n the summer of 1996, national attention was riveted on what appeared to be a series of arsons directed primarily at black churches, many of them located in the rural south. A number of religious and political leaders expressed the opinion that the fires were deliberately set, and possibly the result of a coordinated effort –  perhaps by racist groups intent on intimidating blacks. Government on several levels became involved, and the U.S. Department of Justice assembled a multi-agency team to investigate the fires. Congress enacted a hastily-framed Church Arson Prevention Act, and the Clinton Administration, denouncing the arsons in strong language, established a special government fund to guarantee loans for the reconstruction of churches damaged by the fires. Political and religious groups, including such diverse organizations as the Christian Coalition and the National Council of Churches established their own special funds as well. Certain government and religious leaders denounced what they termed a “conspiracy against religion” or “attacks” on religious exercise. 

This past summer, a special Task Force formed to investigate the church arsons released its final report, and concluded that there was no evidence of a single, coordinated conspiracy. Many factors, noted the report, accounted for the burnings.

There are several points I will attempt to demonstrate here, including the salient one that the “church arson conspiracy” was a narrative with remarkable similarities to other forms of social hysteria. Crucial in this understanding is Elaine Showalter’s recent book HYSTORIES, Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Media (1997, Columbia). Dr. Showalter, Avalon Professor of the Humanities at Princeton, does not explore the church arson “epidemic,” devoting her attention to other artifacts of modern pop culture, such as claims of Satanic ritual abuse, “recovered memories,” tales of alien abduction, and Chronic fatigue and Gulf War syndrome.(i) I argue that there was no “epidemic” of arsons, and that no credible evidence of a “conspiracy” against churches, religious belief or free exercise exists – the statements of Ralph Reed and the head of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission notwithstanding. The “epidemic” was of a conspiratorial narrative fueled by unverified pronouncements from religious and political leaders and, to a certain extent, by the news media. 

As with other “social epidemics,” the church arson conspiracy (CAC) reflected stresses and conflicts being played out throughout the culture, including the black community. A number of possible “triggers” and other factors may have contributed to the conspiracy theory and its attendant Angst, including the O.J. Simpson trial, the heated debate over partial-birth abortion, the beating of motorist Rodney King, Louis Farrakhan’s “million man march” on Washington, D.C., and the far-flung debate over racism and equality in America. And then there was the base enthusiasm of political figures, especially those operating out of the White House, to exploit the CAC notion for more immediate ends. The church arsons provided an opportunity for politicians of both parties to “reach out” to specific voting blocks. In this respect, not one major political figure stepped forward to criticize the more brash arson conspiracy scenarios, or challenge any of the more outrageous claims such as Mr. Reed’s assertion that the fires were an attack on religious belief. Religious groups seemed unanimous in either agreeing that the number of arsons was a significant and unusual event – something which arson statistics did not support. At the height of the arson panhysteria, eleven different organizations were busy collecting donations to rebuild churches. They ranged from the National Conference of Christians and Jews to the Promise Keepers, the National Council of Churches, and the Congress of National Black Churches. In addition, religious organizations had their own agendas for exploiting and even fueling the CAC bandwagon, or at least for not questioning the notion that the fires were part of a conspiratorial pattern. 

The church fires also provided an unprecedented opportunity for government to become involved with suspect legislation which clearly favored religion and displayed discriminatory emphasis on behalf of religious groups. Despite findings by insurance and arson prevention groups that there was no significant increas in the number of arsons involving churches, over $24 million was appropriated for special law enforcement efforts at the federal level. At one point, over 500 Special Agents of the FBI and the Treasury Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms were dedicated to church arson investigations. Their efforts were supplemented by state and local investigators. And when the church arson craze peaked in the summer of 1996, President Clinton signed the Church Arson Prevention Act, which provided for stiff penalties against those convicted of such offenses and “granted federal prosecutors greater power in pursuing burnings and desecrations at houses of worship...”(ii) The legislation had been introduced on both sides of Capitol Hill, uniting liberals such as Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and Senator Lauch Faircloth (R-NC) with Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill) and Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI).(iii) The measure was passed unanimously in both legislative houses. 

