Church Attended Mostly By Blacks Damaged By Arson Pastor Didn’t Expect Hate-Related Blazes To Come To Pacific Northwest

Arson caused a fire that destroyed the sanctuary of a predominantly black Christian church early Thursday, investigators said.

Federal and local investigators declined to speculate whether the blaze was racially motivated or set by a copycat acting in response to the string of church fires across the South.

Immanuel Christian Fellowship Pastor Mark Strong said his congregation had prayed for those affected by the Southern church fires. But members never imagined the spark of racial hatred might alight in the Northwest.

“We never expected this, which may have been naive on our part,” Strong said. “My heart was concerned for those churches there but I never expected it to happen here in Portland, especially at our church.”

Investigators declined to discuss what evidence they had of arson. Agents from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms arrived within five hours of the 3 a.m. blaze.

Until recently called the Immanuel Free Methodist Church, the church is about 70 percent black and has 160 to 180 members, Strong said.

Members were puzzled why a target was made of the tan, wooden building where blacks, whites, Hispanics and Asians worship together.

“If it was a hate-motivated crime they really needed to do their homework because they picked the wrong church,” said Ulanda Watkins, 25, a recent law school graduate who joined the church last year. “Our church is one of the most diverse churches you’re going to find in Portland.”

There have been more than 40 fires at predominantly black churches across the South since January 1995, raising fears of racism. President Clinton met Wednesday with Southern governors looking for ways to stop the torching of black churches.

Jack Kennedy, deputy director of Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon, a coalition of Oregon churches, said he couldn’t understand the motive of anyone burning a church.

“It’s destructive and hurtful and tears apart all the work being done to heal the wounds between people of diverse culture and thinking,” he said.

From the outside, the Immanuel Christian Fellowship appeared untouched aside from broken windows and signs that the double metal doors had been pried open by firefighters.

Inside, flames destroyed the sanctuary, but spared a basement office.

The fire appeared to have started near a window along the west wall. Broken glass littered the floor and seared, hardened carpet was peeled back in places, exposing the floor.

Flames burned the cloth covering metal chairs, leaving charred foam pads looking like giant burned marshmallows. Its pages curled by heat, a hymnal open to “Oh Jesus, I Have Promised” sat across the keys of a charred upright piano.

The growing congregation holds its Sunday services in a nearby Seventh Day Adventist church. The small church was used for Bible studies, Wednesday evening worship and an office. Members worshiped Wednesday night, hours before Strong was awakened by a caller saying his church was afire.

Though it is overwhelmingly white, with blacks making up only about 6 percent of the population, the Portland area has a reputation for embracing racial diversity. But police in suburban Gresham are investigating a cross-burning just last weekend in a black man’s front yard.

An undercurrent of racism runs throughout the Northwest, said Jonathan Mozzochi, executive director of the Coalition for Human Dignity, a human rights watchdog group with offices in Portland and Seattle.

“The terrible arsons that are happening in the South are raising the visibility of this kind of activity in the Pacific Northwest,” he said.

The Rev. Richard Butler maintains his Aryan Nations church in North Idaho, where five white supremacists bombed a federal courthouse in 1986.

Six churches were set afire last summer in Western Oregon towns. One church burned in Philomath, one in Oregon City and two each in Silverton and Milwaukie. Except for the Korean Mission Evangelical Church in Milwaukie, the churches have predominantly white congregations.