c. 1996 Religion News Service

NEW YORK _ There was a time when it all seemed so simple.

Close to 100 mostly African-American churches have been the victim of arson or suspicious fires over the past two years. And people of faith _ all faiths _ rallied to help them rebuild.

The National Council of Churches (NCC) joined forces with Catholics, Jews and Muslims to raise money to rebuild burned churches. Similar funds were established by the Christian Coalition, the Southern Baptist Convention, the evangelical Promise Keepers men’s movement and others. Donations poured in, totaling millions of dollars.

Now that the time has come to distribute the money, nothing seems simple at all.

So great are the complexities of rebuilding burned churches that some donor organizations _ which in the past have been distant from each other and, in some cases, downright adversarial _ are now exploring ways to work together.

The Christian Coalition and Promise Keepers, which are far more ideologically conservative than the more liberal NCC, have had informal discussions with the NCC’s burned churches unit about determining the best ways to help rebuild houses of worship.

The Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, NCC general secretary, calls such the networking”rather miraculous”given the differences that exist among the donor groups.

Christian Coalition and Promise Keepers representatives say cooperation only makes sense.”It’s not a matter of reading about a church that was burned in the paper and sending them a check,”said Promise Keepers spokesman Mark DeMoss.”It’s turning out to be much more complicated than that.” The logistics of helping are unwieldy: Many congregations are still carrying on their ministries in makeshift arrangements while dealing with the intricacies of insurance claims, architectural plans and contractor delays. The affected pastors often also hold full-time jobs and are unable to devote enough time to rebuilding. And volunteers are ready to donate everything from human labor to Bibles and hymnals, but their energy and their offerings can’t even be used until blueprints are drawn and building permits issued _ a process that could take six months.

Even more perplexing than the details of transforming brick and mortar into a new house of worship are questions far more basic: Who determines what churches qualify for aid? Who decides how much they receive? Should there be a cap on grants to any particular church?

A recent meeting of the grants committee of the NCC’s Burned Churches Fund gave an inkling of how difficult the process can be.

In June, when the NCC focused national attention on the fact that predominantly black churches were burning at an unusual rate, officials thought they would be helping a few dozen congregations. Now, they are considering reports from as many as 124, based on a 1990 list from the hate-crime watch group Center for Democratic Renewal. The majority of the churches were burned in 1995 and 1996.

At the meeting, representatives from Protestant, Unitarian and Jewish organizations wondered how best to handle a”growing universe”of mostly African-American churches in need of rebuilding assistance. With $8 million in cash and in-kind contributions, they realized that the donations they have received only can go so far.

Questions about limiting the grants in some way were countered with arguments about treating both large and small churches fairly. While the larger burned churches could benefit from a loan, some of the affected congregations have 25 members or less, and lack the financial resources to repay a bank loan, needing outright grants to rebuild.”As the numbers of churches grow, it becomes more and more difficult to individualize,”said Campbell, who chaired the meeting.”It’s much more complicated than it was at the beginning.” The NCC, comprised of 33 Protestant and Orthodox denominations, is a partner in a joint task force with the Congress of National Black Churches, a consortium of eight denominations, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Working together, the groups hope to create”resource packages”that may include grants, guaranteed loans and volunteer labor for the congregations that have been fire victims.

The Rev. Albert Pennybacker, the NCC’s associate general secretary for public policy, spoke with relief about cooperation with HUD, which will work with local banks in administering $10 million in private sector loan guarantees for the burned churches.”It allows our money to go further,”he said.

But there are some who question the validity of the effort to rebuild burned churches.

The conservative Institute on Religion and Democracy calls it the”great church-fire hoax”and has called for the ouster of two NCC officials who are managing the fund. The NCC has responded by accusing the institute of using”half-truths”and”distortions.” As the various groups with burned churches funds work toward the same goal, each has slightly different criteria for fund recipients. But most are aiding churches where investigators suspect arson.

Each group also has different accounting and allocation rules. Some make outright grants of cash; others make loans; and others work closely with congregations, keeping track of how the money is used.”We had talked about raising money for … smoke detectors or security systems,”said Mike Russell, spokesman for the Christian Coalition, a conservative political organization. Eventually the coalition decided that pastors would know best how to use the money.”We’re not in the business of micro-managing that money,”he said.

Ben Connell, director of the South Carolina Baptist Convention Brotherhood Department, has taken another route. Instead of outright grants, the state convention buys what the churches need and reports its expenditures to Southern Baptist Convention officials.

Connell, who predicts some of the South Carolina churches he is assisting won’t be built until next year, said he had to explain the lengthy process to a potential donor from California who wanted to know which church would receive her money and how it was going to be used.”I said,`Ma’am, I don’t even know which church is going to need it,'”Connell said.

In addition to accounting for their expenditures, those administering rebuilding funds find themselves instructing ministers on the fine points of building construction.”It’s touching to talk (to) the pastor who didn’t even know they had to have architectural plans,”Connell said.”He’s just sitting there taking notes up a storm.” Perhaps the most difficult task is establishing exactly which congregations are eligible for assistance.”There are churches that we’re still getting calls from who are not on anybody’s list who say they were destroyed by arson and it happened in the last 24 months,”said Juliette Davis, public relations director of the Congress of National Black Churches.

As organizations learn of burned churches, there are forms, telephone calls and site visits to assess how much help the congregations have already received and what they still need.

In the midst of grappling over policies, principles and process, come personal realities.

The Rev. Wilson Shannon, pastor of First Baptist Church of Centralia in Richmond, Va., attended the NCC meeting and heard for himself the”very detailed”process that led to a $50,000 grant to rebuild his church’s historic structure.

His church’s auxiliary building, used as a sanctuary from the early 1900s to 1962, was being restored when it burned in April.”The Lord is truly providing,”Shannon said, adding that he believes the provision came only through people working together.”It goes to show that collectively we can eradicate this,”he said.”Individually, we won’t even scratch the surface.”

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