wfn.org | Tobacco problem crops up for Kentucky church

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

June 23, 1998        Contact: Tim Tanton*(615)742-5470*Nashville, Tenn.
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By Robert Lear*

When the United Methodist Church in Bryantsville, Ky., bought a
parsonage a few months ago, the 75 congregation members had no idea they
were stepping into a wrestling match with one of the nation's hottest
issues.

Bryantsville, a town of about 500 residents, is in the heart of
Kentucky's prime tobacco-growing region. Farms have been in the same
families for generations, and income from the crop has kept the owners
solvent. It has also been a major source of support for many of the
small churches that dot the countryside, including Bryantsville United
Methodist Church.

"Most everyone around here is somehow connected to tobacco farms," the
Rev. James Williams said in a telephone interview. Williams, a student
at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Ky., was pastor at
Bryantsville at the time of the parsonage purchase.

What the church's trustees didn't know was that the new parsonage land
carried a federal permit to grow l,850 pounds of tobacco a year. Such
permits, known as "allotments," date from the l930s, when the federal
government put limits on how much could be grown, resulting in higher
tobacco prices and more income for farmers.

The previous owners of the land had not used the allotment and regularly
leased it to others for about $1,000 a year.

At first, the congregation was overjoyed at the thought of the extra
income for the church.
"It was like somebody told me we had running water on the property,"
James Baker, a trustee, told a Wall Street Journal reporter.

The excitement was short-lived, however, as the congregation realized
the church would have to decide what to do in light of United
Methodism's longstanding opposition to tobacco and the overwhelming
evidence of physical harm from smoking. At the same time, legislation
that  would curb underage smoking was being debated in Congress. (That
legislation was defeated June 17.)

If not used, the church's allotment would have reverted to the federal
government and been assigned elsewhere, perhaps outside the area,
cutting into Bryantsville's already limited economy. Giving the
allotment to another farmer was a possibility, but the trustees knew no
farmer would accept such a valuable right without paying for it.

"We talked it through and prayed a lot," Williams said. "I knew as
pastor what the decision had to be, but I didn't want to point my finger
and say, 'That's the way it has to be.'

"We tried to handle the issue lovingly. These are people's lives."

Eventually, the church decided to sell the allotment to a member of the
congregation. Only one farmer in the church had time and land to take on
the extra crop, and his offer of $1,800, only a fraction of the true
market value, was accepted.

"There never was a big argument," Williams said. "We always had very
calm conversations.  No one left the church, there were no hard
feelings."

The final decision attracted wide media attention. By early summer, the
church had received $2,500 in donations in letters of appreciation from
across the United States and even as far away as Germany.

Williams, appointed this summer to a congregation in Lexington, Ky.,
said the experience shows that the church must stand for what is right,
but at the same time "be sensitive to families who have not done
anything wrong."

# # #

*Lear is a retired staff member of United Methodist News Service
residing in Wernersville, Pa.

United Methodist News Service
(615)742-5470
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