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President talks with Holy Ground Church pastor
Apr 24, 2002 8:00 AM
By Stefan Eady - Faculty
The pastor of Holy Ground Church, Lamar Ashley, called Darlington President David Hicks earlier this week in response to Hicks’ letter to the congregation. As reported earlier, Hicks expressed his concern about lettering on a sign outside the church that read, “Darlington Harbors Satanism.”
“The pastor told me in his phone call to me that he personally put the message on the sign because of an opinion piece written by one of our students that he read in The Rome News-Tribune,” President Hicks said. “I told him that the article actually was written for and published in our own student newspaper, The Darlingtonian, and reappeared in The Rome News-Tribune because the paper runs local high school newspapers in its “Young Romans” section on a rotating basis.”
The article in question was entitled, “Religious intolerance: A view from the handbasket,” and was written in response to an earlier message on the church’s sign, put up after September 11, which read, “If you are for Mahummad (sic) you will spend eternity in hell.” The article appeared in The Rome News-Tribune in its “Young Romans” section, which is a special section of the paper devoted to news about the area’s schoolchildren, on April 16.
“I explained to the pastor that our students are encouraged to think for themselves,” Hicks said. “In fact, they sometimes write negatively about things I say or do. I may disagree with them, but I don’t call them Satanists or censure them. The pastor’s response to me made it clear that he holds Darlington responsible for anything anyone says or does who is at all associated with the School.”
“I’ve asked our students not to respond in kind to this vicious attack on the School. It’s time to turn the other cheek. As I told them during Monday’s assembly, only one person has the authority to speak for the School and that is the president who is given that authority by the Board of Trustees,” Hicks said. “I ended the conversation with the pastor by telling him that I appreciated his calling me back in response to my letter and that I hoped he would prayerfully consider taking the sign down.”
“The pastor told me in his phone call to me that he personally put the message on the sign because of an opinion piece written by one of our students that he read in The Rome News-Tribune,” President Hicks said. “I told him that the article actually was written for and published in our own student newspaper, The Darlingtonian, and reappeared in The Rome News-Tribune because the paper runs local high school newspapers in its “Young Romans” section on a rotating basis.”
The article in question was entitled, “Religious intolerance: A view from the handbasket,” and was written in response to an earlier message on the church’s sign, put up after September 11, which read, “If you are for Mahummad (sic) you will spend eternity in hell.” The article appeared in The Rome News-Tribune in its “Young Romans” section, which is a special section of the paper devoted to news about the area’s schoolchildren, on April 16.
“I explained to the pastor that our students are encouraged to think for themselves,” Hicks said. “In fact, they sometimes write negatively about things I say or do. I may disagree with them, but I don’t call them Satanists or censure them. The pastor’s response to me made it clear that he holds Darlington responsible for anything anyone says or does who is at all associated with the School.”
“I’ve asked our students not to respond in kind to this vicious attack on the School. It’s time to turn the other cheek. As I told them during Monday’s assembly, only one person has the authority to speak for the School and that is the president who is given that authority by the Board of Trustees,” Hicks said. “I ended the conversation with the pastor by telling him that I appreciated his calling me back in response to my letter and that I hoped he would prayerfully consider taking the sign down.”
