This America Where People Burn Churches
By Philippe Gélie
Le Figaro
Monday 13 February 2006
Ten Baptist sanctuaries in Alabama were burned down in a week. Enough to bring back some bad memories in the South.
The foundation bricks outline a small pentagon that formed a nave. In the middle of a clearing, away from any paved roads, the Baptist church of Pleasant Sabine is now only a pile of ashes, charred beams, and twisted ventilators. "I thought we were finished with all that," says Reverend Robert Murphy, pastor of this small rural congregation. "I was surprised. Perhaps it was kids or Devil-worshippers. People who hate God." Pleasant Sabine's old black pastor is not alone in his suffering. Nine other Baptist churches in Alabama within a 60 kilometer radius of Tuscaloosa have been burned down in the past week.
In Boligee, a ghost hamlet, there's the same spectacle of abandonment: yellow plastic tape set out by the police to cordon off the site is already flying in the wind. A print on the metal door marks the signature of a pyromaniac. The police are looking for two white men, driving a dark pick-up. "We have more than 270 clues," Special Agent James Cavanaugh - of the Federal Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms Agency (ATF) and in charge of the investigation - congratulates himself. "I never promise an arrest, but I think that we can solve this case."
It's the number of burned churches that has caused a shock: five the night of February 3, four more last Tuesday, another on Saturday. The last series of arsons, in 1996, blew 55 Alabama and Mississippi prayer halls away in smoke. Cavanaugh was already on the case then: "We arrested all kinds of criminals," he says: "Satanists, racists, and ordinary pyromaniacs." Today, he supervises over 200 local and federal agents, tracking dogs, expert chemists and "profilers." The ATF has deployed two "National Response Teams" with their laboratory trucks like the ones used after the September 11, 2001 attacks. More than $20,000 in rewards are offered by the authorities and insurance companies.
White Wood Chapels
This mobilization could mask a little known reality: church burnings are common in religious America. Of some 350,000 Christian edifices in the country, 1,170 have burned down during the last five years, according to ATF statistics: 21% of cases are deemed accidental, 38% criminal, the rest falling into the black hole of never-resolved investigations. No more than 16% of this type of crime is ever solved, so that impunity could be an explanatory factor. "We're not talking about great cathedrals like you have in Europe," emphasizes Special Agent Cavanaugh. "They're little wooden buildings, isolated in the country. The crime is easy and so is escaping." Without excluding any other possibility, he leans toward "thrill-seeking kids, maybe druggies." The "crime of opportunity" hypothesis seems a little skimpy to church officials. "There is necessarily a message," says Reverend Billy Gray, co-director of the Baptist Association of Tuscaloosa. "An expression of hatred or sign of threat." Five of the targeted communities were mostly black; the others white or mixed, which seems to exclude a racial motive. All the churches were Baptist, the largest Protestant denomination in Alabama. And they were isolated, which indicates a good knowledge of the region, even deliberate targeting. James Cavanaugh doubts that: "The arsonists didn't leave anything, no swastikas, no graffiti. Ideological acts are usually signed." As far as he's concerned, there are only four possible motivations: hatred, power, greed, or revenge. These ingredients revive painful memories in the South. "In our history, practically all acts of this type have their roots in racial hatred," recalls Bryan Stevenson, who directs the Equal Justice Initiative program. "Churches were the meeting places at the origin of the civil rights movement." In the last century, racial crimes were associated with cross and church burnings by the Ku Klux Klan. "The Klan still has its faithful, but it's a little marginal fringe," assures University of Tuscaloosa criminologist Bryan Fair. "This case doesn't look like the Klan," confirms Cavanaugh.
So how does one explain such a large number of burned churches? "Maybe it's a reaction to the way religion dominates the public debate," hazards Bryan Stevenson. Some 11,600 Christian sanctuaries of all denominations punctuate the landscape of Alabama, one of the most religious and the poorest states in the country. In the countryside, where there are almost as many mobile homes as fixed houses, white wood chapels dot the landscape every mile or so. "Religion is so strong here, it breeds intolerance," adds Stevenson." I wouldn't be surprised if it were some young rebels who wanted to break a taboo."
After the "Battle of the Ten Commandments" over their being exposed in public places, Alabama has found itself another crusade: the motto traditionally inscribed on car registration plates. "Stars Fell on Alabama" is threatened by "God Bless America." "I never thought the dispute would be so intense!" exclaims Reverend Gray. In the uncertainty, he advises pastors to organize watches by parishioners over their sanctuaries. "It's not the building that counts, it's the community," old Pastor Murphy repeats to himself. But it's with a look full of questions that he regards Pleasant Sabine's intact white church, a little over 200 yards away from his own, in ashes.
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Translation: t r u t h o u t French language correspondent Leslie Thatcher.
