THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 16, 1996 TAG: 9606160007
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE ADDIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 271 lines
In late April, five members of a Southern Baptist congregation in Kempsville sensed the presence of a powerful evil on the grounds of their church.
Guided, they said, by the hand of the Lord, and fortified by evenings of prayer, they sought its source.
Their search took them to a memorial garden that was dedicated 17 years ago, on a plot of land between the old and new sanctuaries, to the memory of one of the church's founders, a good and spiritual man of whom no one can say an unkind word.
The five set out, with their pastors, to remove what they believed to be occult symbols that were planted - wittingly or not - in the garden those many years ago.
They tore down and burned a large wooden cross and a rose bush that had grown through it. They uprooted cobblestones they said had been placed in the design of evil symbols.
They broke up benches, dug up bricks, tore out and set fire to the plants, a dogwood tree and anything else that grew upon that small plot of land. Then, according to church members, they reconsecrated the ground by sprinkling it with holy water.
They did this, in the words of the pastor, to ``reclaim that land for the Lord Jesus Christ.''
All this was necessary, said some members, for the spiritual redemption of the church.
Others said it was little more than vandalism with a tinge of pagan ritual.
In the weeks that followed, the acts committed in the garden would send a shudder of disbelief through the congregation of Westwood Hill Baptist Church. Old wounds would be opened, a family's honor would be tarnished, and a struggle would ensue that would test the soul of the church, the nature of evil, and the boundaries of forgiveness.
Nothing whatsoever looks evil, or out of the ordinary, at Westwood Hill Baptist Church. Organized in 1959 as an offshoot of Kempsville Baptist Church, it sits as a solid brick anchor to Woodstock Road, at the western edge of Virginia Beach's largest borough.
Its congregants are, by and large, a cross section of middle-class America: friendly, welcoming people, united in their commitment to church, family and community. The church has had its difficulties in the past - most do, sooner or later - but members say it had never been the kind of place where one could have anticipated the events that occurred in the Arthur S. Ward Memorial Garden.
Arthur Ward, by all descriptions, was a devout man whose life centered on his family and his church. He enjoyed sports, especially the Washington Redskins and the recreation-league exploits of his two sons. He was a retired supervisor for the Norfolk & Western Railway Co.
He was also a founding member of Westwood Hill. He turned the first spade of earth for the new sanctuary, which was under construction in April 1979, when he died of a heart attack while admiring the spring flowers blooming in his back yard. He was 64.
``Arthur Ward was a devout man, a devoted family man,'' said Ken Riedel, a friend and church colleague. ``There has never been a disrespectful thing said about this man. When his wife would come home from school, he'd be waiting at the door with a cup of coffee for her. They would sit on the sun porch together, drink their coffee and watch the birds, and just talk. That was Arthur Ward.''
The Sunday school class that Ward taught for many years came up with the idea - and the money and the labor - to build the garden, Riedel said.
One member erected a large cross on a brick wall, fashioned from stanchions from an old basketball goal. A rose bush was planted beneath it. Azaleas, crape myrtles and a dogwood tree were added. Old cobblestones from a Norfolk street were used to line brick pathways and planters. It was a place where people could find a moment for meditation, Riedel said.
A stone was placed there with a plaque dedicated to ``the loving memory of our teacher and friend, Arthur S. Ward.''
But there was one other element of Arthur Ward's life that would play a critical role in the destruction of the garden 17 years later. He was a 32nd degree Mason.
The cross on the garden wall, with roses wrapped through it, and the placement of the paving stones were deemed to be symbols of the Masonic Order, a secretive and frequently maligned brotherhood whose practices, according to the pastor, are rooted in the occult. That claim has dogged Freemasonry from its beginnings, and followers ardently deny it.
On April 23, the Rev. Jess Jackson, two associate pastors and seven other church members removed everything from the Arthur S. Ward Memorial Garden. What would burn was burned, what would not was hauled off as trash.
Then the stories began. Tales spread of church members being driven by nightmarish visions welling up from the ground of the garden. Sunday schoolers overheard the adults, and fear spread among children that bones or bodies were buried out there. Whispers were renewed of the lingering evil of an adultery scandal that had driven a previous pastor from the church.
As the stories spread, anger grew. Members of the congregation, especially those who'd belonged for decades, demanded to know what was happening in their house of worship. The most difficult questions would come from the friends and family of Arthur Ward.
Westwood Hill Baptist Church is a congregation in transition, its longtime members say. Few, if any, of the 10 people who took out the garden had ever met Arthur Ward. Some have been with the church two years or less.
