Church responds with love to hate crime

Bishop urges pastors,
parents to teach racism
won’t be tolerated

United Methodist News Service
BOYDS, Md.—On a warm Jan. 12, members of St. Mark’s UMC, community religious leaders, county officials and a candidate for governor stood on the church steps to see what Paul Hawkins had found.
What they saw sent a chill through a community and brought people together to stand against racism and hate crimes.
Hawkins found a swastika spray-painted on the front door of the predominantly black United Methodist congregation.
The Nazi symbol was put there sometime Jan. 10, in broad daylight.
Florence Phillips, a member of the rural congregation in southwest Montgomery County for more than 60 years, said she went for a walk by the church with her grandson around 1:30 that afternoon. The church doors were normal.
Hawkins, a neighbor, reported the swastika around 4:30 p.m.
“It’s kind of a sad situation,” Phillips said, “but we will overcome.”
At a news conference on the front steps of the church, with the swastika clearly seen on the front door, the Rev. Tim Warner, pastor of St. Mark’s, thanked the many church members, conference pastors and community leaders who had come to support his congregation and community.
“We consider this to be a desecration of holy space,” Warner said.
Some people’s immediate reaction to the graffiti was to want to paint over it or hide it, he noted. But what the church must do is “shine a light on it,” to show everyone that sin exists in the world, he said.
Bishop John R. Schol, who spoke at the news conference, said Christians should not, and United Methodists will not, tolerate racism.
“We are not intimidated,” said the bishop, who leads the Baltimore-Washington Conference. “We will not move; we are here to stay.”
Schol urged all congregations in the conference to send a representative to St. Mark’s Jan. 15 to stand with the congregation during its 8 a.m. worship service, followed by church members and youths erasing the symbol at 9:45 a.m.
Schol called upon all pastors of the conference and religious leaders across Maryland to explain, teach and preach to their faith groups that racism is a sin and not to be tolerated.
He also had a word for parents.
“We need to teach our children and youths about racism,” he said. “We need to teach them how to relate and engage with one another, regardless of who they are or where they come from.”
For the Rev. Mark Derby, superintendent of the Washington West District, Jan. 12 was a day for the church to show how disciples of Jesus Christ behave.
“If those who perpetrated this crime were to walk in the front door of this church, they’d be received in the love of Jesus Christ,” he said. “We stand with the church and affirm its ministry to the congregation, neighbors and community.”
In addition to the swastika spray-painted on the front doors, the nearby Boyds Negro School also was targeted. Other hate symbols were painted the same day on two schools in Montgomery County and one other African-American church.
Montgomery County Executive Doug Duncan, a candidate for governor, said at the Jan. 12 news conference, “We are sadly gathered here today. We will not stand idly by in the midst of hate mongers.”
Duncan said law enforcement officials don’t consider these acts mere pranks.
“We consider these to be acts of hate, hurtful to the entire community,” he said. Whoever committed the crimes, if convicted, would be punished to the full extent of the law.
The crimes committed against St. Mark’s may be linked to a splinter group of the White Aryan Nation known as “W.A.R.,” or White Aryan Resistance, said J. Thomas Manager, chief of police for Montgomery County. The three initials were found at the two vandalized schools.
W.A.R., he said, spreads its hate through its Web site, and the tactics used in these hate crimes resemble what he called a “lone wolf type of tactic.”
“This group has a lot of history behind it, a lot of violence, a lot of connections,” Manager said. “We don’t know yet if this is connected to them, but we’re concerned.”
Manager said recent hate crime activity in his jurisdiction—several Hanukkah displays in Gaithersburg and Rockville fell victim in late December—was a “spike we haven’t seen in a few years.”
Last year, he said, 47 hate crimes were reported to police. The year before that, 40 were reported.
Following the news conference, leaders marched from the church to the Negro School to examine the damage done to the building and the lawn.
Warner said he didn’t know why anyone would do what they did to St. Mark’s, but he has an idea. In the last 18 months, under Warner’s leadership, the congregation has experienced growth in the community.
“This type of thing,” he said, “wasn’t happening when there were only two cars in the parking lot.”