC committee determine the most needy of the burned churches.
The CAC also is calling on religious communities throughout South Carolina to use worship services on the weekend of June 29-30 as a "Sabbath of Support."
"We have chosen this particular date because it immediately precedes the Fourth of July celebration during which our nation will remember and rejoice in its common heritage and announce again, 'E Pluribus Unum,' 'for many one,'" the council said in a prepared statement.
"In the face of these attacks on houses of worship, we are asking the religious community to provide the leadership for all Americans to proclaim their unity."
South Carolina United Methodist Bishop Robert H. Spain is among religious leaders who signed the statement.
"We deplore the bombing and burning of churches in South Carolina and elsewhere in the United States. We stand united as we condemn these acts of violence and destruction, which give evidence of lingering racism within our state and nation," the statement reads.
Religious groups joining in the CAC effort include the Columbia Jewish Federation, the Church of God, Church of the Nazarene, Episcopal Dioceses of South Carolina and Upper South Carolina, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Greek Orthodox Diocese of Atlanta, Presbyterian Church in the USA, Reformed Episcopal Church, Roman Catholic Church, Quakers, Southern Baptist Convention and Wesleyans.
*Askins is the editor of the South Carolina United Methodist Advocate, newspaper of the South Carolina United Methodist Annual Conference.
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