wfn.org | Commissioners' resolutions favor support for burned black churches

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01-July-1996 
 
GA96030 
 
 
Commissioners' resolutions favor support for burned black churches 
 
ALBUQUERQUE--Indicative of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s ongoing 
support for burned black churches, the Assembly committee on Bills and 
Overtures approved the referral of eight commissioners' resolutions June 30 
to the committee on National and Urban Issues. 
 
    Resolutions 96-5, 96-9, 96-15, 96-18, 96-20, 96-24, 96-38 and 96-39, 
address the burning of black churches and call for specific action by 
denomination agencies and affiliated organizations. 
 
    For example, resolution 96-24 calls for the creation of a fund to 
reward anyone who provides information that leads to the conviction of 
hate crime perpetrators. Additionally, resolution 96-39 calls for the 
investigation of  a leading church insurer's future coverage of burned 
churches. 
 
     Preferred Risk Insurance Company, which is the denomination's church 
insurer, has dropped coverage for two black Tennessee churches destroyed by 
arson saying the policies have become too expensive. 
 
    Claims for damage to the two Tennessee churches have been paid, but the 
plans will not be renewed, according to Tom Farr, general counsel of 
Preferred Risk Insurance. 
 
    "We have done what we promised to do," Farr of Des Moines, Iowa said. 
"We are paying claims and a decision is made at the expiration (of the 
coverage period) whether to continue the relationship. That is done by 
every insurance company all the time." 
 
    Fires have been reported in at least 40 predominantly black churches 
across the Southeast over the past 18 months. Federal authorities have been 
investigating suspicious fires at a roughly equal number of white churches 
during the same period. Meanwhile, the Senate has unanimously approved 
legislation to stiffen penalties for arson at places of worship and 
expanded federal authority to investigate. 
 
    The Rev. Barry Van Deventer, Bills and Overtures committee moderator of 
Charleston-Atlantic Presbytery, described the resolutions as "a wonderful 
awakening to a latent and very real problem concentrated in the South, but 
occurring throughout the entire country." 
 
    "It's a wake-up call for us," Van Deventer said. "And we had the kind 
of response that you would expect. We, I think, are showing that 
Presbyterians really care and we'll participate not just in giving 
money...but in taking some action with our brothers and sisters whose 
houses of worship are being taken away from them by a force of violence." 
 
    However, Van Deventer said, he was anything but surprised to learn that 
only one committee-approved resolution, 96-6, deals with the ordination of 
gay and lesbian persons. It has been referred to the committee on 
Ordination and Human Sexuality. 
 
    "I was relieved," Van Deventer said. "[The ordination] issues is before 
us already. I think everything on ordination's been covered already that 
can be considered and any commissioner's resolution would probably have 
been redundant." 
 
Julian Shipp 

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