8B
RELIGION/Slge Charlotte 3$ost
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Church assembles portable villages for volunteer efforts
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
DURHAM, N.C.-Hurri
cane season may not have hit
hard yet, but at Westminster
Presbyterian Church they’re
already workir^ to house the
volimteers who’U flock to
wherever disaster may strike.
About 40 members of the
congregation are assembling
volunteer villages, clusters of
buildings that can be folded
flat and shipped to areas in
need of places for an influx of
volunteers to stay while help
ing hurricane-struck resi
dents.
“It’s a complete village whai
they get there, so they can
concentrate on helping vic
tims of the disaster,”
explained the Rev. Paul Rans-
ford, known to the Westmin
ster faithful as the church’s
“Disaster Pastor” for headir^
up its disaster response min
istry
The church first encoim-
tered the novel buildings
when about a dozen parish
ioners assembled six villages
across the Gulf Coast last fall
after Hurricane Katrina
struck. This year, the church
had Florida-based Unifold
Shelters Ltd. ship the sheltms
by the truckful to the church
campus on Old Chapel Hill
Road, where volimteei^ from
Westminster and TVinity
Avenue Presbyterian Church
have spent evenings and
weekends putting them
together.
The weatherproof buildings
arrive as flat sheets of tough
corrugated plastic. They fold
into tunnels which can be
made into 10-foot square
units to house three or four
people, or combined into larg
er, ll-by-22 administrative
buddings with kitchens and
bathrooms.
The United Nations and
American Red Cross also use
Unifold buildings, as does the
National Guard. Church
member Jan McCallum,
who’s coordinating this year’s
Westminster project, said the
shelters ware often used as
decontamination units.
The tunnels are walled in
with more plastic at one end
and tent-stjie doors at the
other. It’s all held together
with anchor straps and rivets
installed with air compressors
and drills bou^t by the
church.
A tractor-trailer can hold 30
small and five large ready-to-
use huts. Although they’re too
lightwe^ht to survive a hurri
cane themselves, the budd
ings can easdy get out of
harm’s way
‘Tf you need to take them
down, they fold right up,”
McCallum said.
They bounce back, too.
“Ad you have to do is walk
around and kick them and
they expand out again,” Rans-
ford said.
Westminster started provid
ing hurricane rehef imder the
umbrella of Presbyterian Dis
aster Assistance after Hurri
cane Floyd, in the hard-hit
eastern North Carolina town
of Tarboro. The group
swooped in again after Hiuri-
cane Isabel, this time into
Hyde County, where the
church youth group budt a
house, before heading to the
Gidf Coast last year and liv
ing in what Ransfbrd called a
“tent dty” whde budding vd-
lages out of the codapsible
buddings.
Thanks to drivers and
trucks supphed by TROSA
(Triangle Residential Options
for Substance Abusers), West
minster has already delivered
a truckload of shelters this
stanmerto Bd^hamton, N.Y.,
to house volunteers helping
residents affected by this
year’s spring floods.
The two truckloads they’re
working on now wdl be p art of
a proactive effort. Ransford
said theyTl be delivered to a
staging area dose to the cen
ter of the U.S. in Arkansas by
Sept. 1—when hurricane sea
son traditionady starts to
peak —ready for deployment
to wherever they might be
needed, with a team fi'om
Westminster dose behind.
“This time wed be ready in
two days to say ‘Go,”’ Rans
ford said.
Assembling the villages in
advance also allows church
members to get involved who
can’t travel to disaster zones.
‘Tt really gives chmch mem
bers a chance to put theii'
faith to work in a meanir^ful
way to them,” Ransford said.
The church charges $10 per
volunteer per night in hurri
cane-hit areas, the money
paying for room and board-
kitchen and bathroom facili
ties—plus a meal.
A minister starts over in small Utah city
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
OGDEN, Utah—Pastor
Jimmie Warren had a church
and 18 acres near New
Orleans. He raised okra, cat
tle and hogs while tending to
the needs of poor people.
Now he and wife Afleen are
living in a modest home, 40
miles north of Salt Lake City
He gives nightly Bible
lessons, opening the door to
anyone who wants hand-dap-
ping gospel music and inspi
ration.
‘T hear the sound of a new
breeze,” Warren and his
guests sing, “marching
toward the gates of the
enemy”
His “amens” are too numer-
oias to coimt.
