The Devil in Pew Number Seven (11 page)

Digging for some explanation as to why anybody would want to persecute a pastor with such a forceful display of firepower, the reporter learned about the church feud. When Mr. Cheek filed his report, he summed up the conflict this way: “One side does its fighting with terrorist tactics—dynamite, letting air out of tires, cutting phone lines and shooting out lights. The other side answers with preaching, prayer, patience and the sheriff.”

Daddy gave his answers carefully because he was concerned about the way this conflict might play out in the press. The last thing he wanted was for the church, or for the Sellerstown community, to get a bad rap. He loved the people and was there to serve them, which is why he was quick to point out, “The church members are behind me. It’s just a couple of families that want to run me out. They want to get the leadership of the church back. . . . But we’re not leaving. We’re staying.”

Daddy explained why he wouldn’t abandon the church. “A good shepherd will lay down his life for his flock,” Daddy said. “It is a great pleasure to live for the Lord. And there would be no greater honor than to die for Him. After all, all of the apostles except for one died a violent death.”

Mr. Cheek raised his eyebrows in surprise: “Are you really willing to die, if necessary? Why not just do what most people would do and fight back?” he asked.

“Violence typifies the spirit of the opposition,” Daddy said, dismissing the notion of fighting fire with fire. “They are not Christian people. I know who they are. I know they are violent, mean-spirited people. I will only leave this church if it is the Lord’s will. And if it is the enemy’s will for us to leave, then it is God’s will for us to stay.”

During the interview, Mr. Cheek learned about Daddy’s days playing football, his four years in the Navy, and his reputation as a former brawler. I am quite sure Daddy wasn’t kidding when he said, “Those boys—I know who they are and they know who I’m talking about—just better pray to the good Lord that I don’t backslide. Because I have never met a man I couldn’t whip.”

Mr. Cheek asked Daddy, “Could it ever come to that, Reverend? Could you become so frustrated, knowing who’s bedeviling you and your family but being unable to prove it, that you’d revert and go after them?”

“No,” Daddy said flatly.

Mr. Cheek noted Daddy had a “faint, beatific smile on his face” as he answered. Rather than retaliate, Daddy admitted, “I’d leave here first. I would never answer them with the same weapons they use against me.”

“If so,” Mr. Cheek wondered aloud, “when will it end?”

“Only when you read the devil’s obituary, I’m afraid,” said Daddy. “And I’m afraid that may take more than a few years to happen.”

* * *

On December 6, 1974, the Friday after that dreadful Wednesday night blast, the mail arrived, and with it, an unsigned, cryptic letter was included in the usual assortment of bills and advertising circulars. Punctuated with threats, filled with bad grammar and typos to conceal the identity of the sender, the letter promised, “We are going to get the job done.” Which could only mean one thing: the recent explosion wasn’t the last of the bombings in Sellerstown.

There would be more.

We did not receive this ominous letter.

It had been mailed to the home of Mr. Horry Watts. The handwritten note told Mr. Watts
17
“to keep your mouth out of our business” and added that “the job [of getting Nichols out of the area] will be done without . . . your advice or help.” Mr. Watts wasted no time making a big deal about how he, too, was being targeted by the anonymous bully. He promptly contacted the police about the note. Detective George Dudley met Mr. Watts and retrieved the letter as evidence.

For his part, Detective Dudley had to determine what to make of this latest development. Had the menacing letter been mailed by the real culprit behind these bombings? Or did Mr. Watts send it to his home in hopes of taking some of the heat off himself for the recent acts of intimidation against us? From the detective’s point of view,
18
Mr. Watts had the motive, he had the influence, and as owner of the local farm store, he had the means to secure the raw materials for the explosions.

But circumstantial evidence wasn’t enough.

Detective Dudley needed concrete proof.

* * *

There’s an old saying in the public-relations business: “All press is good press, even when it’s bad press.” If my family were seeking media coverage, which we weren’t, we’d soon succeed by becoming the epicenter of attention in the local newspapers. “Minister’s Family Is Harassed,” “Field Near Parsonage Dynamited,” and “The Embattled Pastor” were among the headlines in just a four-day period.

The news got people talking.

Not all of the talk was constructive.

After all, during the mid-seventies, the newspaper played a much greater role as a media leader and conversation starter in society than it does today. Back then, homes were not wired with cable service. Households didn’t use satellite dishes to pull down news from around the globe. And the five-hundred-channel television universe offering several twenty-four-hour news channels was as unknown as it was unthinkable then.

Instead, the newspaper served as an umbilical cord to the local, national, and world events. Major markets often had two competing newspapers offering an early morning edition or a late-afternoon option. People anticipated the arrival of the newspaper. They’d start their days with a cup of coffee and its familiar pages. Having a paper route was certainly more lucrative then than now. Almost every house on your street subscribed, unlike today where newspapers are folding right and left as more news is delivered electronically.

