Church removes crosses and covers up windows to accommodate Islamic school
The Layman Online, May 26, 2004
With membership and contributions plummeting, the session of Caldwell Memorial Presbyterian Church voted unanimously in April to lease the congregation’s largely unused gymnasium and education building to the Charlotte Islamic School in Charlotte, N.C.
Islamic school leases space in Caldwell Memorial Presbyterian Church in Charlotte.Encouraged by the congregation’s pastor, Dr. Charles McDonald, the session figured the 14-month lease was both an act of toleration and a budget-booster. But toleration turned out to be a one-way street.
At the insistence of the Islamic school and with the acquiescence of Caldwell’s leaders, two large crosses were removed and stained glass windows with Christian symbols were covered up.
And, while the congregation accepted the initial decision about leasing the facility to the Islamic group, the cover-up of the congregation’s Christian identity has drawn some heated response, as reported by The Charlotte World on May 21.
“The church’s pastor … enthusiastically told the congregation about the new tenants,” The World said, quoting McDonald’s view of the arrangement from a column he wrote in the church’s newsletter: “McDonald told readers that the Arabic name of the God of Islam is Allah, and that Allah is ‘basically the same God of Judaism and the God and Father of Christianity.'”
“Dan Johnson, who leads a weekly Bible study at the church, says some folks in the congregation seem uneasy with the new rental arrangement, but didn’t initially protest,” The World said. “But when the Islamic school asked the church to remove or cover up Christian symbols in the rented buildings – and the church acquiesced – Johnson says uneasiness turned to anger for some.”
The major daily newspaper in Charlotte, The Charlotte Observer, also ran a recent article about the Charlotte Islamic School and its lease of the Caldwell facilities. But, in its May 18 story, The Observer took no note of the controversy at the church. Rather, it focused on an intra-Islamic controversy.
Charlotte’s only Islamic school was part of the Islamic Center of Charlotte, a mosque, until school and Islamic leaders disagreed over who should control religious education in the Islamic community.
The Islamic school at Caldwell Memorial, near downtown Charlotte, has 110 students in pre-kindergarten through the eighth grade.
That’s far more than the number of people who regularly attend Sunday worship. According to congregational data posted by the Presbyterian Church (USA), Caldwell Memorial had 129 members at the end of 2002, an average worship attendance of 27 and an average Sunday school enrollment of 10 that year.
The 2002 budget was $69,000, down from a high of $207,000 in 1997.
“So, for now, it seems that the folks who visit Caldwell Memorial Presbyterian Church may not be able to see stained glass windows with Christian images,” The World said, “but they will be able to clearly see two large signs on both sides of the church grounds. Those signs read: ‘The Charlotte Islamic School.'”
An office worker at Caldwell Memorial told The Layman Online that McDonald was not available for comment.