This scenario may be best visualized as a series of concentric circles, with black community-based churches at the center. Historically, the black church has been perceived as one of the few truly independent black institutions in the nation, and has traditionally played the role of being an organizational locus in civil rights efforts. Indeed, especially throughout the era of the 1950s and 1960s, black churches were often the target of violence, including arson, by whites opposed to integration, and organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan.(iv) To many blacks, including those active in social movements for racial equality, the fires were too reminiscent of an ugly time in American history. USA TODAY noted that “burning a black church is more than an attack on a house of worship; it is an assault on the culture itself.” 

Diving into the significance if any of the church fires became a preoccupation with columnists, political commentators, religious leaders and the general news media. Here, the second ring of participants in the CAC scenario entered the fray; while their respective analyses of what was taking place differed, there seemed to be little interest in questioning whether the number of fires was extraordinary, the work of clandestine groups with racial or political agendas, or even warranted the ground swell of media interest. Embers were still hot, for instance, when C. Eric Lincoln, a religion professor at Duke University insisted that “It is an attempt to show absolute contempt for whatever is of greatest value or whatever has greatest meaning for black people.”  The assistant attorney general in charge of civil rights enforcement for the Justice Department, Deval Patrick, warned ominously, “We are dealing with a pattern that grows out of racial hostility in this country.” 

The third and outermost segment involved in the CAC story was a relative handful of arson investigators, insurance industry experts, select media and anyone else who critically examined the many claims about the alleged conspiracy and found them seriously lacking. USA TODAY devoted exceptional resources in tracking the church arson story; it was one of the few papers to give relatively balanced coverage to the affair. It should also be noted that while none of the nation’s prominent religious leaders or organizations openly criticized the CAC hysteria, some local pastors – including those at churches which had been burned – urged caution in  painting alarmist visions of a widespread conspiracy. 

The fires took on the dimension of a subversion mythos, a situation wherein a group or community is perceived as under attack by unseen forces. This mythos has been useful in trying to analyze many social phenomena, such as the infamous Salem witch trial mania or, more recently, some of the outbreaks of “Satanic panic” during the 1980s and early ’90s. 

Murray Friedman, for instance, urged communities to mobilize in “Uniting to fight attacks against God and the law,”¹ and compared “the recent spate of burnings of black churches” to the Kristallnacht in Germany when Nazi goons launched attacks on Jewish-owned businesses and homes. Friedman opined that, “An attack against a house of worship must be understood as a crime against the human spirit and against God. By burning a church, arsonists demonstrate that they fear neither God nor the law.” 

New York Times religion reporter Gustav Nieburh was equally poetic, describing “Unholy fires on Hallowed Ground.” He charged that the fires were rooted “in an attempt to disrupt a community of believers, desecrate their altars and smash the spiritual rhythm of their lives.”² Nieburh also quoted Rev. Joan Brown Campbell of the National Council of Churches, writing, “Church burnings register on a ‘soul-deep level,’ where even the Constitutional guarantee of religious freedom seems imperiled...” Campbell warned, “You begin to ask, can one not go to a church of one’s choice and worship free of fear?” 

Political leaders seemed to quickly reflect the Angst of their religious counterparts. Deval Patrick, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, labeled the burnings “an epidemic of terror.” At the time, Patrick was co-chairing the newly created National Church Arson Task Force that had been haphazardly formed by the Clinton administration. The report of that body a year later would suggest that Mr. Patrick had been somewhat dramatic in his claim. 

From the religious right, Christian Coalition Director Ralph Reed expressed similar conspiracy theory sentiments, and told a press conference on June 16, 1996 that the arsons were proof that “religion is under attack in the United States.”³ Robert George, assistant head of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights expressed equally dark thoughts, insisting that the fires were “an attack on Christianity.”⁴  

The government had already responded to the alleged CAC by mobilizing an unprecedented number of agents; but even that action did not satisfy many church leaders, especially when the results of investigations began to unearth evidence pointing to multiple causes behind the fires rather than an overarching conspiracy. The Christian Coalition, for instance, called upon Mr. Clinton to have the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) removed from the investigations. The White House responded to growing discontent from certain religious groups by calling for a dedicated national prayer Sunday in June on behalf of those victimized by the church arsons. Other political leaders took Clinton’s adroit cue, and issued similar proclamations for prayer days in their respective states or municipalities.

