WASHINGTON (RNS) African-American church leaders called Monday (June 10) for more aggressive federal action to solve a string of more than 30 arsons of black southern churches during the past 18 months.

They suggested that the nation’s fragile racial climate could erupt in “war” in the absence of greater legal enforcement and police protection.

The church leaders were in Washington to meet with Attorney General Janet Reno and other federal law enforcement officials on the fires, three of which occurred in the past week, including one in Greenville, Texas, Sunday evening (June 9). The National Council of Churches-which sponsored the clergy visit to the capital-said it would seek to raise $2 million to help rebuild burned churches.

The Rev. Mac Charles Jones, the church council’s associate for racial justice and a Kansas City, Mo., pastor, demanded that federal authorities consider any measure necessary-even using the National Guard or declaring a state of emergency to address the crisis. If black church members are put in the position where they alone must prevent the destruction of their sanctuaries, he said,”you’re going to have a war that will not stop in rural areas.” Jones, speaking at a Washington news conference, cited what he called the”tinderbox” climate of the country’s race relations.

“This country will explode,” Jones said.”It is that serious.” The Rev. Patricia Lowman, co-pastor of St. John Baptist Church in Dixiana, S.C., leads a church that burned down in August 1995 after enduring vandalism for a decade. Lowman said after the news conference that she’s heard some fellow African-Americans in the neighborhood of her church say they are”planning to retaliate.

“What we are trying now is to avoid it,” she said.

The Rev. Joseph Lowery, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, interviewed from his Atlanta office, said,”We will have some turmoil”if the fires are not stopped.”In some instances, self-styled vigilantes might take it upon themselves and patrol around black churches and could come upon white people who just happened by and are even innocent, but it could lead to violence,” he said.”I hope not, but it’s a real danger.” Lowery called for nightly”unarmed vigils of blacks and whites working together” to deter arsonists

.”Black people have always participated in the protection of their churches, and it’s time for us to do that again,” he said.

Some black clergy of burned churches charge that authorities have been more aggressive in questioning pastors and congregations after a fire than searching for outside leads.

Rose Johnson, national program director of the Center for Democratic Renewal, an Atlanta-based group that monitors hate crimes, said the organization would file formal complaints” on behalf of every single church” that feels it was treated improperly by federal authorities.

Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, who oversees the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) and who met Monday with clergy from about 30 burned churches, acknowledged the reports of improper inquiries.

“I have no doubt, having heard the pastors, that there have been instances of insensitivity,” Rubin told reporters.”Building trust and maintaining trust is absolutely key.”

Deval L. Patrick, assistant attorney general for civil rights, said on CNN that despite complaints of unfair interrogations of church members, authorities would use”whatever investigative tools are at our disposal and then some”to solve the arson crimes.

At the news conference, the Center for Democratic Renewal released a study stating that 80 mostly rural, black and multiracial churches have been burned, firebombed or vandalized since January 1990. The report included a list of 32 white males who have been charged in some of the incidents.

Treasury Department spokesman Darren McKinney said the ATF is investigating 31 incidents that have occurred since January 1995.

About 200 agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the ATF have been working on the cases, and President Clinton highlighted the arson issue in his weekly radio address Saturday (June 8).

But black church leaders said not enough has been done to determine whether an organized conspiracy-notably one directed by white-supremacy groups-has been at work in the arsons.”One of the things that we are clearly … demanding is that the ATF and the FBI turn these investigations squarely in the direction of white supremacist groups,” Jones said.

“We want the white supremacist aspect of this followed and followed clearly because that needs to be shut down.”

On Friday (June 7), the Macedonia Baptist Church in Bloomville, S.C., filed a civil suit against the North Carolina-based Christian Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, according to The New York Times. A member of the white supremacist group was charged in that fire.

Federal authorities say it remains unclear whether there is a conspiracy linking some or all of the fires. Officials in Charlotte, N.C., arrested a lone 13-year-old white girl in connection with a church fire there last week, and the origins of Sunday night’s fire in Texas remain-like that of many of the other arsons-a mystery.

At a three-hour service in a Washington church Sunday evening, more than 30 people whose churches, homes or lodges have been burned stood silently as others walked slowly around the sanctuary with the wooden and glass remnants of burned houses of worship.

During the service, speakers implored the government to do more to help the churches.

Deval Patrick and Jim Johnson, assistant treasury secretary for law enforcement, who are leading a national church arson task force, attended the service.

At the service and Monday’s news conference, the Rev. Reggie White, a defensive end with the NFL’s Green Bay Packers and an associate pastor of the Inner City Church in Knoxville, Tenn., which burned in January, asked churches and celebrities of a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds-including the “Bill Cosbys” and”Oprah Winfreys” of the world to donate money to help rebuild the damaged and destroyed churches

.”When these churches burn, it’s all of our communities that are being terrorized,”White said.”We’ve got to support one another.”