Link Here
Link Here
Le Figaro
Monday 13 February 2006
Ten Baptist sanctuaries in Alabama were burned down in a week. Enough to bring back some bad memories in the South.
The foundation bricks outline a small pentagon that formed a nave. In the middle of a clearing, away from any paved roads, the Baptist church of Pleasant Sabine is now only a pile of ashes, charred beams, and twisted ventilators. "I thought we were finished with all that," says Reverend Robert Murphy, pastor of this small rural congregation. "I was surprised. Perhaps it was kids or Devil-worshippers. People who hate God." Pleasant Sabine's old black pastor is not alone in his suffering. Nine other Baptist churches in Alabama within a 60 kilometer radius of Tuscaloosa have been burned down in the past week.
In Boligee, a ghost hamlet, there's the same spectacle of abandonment: yellow plastic tape set out by the police to cordon off the site is already flying in the wind. A print on the metal door marks the signature of a pyromaniac. The police are looking for two white men, driving a dark pick-up. "We have more than 270 clues," Special Agent James Cavanaugh - of the Federal Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms Agency (ATF) and in charge of the investigation - congratulates himself. "I never promise an arrest, but I think that we can solve this case."
It's the number of burned churches that has caused a shock: five the night of February 3, four more last Tuesday, another on Saturday. The last series of arsons, in 1996, blew 55 Alabama and Mississippi prayer halls away in smoke. Cavanaugh was already on the case then: "We arrested all kinds of criminals," he says: "Satanists, racists, and ordinary pyromaniacs." Today, he supervises over 200 local and federal agents, tracking dogs, expert chemists and "profilers." The ATF has deployed two "National Response Teams" with their laboratory trucks like the ones used after the September 11, 2001 attacks. More than $20,000 in rewards are offered by the authorities and insurance companies.
White Wood Chapels
This mobilization could mask a little known reality: church burnings are common in religious America. Of some 350,000 Christian edifices in the country, 1,170 have burned down during the last five years, according to ATF statistics: 21% of cases are deemed accidental, 38% criminal, the rest falling into the black hole of never-resolved investigations. No more than 16% of this type of crime is ever solved, so that impunity could be an explanatory factor. "We're not talking about great cathedrals like you have in Europe," emphasizes Special Agent Cavanaugh. "They're little wooden buildings, isolated in the country. The crime is easy and so is escaping." Without excluding any other possibility, he leans toward "thrill-seeking kids, maybe druggies." The "crime of opportunity" hypothesis seems a little skimpy to church officials. "There is necessarily a message," says Reverend Billy Gray, co-director of the Baptist Association of Tuscaloosa. "An expression of hatred or sign of threat." Five of the targeted communities were mostly black; the others white or mixed, which seems to exclude a racial motive. All the churches were Baptist, the largest Protestant denomination in Alabama. And they were isolated, which indicates a good knowledge of the region, even deliberate targeting. James Cavanaugh doubts that: "The arsonists didn't leave anything, no swastikas, no graffiti. Ideological acts are usually signed." As far as he's concerned, there are only four possible motivations: hatred, power, greed, or revenge. These ingredients revive painful memories in the South. "In our history, practically all acts of this type have their roots in racial hatred," recalls Bryan Stevenson, who directs the Equal Justice Initiative program. "Churches were the meeting places at the origin of the civil rights movement." In the last century, racial crimes were associated with cross and church burnings by the Ku Klux Klan. "The Klan still has its faithful, but it's a little marginal fringe," assures University of Tuscaloosa criminologist Bryan Fair. "This case doesn't look like the Klan," confirms Cavanaugh.
So how does one explain such a large number of burned churches? "Maybe it's a reaction to the way religion dominates the public debate," hazards Bryan Stevenson. Some 11,600 Christian sanctuaries of all denominations punctuate the landscape of Alabama, one of the most religious and the poorest states in the country. In the countryside, where there are almost as many mobile homes as fixed houses, white wood chapels dot the landscape every mile or so. "Religion is so strong here, it breeds intolerance," adds Stevenson." I wouldn't be surprised if it were some young rebels who wanted to break a taboo."
After the "Battle of the Ten Commandments" over their being exposed in public places, Alabama has found itself another crusade: the motto traditionally inscribed on car registration plates. "Stars Fell on Alabama" is threatened by "God Bless America." "I never thought the dispute would be so intense!" exclaims Reverend Gray. In the uncertainty, he advises pastors to organize watches by parishioners over their sanctuaries. "It's not the building that counts, it's the community," old Pastor Murphy repeats to himself. But it's with a look full of questions that he regards Pleasant Sabine's intact white church, a little over 200 yards away from his own, in ashes.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Translation: t r u t h o u t French language correspondent Leslie Thatcher.
Link Here
Link Here
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