In early June, as the National Church Arson Task Force was beginning its work, about thirty religious leaders traveled to Washington for meetings with Attorney General Janet Reno and other officials, “to voice dissatisfaction with federal, state and local investigators, which they say have focused more on the church members and clergy than on outside suspects.”⁶ Rev. Mac Charles Jones of the National Council of Churches complained that investigators were issuing subpoenas for church records and asking ministers of congregation members to take polygraph tests. Jones later told CNN, “The sense of dissatisfaction (among pastors) is not around the amount of the investigation, but the sense of intimidation that they feel from investigators.”⁷  

An AANEWS report of 12 June 1996 observed: 

Meanwhile, federal agents from the FBI and the Treasury Department continue to encounter resistance from church leaders who want the investigation deflected from certain areas including possible insurance fraud or ‘insider’ arson for publicity or other motives...

Of 39 fires under active investigation at the time, one had been ruled an accident, and two were determined to be the result of a race-based hate crime. Seven more suggested possible hatred, but that determination was less than conclusive, and based on the presence of anti-black graffiti left at the scene, or the existence of a cluster of black congregation churches which were in the same area and burned on the same night. Eleven cases involved arson for reasons other than racial or religious hatred. Eighteen of the fires remained unsolved. 

An examination of fires dating back to the previous year indicated a similarly diverse profile. “Just a fraction of church fires traced to hatred,” noted two reporters in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (20 June 1996). While some fires were clearly linked to racial hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, (v)  others were not. “Vandalism is a leading motive,” noted the Democrat-Gazette, “and churches are easy targets.” 

Persuasive evidence that there was a “wave” of arsons directed at black churches required a statistical legerdemain that was ultimately impossible to achieve. White churches were burning at a similar pace⁹ and in the BATF probe of 59 church fires since January, 1995, 30 involved black congregations and 29 – almost half – involved white or mostly white church groups. (vii)  

By late June, 1996, a better profile of the church fire situation was beginning to emerge. Assistant Attorney General Deval Patrick, who earlier had described the burning as an “epidemic of terror,” was now qualifying his public statements. “The prospect of a conspiracy is a chilling thing,” said Patrick. “But the prospect that these are separate acts of racism is even worse.”10 The Assistant Attorney General seemed to be echoing the sentiments of other government agents who wished that there were a conspiracy. One unidentified BATF agent mused to CNN, “Conspiracies are easier to crack, because it’s harder for two people than one to keep a secret.” 

There was no church fire conspiracy, though, concluded USA TODAY¹¹ after conducting what was, in retrospect, the most exhaustive investigation into the fires carried out by any private news organization. The paper zeroed in on 64 of the leading cases of black church arsons over an eleven state area, (viii) “including 18 unreported by federal authorities.” “This investigation rules out any possibility of a national or even regional conspiracy.” The paper added, “There is no one answer to the frightening collection of torched churches across the South, black and white,” and cited a wide range of activities including insurance fraud, revenge, derangement and, “to be sure, open or latent racial hatred.”  

Two arson clusters or zones were identified, areas which did have unusual amounts of fire involving black churches. One cluster was a 200-mile oval which included portions of western Tennessee and northwest Alabama. A second zone stretched across portions of North and South Carolina. Sixty percent of the reported investigations in 1996 took place in these zones. “That means the national uproar (over church arsons) could be the work of as few as one or two serial arsonists operating in those zones.”

Other findings in the report included the fact that some of the fires “don’t even belong on a list of arsons.” Four of the blazes involved burning piles of trash, and one fire which occurred at a black church in Houston was caused by children playing with matches in a church-run play group. Another fire in Alabama was recorded during a violent lightning storm.¹⁵  
 