Many members of decades' standing have left in recent years as the church leadership took a bolder, more dynamic direction. The portion of the church bulletin that invites new members has a space for their fax numbers and e-mail addresses. That is not unusual in an era when large Baptist congregations stay in touch by computer modem, via the Internet.
For William Forbes, who is 75 years old and a charter member and longtime deacon, the new people and new ideas have taken Westwood Hill too far from the ideals that people like he and Arthur Ward had in mind when they helped found it nearly 40 years ago.
``Has it changed? Oh, yes,'' Forbes said. ``Used to be you could walk in there and nice music would be playing and it would be reverent. A good, reverent, prayerful mood.
``The last few years here, it's gone the other way. Everyone gets up and they shake hands and run all around the church. I'm all for loving my neighbor, but you can't stay very reverent through all that. You can't keep your mind on what you're there for.
``Now there's all this fuss about Masons and a rose cross. I never in my life heard of stuff like that, never in my life. I don't know where they got it from. They said that rose and cross is a symbol of cultism, but that cross was put in there by a fellow who is not even a Mason.''
None of it had sinister meaning, Forbes said. ``Now they tore it all out, and I take it the preacher himself took the cross out and burned it. And this water they poured on the ground of the garden, like he was purifying it. It sounds so ridiculous. It sounds like something out of the Dark Ages.''
Arthur Ward's widow, Donna Ward Meekins, said she and her sons were deeply wounded when they learned that her husband's memory had been tied to alleged symbols of cult worship and satanic ritual.
``There was never an evil bone in Arthur Ward's body,'' she said. ``Yes, he was a Mason, but after our two sons, well, he got so involved in their sports and school and things, he just didn't have the time.''
Their younger son, Gary, a Virginia Beach schoolteacher, said, ``I don't recall him being active in it, going to meetings and that type of thing. He never spoke of it much. And it certainly wasn't an important part of his life.''
The family was not consulted before the garden was destroyed. Ironically, the objects in the garden were to have been moved to other locations just two days later. Its open-air space between the buildings had caused flooding in the sanctuary in times of heavy rain.
The relocation was fine with the family, Donna Ward Meekins said, but they were taken aback by the destruction, and that they were denied any keepsakes - especially a stone that bore the plaque dedicated to her husband.
``I'm told they took and broke it to pieces,'' she said. ``Can you imagine what must be in the heart of someone who would do that, take a hammer to that stone?
``My problem is not with that group of five,'' she said, referring to the congregants who sensed evil on the grounds. ``My problem is with the pastoral staff. These are college-educated men who studied religious philosophy. How can they believe there is evil in inanimate objects?
``It's almost pagan. That's a pagan belief. God does not put evil in inanimate objects, and he certainly does not put evil in his beautiful plants and flowers.''
Rev. Jackson did not respond to several requests for an interview. Two of the leaders of the lay group, when contacted, said they would not discuss the matter.
But they, the Meekins family and more than 200 other members would confront their anger and their fears in an emotional meeting that was called to grapple with the nature of evil, its existence in the church, and whether the pastor who sanctioned the acts should be removed from the pulpit.
Many Southern Baptists believe in literal interpretation and inerrancy of the Scriptures, which gives them a powerful inclination toward forgiveness and redemption. That was the message handed down from the cross at Calvary, and it is at the core of Baptist theology.
It was at the core, as well, of a ``family meeting'' of the Westwood Hill congregation on Sunday evening, May 12.
Rev. Jackson and other members of the group that removed the garden apologized, repeatedly and profusely, to the Ward family for any pain they had suffered. It was never their intent, each said, to tarnish the memory of Arthur Ward or the reputation of his family.
``This was in no way an attack on an individual,'' the Rev. Jackson said, according to a tape recording of the meeting, ``and in no way an attack upon especially the memory of Arthur Ward. I have heard over the years nothing but marvelous testimony of his graciousness, his integrity, his character, and of his walk with the Lord Jesus Christ.''
The pastor, who has served Westwood Hill for eight years, said he had erred in not taking the issue before the church body. But he and his followers remained steadfast in the belief that the garden had a powerful hold on the church and had to be destroyed.
Using a slide projector, he gave a briefing on Masonic teachings and how, in his view, they conflict with Christian gospel. Masonic membership, he said, is ``a compromise of one's Christian testimony.''
A ``pivotal issue,'' Rev. Jackson told the meeting, ``was the presence of a rose cross in the garden.
