Economics
While mainstream news media accounts often dwell on the remote locations of some churches—beside little-used country roads with few people living nearby—many of the targeted structures actually sit on prime real estate. Perhaps in some cases, an attempted land-grab is prompting the destruction. Numerous churches have been on the same site for many decades, or even a century or more, and communities have grown around them. Church cemeteries frequently lie nearby, adding to the resolve of church members not to sell or move. Church leaders and members have repeatedly expressed the belief that arson and other assaults constitute deliberate attempts to frighten the churches into moving off the land and selling off their heritage. The Falling Meadows Baptist Church in West Point, Mississippi, for example, burned on March 10, 1996. The church sits on choice land, on a major highway across from a public school. Sources reported that church leaders received frequent offers to buy the land; a similar proposition came shortly after the burning. St. John’s Baptist Church in Dixiana, South Carolina, situated on a state road and surrounded by growing development, burned on August 15, 1995, following a 10-year plague of racist vandalism and destruction which some believe was aimed at pressuring the church to move from its prime spot.
A Fire on the Cross continued...
| Previous | Glossary of Scientology Terms | Contents | Next |
| Your view on this Scientology Website | Scientology Related Sites | Bookstore | Church of Scientology Freedom Magazine |
editor@freedommag.org © 1999-2008 Church of Scientology International. All Rights Reserved.