Other incidents of alleged arson which were tabulated and reported may have had nothing whatsoever to do with churches. For instance, arson lists in the media reported the fire at the Greater Ebenezer Baptist Church in New Orleans on 29 June 1996. “Someone torched a stack of lumber near this church in the early stages of construction,” noted USA TODAY, “and authorities said it was not obvious a church was being built.” One factor gingerly avoided by much of the domestic media was the question of bitter internal rivalries or activities within religious congregations, both black and white. In the case of arson involving black churches, nothing caused as much confusion and consternation as the arrest of a black defendant. Early on the morning of 23 May  1996, fire swept the Mount Tabor Baptist Church in Cerro Gordo, North Carolina, causing $60,000 in damage to the main hall. The Cerro Gordo fire was in one of the two “arson clusters” and there had been four other church fires in the state within the past seventeen months linked to probable arson. Investigators soon arrested two black contractors who had been remodeling the church annex; the alleged motive was to conceal the fact that they had exhausted their funds prior to completing the work. Other similar cases involved black children, a black mental patient, and a black man who told authorities that he had set the fire at a Methodist church in order to conceal a burglary. 

Racism was considered an early winner in explaining most, or at least many of the arsons at black churches, even considering the perplexing phenomenon that blacks were being arrested in connection with some of the fires. But what about arson at white houses of worship? Reporter R. A. Zaldivar noted that “Burnings of white churches and synagogues... are down from the early 90s...”¹⁶ There was “no clear motive” in most of these torchings, but experts suggested delusional thrill seekers, copycats, vandals, and ethnic bigotry as factors. Six of the targets were synagogues. 

Unlike some of the black church arsons, the white targets were spread throughout the country and included congregations in Arizona, Colorado, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah and elsewhere. Dian Williams of the Center for Arson Research told The Inquirer that some church arsonists were in the grip of a “religious psychosis.” 

“Sometimes they hear a voice telling them over and over to burn churches in order to avert Armageddon, because the church has become a component of the Antichrist,” Williams remarked. 

The flip side of that scenario, though, occurred in Charlotte, North Carolina on 6 June 1996 when fire swept through the sanctuary of the Matthews-Murkland Presbyterian Church. Local investigators soon determined that the fire was “deliberately set,”¹⁷ but stopped short of linking it to any other arsons. Police then arrested a 13-year old white suspect who they charged with the burning, and added that the juvenile “harbors anti-Christian, anti-African American beliefs.”¹⁸ That prompted an article in the Charlotte Observer (“Teen Satanists are mostly just dabbling, experts say...”) discussing teen interest in the occult, and a report that six years before, police discovered a “crude stone altar” in a neighborhood where residents feared that cultists “gathered at night to worship and possibly sacrifice animals.” A sidebar to the arrest article was titled “Warning Signals,” and advised parents to be on the lookout for “warning signs” that their child would be active in Satanist activities. 

Different groups thus perceived the arson “epidemic” in different ways. Blacks, particularly those active in the churches, were suspicious of investigators, and often clung tenaciously to some variant of the Church Arson Conspiracy. Mainstream white or mixed congregation groups, especially the National Council of Churches and the American Jewish Congress, embraced elements of the CAC, and reached-out with high-profile fund raising efforts to rebuild black churches. The Clinton administration hedged its bet,(xi) supporting Janet Reno and Justice Department agents who found a mixed-bag of motives and personalities behind the arsons, all the while aggressively using the public notoriety of the arsons to push for special legislation, including the Church Arson Prevention Act, and a $10,000,000 special fund to guarantee church reconstruction. The height of the church arson occurred during the 1996 campaign, one heavily laced with religious claims, metaphors and appeals from both major parties. In fact, Clinton’s handlers succeeded in using many Republican Party culture war issues on their own behalf; indeed, by embracing churches and a call for religious faith, Clinton substantially muted the GOP character-issue attack which painted the former Arkansas governor as a philandering adulterer.

The Task Force had found that only a few of the fires are linked by common defendants. Conspiracy charges have been filed in a limited number of cases. These conspiracies, though, have tended to be confined to the small geographic areas where the arsons have occurred. Investigators continue to pursue the question of whether broader conspiracies were responsible for some of the fires, but to date the evidence has not established the existence of a national conspiracy.

I suggest that the answer to these questions resides, in part, with events taking place at the approximate time of the church fires which touched on key cultural issues. For blacks, the overarching conspiracy scenario involved an extension of historically documented facts from the Civil Rights era, namely, white supremacist groups burning churches. 