‘Tt was a divine appoint
ment for me to be here,” War
ren said later. “It’s God’s
will—not Katrina.”
He was refenir^, of course,
to the hurricane that
destroyed his Holy Way Min
istry in St. Bernard Parish.
Warren, 57, was in Utah at
the time, visiting his sick
father, whom he had not seen
in 50 years, and watching the
disaster on television.
As Lomsiana recov^, St.
Bernard Parish would seem
to be a place that needs some
one hke Warren preaching
hope during an imcertain
transition.
Instead, he’s starting over in
Utah, a black minister in a
predominantly white, Mor
mon state pledgir^ to build a
multicultural congregation
below the Wasatch moun
tains.
The owners of a vacant store
stepped up and offered thdr
building for a church, rent-
fi^.
‘T left New Orleans feeding
people, clothing people. I’m
going to do the same thing
here,” Warren promised.
He preaches each night at
home,' except Friday when he
speaks at Emmanuel Church
of God in Christ in Ogden.
Some nights the Warrens
attract a dozen or more peo
ple. On a recent evening,
there were only two fiiends
who moved to Oklahoma after
the hurricane and were visit-
ir^ the Warrens.
MTth gospel music blaring,
Warren was on his knees,
praying face-down in a chair.
He slowly got up to recount
the day a stop at a nursing
home, visits with the home
less in a park, more prayer.
“I don’t see nobody out
there,” Warren said, peekir^
through a curtain to see if
there are stra^lers. “But God
is here tonight—amen.”
He spent an hour explaining
that Israel’s right to exist is
rooted in the Old Tfestament.
Warren concluded with
Matthew, chapter 24, in
which Jesus predicts famine,
earthquakes and wars.
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Greater Salem Church 15318 &ilem Church Road | Charlotte. NC 28216
Bible interpretation leads ehurch to
dump female Sunday school teacher
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WATERTOWN, N.Y.- The minister of a
church that dismissed a female Sunday School
teacher after adopting what it called a literal
inteipretation of the Bible says a woman can
perform any job—outside of the church.
The First Baptist Church dismissed Mary
Lambert on Aug. 9 with a letter explaining
that the church had adopted an interpretation
that prohibits women finm teaching men. She
had tav^ht there for 54 years.
The letter quoted the first epistle to Timothy
‘T do not permit a woman to teach or to have
authority over a man; she must be silent.”
The Rev Timothy LaBouf, who also serves on
the Watertown City Coimcdl, issued a state
ment saying his stance against women teach
ing men in Srmday school would not affect his
decisions as a city leader in Watertown, where
all five members of the coimcdl are men but the
city manager who runs the city's day-to-day
operations is a woman.
‘T believe that a woman can perform any
job and fiilfill any responsibility that she
desires to” outside of the church, LaBouf
wrote Saturday
Mayor Jeffi^y Graham, however, was
bothered by the reasons given Lambert’s
dismissal.
‘Tf what’s said in that letter reflects the
councilman’s views, those are disturbing
remarks in this day and age,” Graham said.
‘Maybe they wouldn’t have been disturbing
500 years ago, but they are now.”
Lambert has pubhcly criticized the deci
sion, but the church did not publicly address
the matte* until Saturday a day after its
board met.
In a statement, the board said other
issues w^’e behind Lambert’s dismissal, but
it did not say what they were.
Historian says: Slavery created a
biblical crisis for America, church
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Human slavery, America’s
original sin, developed into a
moral crisis, culminating in a
Qvil War that cost 518,333
lives. That exceeds the deaths
in every other U.S. war, finm
the Revolution through ^
haq.
Slavery also damagedi
the nation’s reUgious
underpinnings and the .
Bible’s authority, says J
Mark A. NoU in “Thej
Civil War as a Theo- j
logical Crisis” (Uni-1
versity of North!
Carolina Press). F
NqE is a leading!
evangelical
Protestantj
historian.
Noll’s
theme; America was built
upon the Bible as the sole
moral authority But slavery
caused “an unbridgeable
chasm of opinion” about what
the Bible meant. Devout Bible
believers reached starkly dif
ferent conclusions, which
undermined assurance that
the Bible gives clear guidance
readily available to all.
That’s a pertinent point in
2006 as the Religious Left and
Religious Right dispute what
the Bible says about, say,
abortion and gay rights.
The conflict about Scripture
before the Civil War was
“pohtically, socially,
morally and cul
turally—as well
as religiously—
explosive,” NoU
writes.
