Church Fires Conspiracy: Caught Red-Handed?
by Michael Gallo
Habitat for Humanity has mobilized a volunteer labor force for the rebuilding of black churches burned down in suspected arson fires. International Paper has pledged all the necessary lumber, and other donors have pledged Bibles, hymnals, and choir robes. In just a few month’s time, churches, Sunday schools, individual Christians and non-Christians alike have donated a total of $9 million to the National Council of Churches (NCC) Burned Churches Fund. All this American generosity and compassion is to help rebuild some 40 to 60 churches destroyed by a sudden rise in racially motivated arsons of southern black churches. Who would question that a good thing is being done for fellow Christians and for racial reconciliation?
But there are some troubling facts that many donors to the NCC fund might not have heard: that the total funds available—including insurance premiums, the NCC fund, and other independent donations—is $18 million, approximately double the estimated need; that the NCC is already planning to use $3.5 million of the $9 million donated to its Burned Churches Fund to help pay for political “advocacy” programs regarding racism, “economic justice,” “gender oppression,” and “homophobia”; that administrator/spokesman for the NCC fund is Don Rojas, former information minister in Grenada under Maurice Bishop’s Communist regime, and that the whole premise of a sudden rise in racist arsonry has been seriously questioned. Because of troubling facts such as these, the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) has challenged the NCC to apologize for creating a baseless hysteria and for using contributions for its own political agendas.
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Michael F. Gallo , a graduate of Wheaton College, is a public school teacher in Chicago, Illinois.
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