Another factor which could well have fueled a climate of acceptance for conspiracy theories was the steady rise in influence within certain segments of the black community of Louis Farrakhan, head of the Nation of Islam. Farrakhan continued the conspiracy ideology of the late Elijah Muhammad, fusing together a message of black self-reliance, Muslim religious doctrine, and bizarre theology with tales of white plots and black aliens in flying saucers. Even so, he has enjoyed surprisingly wide (albeit somewhat conditional) acceptance within the black community; and the presence of major black leaders at the October 16, 1995, Million Man March in Washington, D.C., affirms the fact that among the leading blacks, only Farrakhan could have orchestrated such a massive undertaking. If the Nation of Islam’s Final Call could advance conspiracy theories about the CIA inventing AIDS, then the idea of a conspiracy to burn black churches was not altogether that implausible. 

For white evangelicals, particularly groups like the Christian Coalition, the events surrounding the church arson imbroglio were adapted to fit a slightly different conspiracy theory, one which affirmed the religious-right theme that religion is under attack. Traditionally, conservative religious movements cast themselves as active defenders of the political status-quo. While still affirming “traditional values,” though, groups like the Christian Coalition and Family Research Council increasingly speak of “government hostility” to religious expression, and cite the need, for instance, to amend (rather than defend) the U.S. Constitution. Institutions like the U.S. Supreme Court are branded as “judicial activists” and rogues. While Ralph Reed and others on the religious right did not specify exactly who was supposedly “attacking religious belief” by burning churches, the fires provided the ideal time to find common cause with a group long ignored by evangelicals – namely, the black churches.

• Churches and related properties do not constitute a “major part” of the U.S. arson problem. In fact, 99% of all “suspicious” fires involve businesses, homes, vacant buildings and apartment dwellings.(xiii) In addition to a steady decline in the number of fires involving churches, there has been a comparible decline in the numbers of fires known to be arson-related. The only increase appears to be in the category of “property-related damage,” estimated at around $16 million in 1994 compared to nearly $30 million in recent years. Arson nevertheless remains the leading cause of fire in churches and related property, but it does not account for the majority of the fires. About one out of every four church building fires have been linked to deliberate arson, but 75% involve other causes – everything from poor wiring to collateral damage from other fires. 

•Statistics from other time periods suggest a similar pattern. There are approximately 350,000 churches throughout the United States(xiv) (a figure which suggests that “people of faith” certainly have adequate opportunity to worship as they see fit). With such a number, fires take place at a church somewhere every day. For instance, one insurance industry study noted, “In the years 1980 to 1983, approximately 1700 fires occur in church sanctuaries and another 3100 fires occur in other church properties (including halls, classrooms, etc.).”²⁰ That suggests a rate of thirteen fires on church property every day in the U.S. Later figures support a similar rate. According to the National fire Protection Association, arson is the leading cause of fires in churches, “as in all public and commercial buildings.” 

As with other examples of social epidemics or “hystories,” their passage from the contemporary consciousness goes relatively unnoticed. They are quickly replaced by other fads or phobias. The NCATF report elicited only passing commentary, and after a two- or three-day period of news coverage, seemed to vanish from the popular stage. The authors of the report congratulated themselves, and praised the idea of “how government agencies and private groups can work together to help rebuild a house of worship.” 

There were state-church separation concerns, though, which were a critical part of the church arson hysteria, that were usually ignored by media and by political interests. They included passage of the Church Arson Prevention Act, which American Atheists charge clearly treats churches and other houses of worship as more valuable and worthy of government sanction than mere secular institutions, such as homes and private businesses. The Act also drew the government into the business of funding religious institutions through a $10,000,000 loan guarantee program; and it took the unprecedented step of prohibiting insurance companies from not renewing policies on high-risk churches. In the heady, emotionally charged climate of the church fires, legislators rushed to provide stiffer penalties for attacks on churches. 

The church fires also conveniently occurred during a campaign which many observers saw as a high point in the use of religious rhetoric and symbols. Candidates from both parties embraced religious metaphores to stake out their respective position in the “culture war” issues. Indeed, strong religious rhetoric helped Mr. Clinton survive the 1996 election. Ralph Reed and other religious-right groups within the Republican Party ran their political strategy on social and “values” issues rather than economic points. 