``For many of you that may not mean a thing. But if you're familiar with satanic ritual, with those types of things, there is a strange symbolic message in the rose cross, an occultic symbol.''
One of the lay members who helped remove the garden said, ``We knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that we had to do what we had to do. . . . The Lord said, `Destroy it all.' ''
Donna Ward Meekins responded: ``I do not believe this garden was destroyed in love. I do not believe that. And for those of you who did that, may God have mercy on you. . . .
``I do not believe there was any evil in that garden, and there most assuredly was never any evil in the heart of Arthur Ward.''
Other speakers echoed that. There was anguish in their voices, and some were reduced to tears as they recalled the goodness of Arthur Ward and the hurt his family felt. Several said the events had troubled them, and angered them, but that they feared for the church's future if they were unable to put it behind them.
Asked if she could forgive the group's actions, Donna Ward Meekins said: ``I guess I will forgive them, yes. But I'll not forget.''
Can evil forces invade wood and stones and flowers? Was there evil in the rose cross at Westwood Hill Baptist Church, or in the garden, or in the actions of the people who felt its force?
``The evil is in the anger,'' said Richard D. Marks, an ordained Baptist minister and doctor of philosophy who moderated the church meeting. ``And there's enough of that in this world, we don't need it in the church of Christ.
``If Satan is anywhere, he is in the division, he is in what is happening to this church right now. It is a house divided. There were a lot of people hurt, and hurt badly. And they had good reason to feel hurt.''
Marks, who teaches at Regent University and has a private practice as a counselor, has studied cults, satanic ritual and demonology. He assisted Virginia Beach police recently in a case in which a man allegedly posed as a vampire to lure young girls into sexual encounters.
Marks does not doubt the power of evil, he said, but he approaches claims of demonic possession and visions of evil with caution.
``One of these five people had a vision or something - animals or dead bodies, I don't know, but that was a hinge for what transpired later.
``I always question the vision of some kind of demon. I don't want to question the level of spirituality or faith. . . . But when you talk about visions, well, sometimes a dream is just a dream.
``The rose cross? I'm vaguely aware of something it has to do with Masonry, but is it evil in itself? I don't think it has any evil import. Evil is in the meaning you attach to something.''
The Southern Baptist Convention, he said, does not have an official stand on the Masonic Order. ``As a matter of fact,'' he said, ``the SBC in the last two to three years has had this issue before it, but I don't think they ever passed anything.
``There are a lot of Masons who are good Christians. . . . To say this whole organization is made up of thousands of men who are evil, out there practicing as satanists, I don't believe that.''
The sprinkling of holy water on the grounds, he said, is ``outside Baptist theology,'' though he noted that Rev. Jackson had provided Bible passages to support it.
As for evil inhabiting inanimate objects, he said: ``As a whole, the SBC just stays away from that subject. We recognize evil exists, we recognize Satan, that they are out there. But this other - it's just something we ordinarily would not deal with.''
``Were mistakes made? Oh, yes, certainly. And the pastor has owned up to those mistakes, he has sought forgiveness and recognized he has hurt people.
``In the end, I felt most of those people believed this was poorly handled, but 90 percent seem willing to forgive, to let it go. The majority, I think, felt they want to work past this.''
Marks' observations, ultimately, proved accurate.
Some longtime members of the church have said the events in the garden were more than they could bear, that they will seek spiritual guidance elsewhere.
Donna Ward Meekins said that while she accepts the sincerity in the apologies for her family's pain, she remains puzzled that ``nobody has ever apologized for the destruction of that garden. They've yet to understand that it was just wrong.''
And last Sunday, at a formal business meeting of the congregation, a vote was taken on whether to dismiss the Rev. Jess Jackson. A strong majority rose in support of the pastor.
Whatever their beliefs on the source of the evil that gripped Westwood Hill Baptist Church, Marks said late last week, the congregation seems to have realized that the grip could not be loosened unless they found a way to forgive. ILLUSTRATION: B\W photo
Arthur Ward, shown with his wife, Donna, was a founding member of
Westwood Hill Baptist Church. After he died of a heart attack in
1979, his Sunday school class built a garden in his memory at the
church.
Color photos
The Arthur S. Ward Memorial Garden at Westwood Hill Baptist Church
in Virginia Beach was planted in 1979. In late April of this year,
it was destroyed.
Westwood Hill Baptist Church
KEYWORDS: VANDALISM WESTWOOD HILL BAPTIST CHURCH
by CNB