“The Book that
made the nation
was destroyir^ the
nation; the nation
that had taken to the
Book was rescued not
by the Book but by
- force of arms.” Noll
remarks that it was left to the
ologians named Ulysses S.
Grant and William Tfecumseh
Sherman to decide what the
Bible meant.
America in 1860 was hugely
pious. One-third to two-fifths
of Americans were formal
chmxh members and those
participating without mem
bership doubled the total, the
opposite of 2006 when little
more than half of those on
church rolls regularly attend
worship.
In 1860, the income of the
nation’s churches and related
organizations was near the
total federal government
receipts, compared with
today’s roughly 25-1 ratio of
federal income to religious
contributions.
Protestants dominated,
operating 95 percent (50,000)
of the nation’s churches, and
were heavily evangelical.
“Only because they were so
important religiously did the
churches also become so
important pohticaUy” says
NoU. The same could be said
with 21st-century evangeU-
cals.
EvangeUcal culture had
“implicit trust that the Bible
was a plain book whose
authoritative deliverances
could be apprehended by any
one who simply opened the
covers and read.”
>
NAACP ASHANTI
AWARDS & SCHOLARSHIP CELEBRATION
SEPTEMBER 16,2006
THE WESTIN HOTEL
601 South College Street • Charlotte, NC • 6:00 PM
HONOREES:
Corporation of the year - Bank of America
Meritorious Public Service
U.S. Congressman Mel Watt
Carney Earle
Outsanding Public Service
NC Representative Becky Carney
NC Representative Benerly Earle
NAACP Hall of Fame
George Dunlap,
School Board
Scholarship Recipient
G.K. Moss, Jr., Sun Vallet HS
Individual Cost: $75.00 each
Sponsorship levels; Souvenir
Book Ads:
Exclusive Partner—$15,000.00 Full Page $500.00
Major Partner $10,000.00 Half Page $250.00
Corporate Partner—$5,000.00 One-Fourth Page $150.00
Table Sponsor (8)—$1,500.00 Business Card — $100.00
NAACP MEMBERSHIP - $30.00 per year
Life Membership— $750.00 ($75 per year)
MAKE CHECK PAYABLE TO: NAACP
P. O. Box 25774 Wonne Pettis,^Chairman
Charlotte, NC 28229 vonpettis@aol.com
704/567-8178 or 7041361-8109-cell
The Charlotte - Mecklenburg NAACP will again host the annual Ashanti Awards and Scholarship Celebration on
Septeniber 15 and 16. The weekend will start with tlte Ashanti Golf Challenge at Highland Creek GolfClub on Friday.
Sepiemba' 15 and culminate with the award celebration on Saturday starting at 6pra at the beautiful Wcstiii Hotel in
downtown Charlotte, NC.
This year, Mel Watt, U.S. Congressman will receive the Meritorious Public Service Award. Public Seivice Awai'ds
will also be bestowed upon NC State Representatives Becky Carney and Beverly Earle. 'ITie Hall of Fame Award recip
ient will be Mecklenburg School Boaid member George Dunlap. Our corporate sponsor this year. Bank of Arrerica
will receive the Corporation of the Year Award. The 2006 scholarship recipient will be G.K. Moss, Jr of Sun Valley
High school.
Kenneth White, President of the Charlotte Branch said this is the premier annual event of the year for the branch. A
fabulous Silent Auction attracts many attendees to bid on a vast an ay of ait woric, crafts, fine jewelry, hats and other
wonderful items.
Founded in 1909, the NAACP is the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organization. Its half million merrJaers
throughout the United Slates and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities, conducting'
voter mobilization and monitoring equal opportunity in public and private sectors.
Golf green fees are SIOO.OO per person with several sponsorship levels available that include green fees. Please send
golf checks to NAACP, PO Box 480.540 Charlotte, NC 28269, ate Kenneth White; Call 704-5 i7-1877 for additional
infoimation. ,
Ashanti Awaid.s celebration tickets aie $75.00 each. Please make checks payable to NAACP, PO. Box 25774,
Charlotte, NC 28229, Att; Yvonne Pettis, Ashanti Chairperson.
NAACP AshsntI CSe^ff Cit&U0ng0
S4k|»t4»nit>mr aoOB, 7:30Am
HighttirKl Or#«lt Oolf Club. Ghmttott*, HO