The fires also served to cast religious groups, or specific congregations, in a victim role – one sure to elicit sympathy and support. Ironically at a time when many black churches were under attack during the civil rights era of the late 1950s and early 60s, much of white America – and nearly all white evangelicals – expressed little or mixed support. But the Angst over church fires in the later 1990s reflected racial considerations as well. For many blacks, the fires were simply a tragic replay of what had happened before, and served as an unwelcome reminder of certain political and economic realities in the present. 

From a wider perspective, though, the “church arson conspiracy” was one of many blips on the cultural radar screen which happen to scroll across our view with greater and greater frequency. We are truly a culture saturated with epidemics and syndromes, obsessed with plots, victimization, and conspiracies. From movies and television programs to the evening news, we consume a steady diet of subversion mythology. Showalter traces the evolution of this “hysteria,” suggesting its pre-millenialist character and noting, “In our own fin de siecle, as medical institutions expel hysteria, literary critics take it up.” Indeed, a “hysterical narrative” runs through the popular consciousness. Reinforced in print and video, it affects the way we interpret the political and social landscape around us. 

The hysterial over church arsons was a double tragedy. It became a popular expression of the penchant for unsubstantiated claims and unsupported scenarios. And as an expression of Angst and uncertainty about the future, it resulted in misplaced (though in many cases, sincere and well intentioned) deeds. Churches were rebuilt, but after the legislators had gone home and religious groups had congratulated themselves for yet another new partnership with the state, no new hospitals, or schools, or youth programs, or scholarship funds had been created. The secular institutions which ultimately can address the concerns underlying the phobias – the “hysteria,” the institutionalized dysfunctions – remain unbuilt or neglected.  
 

Footnotes: 
(i) It should be acknowledged that Showalter treats these different phenomena with varying degrees of success. The case against outrageous claims of alien abduction or ritual cult abuse is a persuasive one; but while Showalter mounts similar attacks on Chronic fatigue and Gulf War syndrome, the results are not always so definitive and far less compelling. There may indeed be a physical cause or cluster of measurable factors behind these last two medically-related items. Showalter does, however, demonstrate that many descriptions of these maladies are vague and are not always verified (especially by the media and possibly by certain researchers).  

(ii) First Year Report for the President, National Church Arson Task Force, p. 6. Amended as 18 U.S.C. 247, it empowered federal prosecutors to file charges in “racially motivated” arsons without the need to show that the incident involved the use of interstate facilities. It also stiffened penalties for burning a church, allowing the state to ask for up to 20-year jail terms.  

(iii) That political alignment was a convenient one. The Kennedy electoral base is heavily rooted in the black community. The motives, however, for Faircloth – a former Democrat who joined the Republican Party as part of the power shift in the deep south – are more suspect. The church arsons provided welcome relief for the North Carolina senator who was under attack for his involvement in allegations of scandal and political favoritism in the state’s thriving hog-farming industry. Similarly, Hyde’s name had figured prominently into the S&L debacle, having been a board member of the bankrupt Clyde Federal Savings.  

(iv) The first of what was to become hundreds, even thousands of such acts of violence was in 1822 when the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C. was burned by an enraged white mob that had heard that slaves were supposedly meeting there to plan an uprising.  
 
(v) On 20 June 1995 for instance, authorities arrested two members of the Klan and charged them with setting the fire in the Mount Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church in Greeleyville, S.C. The fact that investigators had originally blamed electrical problems for the fire contributed to a growing sense that arson experts were either overlooking evidence of foul play, or engaged in a cover-up.  

(vi) “Many were drinking alcohol heavily on the night the churches burned,” observed USA TODAY (July 1, 1996), adding that “Several had been taking drugs, mostly marijuana.”  

(vii) Even so, of about 350,000 churches nationwide, only about 65,000 have predominantly black congregations. Did this suggest a high rate of arson involving black churches?  At first, it appears that it does.  But other factors must be considered, including the fact that the overall rate of arsons involving churches both black and white had not increased.  Many of the black churches were in remote, rural areas making them an easy target.  And, “Churches are vulnerable to arson and sometimes the target of serial arsonists,” noted USA TODAY. “Many are vacant a good part of each week and located in isolated areas. Security systems are rare.”  

