CONTACT: Linda Green (Release # 414) Aug. 14, 1996
Responding to charges that the National Council of Churches (NCC) "should apologize for perpetuating the 'great church-fire hoax,'" the NCC's top official said "we have nothing for which to apologize."
NCC staff executive the Rev. Joan Brown Campbell made the statement in response to a letter from Diane Knippers, president of the Washington-based Institute on Religion and Democracy, (IRD).
Knippers' letter claimed the 46-year old ecumenical council had created the church arson story, "absent evidence that black churches burn more frequently than white churches to raise money for its leftist political agenda."
The contents of the letter were released to the media by the IRD in an Aug. 10 press release.
In a letter of reply to Knippers' accusations, Campbell wrote, the NCC is not "perpetrating a hoax" but has, in fact, "played an important part in bringing to the nation's attention the suffering of pastors and their congregations, isolated from one another and largely ignored before June."
She wrote that the NCC has responded to the suffering caused by -- and long has stood against -- racism at the insistence of its member churches. "Anything less would betray [the NCC's] commitment to a gospel of justice and love."
Knippers also claims the NCC "exaggerated the church burning phenomenon to promote a radical agenda" and that its officials "jawboned" the church burning issue into a national crisis.
She said studies by three major United States media outlets show that arson at black churches is a fraction of the 600
churches that are torched every year. She said church arson has declined "dramatically" from a figure of over 1,400 in 1980.According to Campbell, "there is no hoax." She said arson and vandalism at African-American and multiracial churches has "increased dramatically and persistently over the past 18 to 30 months." She called the increase "all the more startling" because church burnings overall had declined in recent years.
Campbell noted that in the past 18 months the rate of white church arsons has not increased. By comparison, "the rate of black church arsons is more than double what it has been in previous years."
She asserted that more than 60 African-American and multiracial churches were burned between Jan. 1, 1995, and June 30, 1996. "That is more than in the previous five years combined," Campbell said.
Campbell wrote that while approximately the same number of black and white churches have been burned since 1995, black churches are burning in proportion to their number at four times the rate of white churches. She estimated there are 63,000 African-American churches in the United States, compared to approximately 235,000 white churches.
Quoted in the Aug. 9 issue of the Wall Street Journal, Knippers charges the NCC with using church-arson "to justify its thesis that America is on the verge of a race war."
The IRD claims that the NCC has misrepresented the church burning issue "to smear ... conservative Christians as racists" and continues to create "a crisis atmosphere" to fuel fears, hurts and misunderstanding between the races, instead of focusing on "genuine examples of racism in this country."
She said that the NCC should concentrate on "racial reconciliation" as a spiritual endeavor rather than "exploiting legitimate concerns about racism to fund-raise for its dubious political agenda."
The NCC is not saying that every Black church burning has racial overtones, Campbell noted, but she pointed out "a clear pattern of racist motivation that is not true of attacks on white churches."
According to Campbell, "racism lives among all white Americans and must be addressed." She said that when words are uttered by people to scapegoat and demonize people of color, "they grant permission for evil to flourish. Good religion is always on the side of all that unites and makes us whole, all that integrates and heals."
According to the Wall Street Journal, the NCC was struggling to raise money to fund racial justice programs but by "couching the burnings as a national disaster orchestrated by organized white supremacists groups" and by buying "provocative" advertising in major newspapers, the organization "has raised more money more quickly than it has for any previous cause."
The NCC has raised approximately $9 million in gifts and loans from foundations and contributions from individuals, churches and the interfaith community to help rebuild the burned churches and deal with underlying issues of racism.
The newspaper article also questions how much freedom fund- raisers should be given to spend funds on causes other than for what the money was raised. The story questions accountability after reporting that some donors to the NCC campaign were concerned after learning that money may be used for purposes other than rebuilding.
In her reply to Knippers, Campbell addresses the fund-raising issue, declaring that the NCC made its member churches aware of the church burnings and that the churches could receive disaster funding. She said numerous foundations wanted to help and the nationwide "Burned Churches Fund" grew from their response. Of the $9 million raised, Campbell said 85 percent is to be used for rebuilding and 15 percent for programs addressing racism and administration.
"The NCC has said consistently from day one that we were committed to addressing two dimensions in these tragic events" -- rebuilding for ongoing ministries and challenging the racism that fuels the acts of hatred.
"We must take such a holistic approach lest we rebuild churches only to have them burn down again. We want the hate- motivated attacks on churches to stop," Campbell wrote.
Produced by United Methodist News Service, official news agency of the United Methodist Church, with offices in Nashville, Tenn., New York, and Washington.
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