By Andy Netzel
Religion News Service
A charred Bible rested on a table in front of what used to be Dancy First Baptist Church’s pulpit, where investigators believe the fire started.
Walter Hawkins Jr., ran his fingers across the book, causing the corners of the pages to flake off.
Feb. 8 was the first time he could walk into his church, one of the nine central Alabama Baptist churches set afire by arsonists in the past week. Five churches were reported burned Feb. 9 in Bibb County.
“It’s totally, totally destroyed,” Hawkins said. “There is nothing salvageable. It looks so much better on the outside. I don’t know what to say.”
Investigators sifted through the remains of the four churches set afire this month in Greene, Pickens and Sumter counties. Fifty agents from the federal bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives scoured the sites for evidence.
No arrests have been made. No motive is apparent.
“Someone was directly attacking the sanctuaries of the churches,” Senior Agent Austin Banks said. “It seems like a statement was being made.”
The ministers and members of the damaged congregations are struggling to figure out what that statement could be.
Hawkins, whose church is in southernmost Pickens County, just a few miles from the Mississippi state line, leaned close to the Bible, which was left open on the table. The fire consumed most of the words, but some remained: “up the sin of my” read one partial line from Judges 19. “They set their heart,’ the next line read.
Investigators had asked Hawkins earlier if that had any special meaning. Anything that could be a message.
According to the website Bible.org, the 19th chapter of Judges tells the story of an Israelite’s travels with his concubine.
One night, he gave her over to a group of rowdy men who threatened to sexually assault him and then raped her repeatedly. The Israelite took the woman home, cut her into 12 pieces and sent the pieces “throughout Israel.”
Did it have meaning? Hawkins couldn’t think of anything. Not yet.
He was standing in the middle of the 155-year-old church’s new building, constructed in 1999. Could this apply to his own congregation? Did a congregant leave the Bible there accidentally or had it been placed there by the arsonist? He had only questions. No answers.
Banks said the church’s Bible was being looked at by authorities.
Meanwhile, most community members had far less information to go on. They knew the churches that burned were small and in rural settings.
Nothing had been taken or left at the sites. Of the nine churches set ablaze, all were Baptist. Both predominantly black and predominantly white congregations have been hit.
“You would think there has got to be some kind of message,” said Annie Garner, a member of the congregation from Dancy. “I wish they would use words instead of burning down my church."
Religion News Service