(viii) In this crucial respect, the USA TODAY probe was more focused than that of the National Church Arson Task Force. The latter’s First Year Report (June 1997) tabulated fires in 25 states which clearly were not part of any pattern. The USA TODAY probe identified two significant “arson zones” or “clusters” in the south, whereas the NCATF included fires such as one set at a Presbyterian Church in Spring Valley, California by a 28-year old white male who is now in a state mental facility.  

(ix) In the course of investigating material for this article, the author found incredibly wide variations in some statistics and in how they were reported. The most consistent (and perhaps reliable) seem to be generated by the National Fire Protection Association, which reported a recent average of 1,330 fires striking “places of worship” annually. Of those where the cause is known, about 27% of these are arsons. Every source I located, however, provided the figure of 1% for the rate of church arsons compared to all other incidents of arson activity.  

(x) The youth connection was present again when it was noted that some of the rural churches had become “party spots” for young people.  

(xi) Clinton artfully insisted that he saw nothing political in assailing the burning of black churches, and he urged Americans to “stand up against the desecration of houses of worship.” See USA TODAY, 13 June 1996.  

(xii) Remarkably, it was perhaps only Clinton himself who consistently urged skepticism regarding any conspiracy. Why did he do this? One reason was that as a politician, Clinton was still able to exploit the “religion card” throughout the 1996 Presidential campaign. He also had to stand-by the Justice Department and his former nominee, now Attorney General Janet Reno. Reno had weathered a storm of criticism over the Waco debacle. Did Reno later re-pay Clinton by not appointing a Special Prosecutor over Whitewater and related affairs?  

(xiii) Uniform Crime Report figures from the U.S. Department of Justice for just the year 1982-83 showed, for instance, that about 50,000 structures were damaged by arson, and almost half were defined as “single-occupancy residents.” That figure may be low – and if church fires are reported more faithfully, it suggests that the percentage of church burnings may be artificially inflated as a result. See Patrick Jackson, Criminology, 26, 181-95 (1988), which suggests that only about 60% of arsons are ever reported in the UCR. In smaller communities (those under 25,000) only about 32% of arsons are included.  

(xiv) That figure may actually be low, since it does not include the “weekend congregations” which rent auditoriums, school halls and other buildings for their activities, or meet in private homes and other venues.  

References: 

¹  Philadelpha Inquirer, 5 July 1996.  
² The New York Times, 23 June 1996.  
³ CNN reports of 16 and 17 June 1997.  
⁴ CNN reports of 18 and 19 June 1997.  
⁵ Quoted in USA TODAY, 13 June 1996.  
⁶ Associated Press release, 9 June 1996.  
⁷ CNN broadcast, 9 June 1996.  
⁸ Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 20 June 1996.  
⁹ USA TODAY, 18 June 1996.  
¹⁰ CNN News, 23 June 1996.  
¹¹ USA TODAY, 1 and 2 June 1996.  
¹² The Bakersfield Californian, article on arson spree in Kern County libraries by Robert Price, 16 Feb. 1996. Statistics also from National fire Protection Association.  
¹³ “Experts say adults start fires for profit or personal gain, or somtimes to cover other crimes. Juveniles start fires for kicks, out of curiosity or for purposes of intimication...” (Price, ibid.)  
¹⁴ USA TODAY, 1 and 2 June 1996.  
¹⁵ By the time the NCATF issued its June, 1997 report, these two incidents had dropped off the list of “officially investigated” church arson events.  
¹⁶ Philadelphia Inquirer, 15 June 1996.  
¹⁷ CNN, 7 June 1996; Associated Press dispatch, 7 June 1996.  
¹⁸ Charlotte (N.C.) Observer, 17 June 1996.  
¹⁹ Fact sheet provided by Federal Emergency Management Agency, “Fact Sheet on Arson and Church Fires in the U.S.A.,” Washington.  
²⁰ William H. Rodda. Underwriting Update, “The Price of Worship,” Best’s Review (Property/Casualty Insurance Edition) '87, June, 1986. pp 70, 72.  

Conrad F. Goeringer is an antiquarian bookseller and freelance writer who lives on the cape of New jersey. A frequent speaker at American Atheists national conventions, he is director of American Atheists On-line Services and a contributing editor of American Atheist.