For a story to make the newspaper, of course, it had to be “newsworthy”—something that would captivate the attention of a wide readership. To make the paper, then, you were big news. You were the talk of the town. And with that talk came the gossip.

The more the press dedicated coverage to the bombings and threats, the more people began paying attention to the unfolding drama on our street. As my parents had feared, there was negative fallout on the good people of Sellerstown due to these reports. Certain mean-spirited stereotypes were pinned on our neighborhood.

Driven by her love of those whom she knew in the community, Momma wanted to set the record straight. She did a remarkable thing—especially for someone living in a virtual war zone: She sharpened her pencil and penned what she hoped would be a Christmas gift of affirmation to the community. With her purse on her arm and me in tow, Momma walked through the offices of the
News Reporter
, based in Whiteville.

We found the office of reporter Wray Thompson. Sitting on a metal chair, feet not quite touching the floor, I drank in the smell of newspaper and ink as Momma, with the attitude of a defense attorney, made her case. The stereotyping of Sellerstown was unfair, she said, and her article would offer an insider’s viewpoint. Momma handed Mr. Thompson the article. After scanning it, he agreed to publish it. In “Tribute to Sellerstown,”
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which ran on the front page of the newspaper on December 16, 1974, she wrote,

Since such widespread news coverage of recent happenings around the Free Welcome parsonage, we have had numerous phone calls from people stating their opinions of the Sellerstown community. Also, there have been discussions relating to the reputation that the community has had over the years.

We have learned much about the people of Sellerstown during the five years and one month we have lived among them. First of all, we know there are good and bad, rich and poor, intelligent and ignorant people in every corner of the earth.

Not since the Garden of Eden has there been a perfect spot in this world to live.

Because of outsiders (and those outside the Christian faith), there have been anxious moments here at the Free Welcome Church. It is impossible to please all the people all the time, and it is our desire to try to please God first of all. Due to non-committal to Christ or the church, our enemies have resorted to violence. There are some people who cannot bring themselves to go along with the majority. Therefore, they prefer to separate themselves from true believers.

Overall, we have found Route 3, Whiteville, a most wonderful place to live. Most of the people here in Sellerstown are related in one way or another; through blood-kin or marriage, and have a deep love and admiration for each other. We have come to love these people with a fervent love and devotion. Here, we have found neighborly love, whereby neighbors care about each other. Something most communities the world over have forgotten, and in most places people do not even know their neighbors’ names.

The older people have been hardworking farmers, who worked hard through the years to provide for their families, and to give their children a good education. They also brought their children up in church and taught them to fear God. Inevitably, there are always some who stray from their upbringing. But, with God in one’s heart there is love, for God is love.

We have been treated with much love from most of the people of the community, but, our church does not consist only of people of this community. The year 1974 has brought many wonderful families from surrounding communities, and as far away as Shallotte, and Evergreen. There has to be a deep devotion to a pastor and church for those people to drive from such distant places and so many miles roundtrip.

We are proud of our church and the way it has out-grown itself. Due to overflowing crowds, the need is great to arise and build. Plans are being made now to build a larger church in the very near future. The people have a vision and a mind to work. Our aim is to “rescue the perishing and care for the dying.”

Adjacent to Momma’s tribute, the paper ran an article by Wray Thompson entitled “More Harassment at Sellerstown Parsonage.” After a summary of the most recent assault, Momma was quoted as saying, “We used to look for the siege
20
of harassment every three months. But now it’s every week. My husband, though, is not afraid for himself. He would die for the Lord.”

How was Momma’s article received by the man behind the persecution? I imagine somewhere, hunched over the newspaper, Mr. Watts read Momma’s words while plotting his next move. The timing of the mischief that night could have been a coincidence. More likely it was a direct response to these two articles, sort of like an unconventional letter to the editor. Either way, Mr. Watts aimed to send us another signal that he meant every word of his promise to drive us away.

That night, with yet another gunshot blast, the mercury-vapor light in our backyard was shattered. Thankfully, Momma and I were not at home. We had taken up shelter elsewhere during Daddy’s annual eight-day missions trip to Colombia, South America. There was no way he’d leave his pregnant wife and child alone in the house.

Not with Mr. Watts watching our every move.

* * *

With the exception of the frequent, daily phone calls designed to keep us on edge, there were no more shootings, bombings, tire slashings, or other acts of physical intimidation during the rest of December. The relative calm remained throughout January, relative in the sense that we lived each day on the narrow edge of fear that
today
might be the day when something terrible might happen to us.

Maybe the attack would come in the dead of the night.

Perhaps during broad daylight, although less likely.

We lived with the dark reality that something awful could strike us at any moment. After several months of being the target of Mr. Watts’s campaign of terror, I know I never felt safe. I doubt my parents did either. For me, this tension was greatest as the sun melted into the horizon. Without its warm glow outside my window, I dreaded going to sleep. My mind was tormented by questions that no child should have to entertain.

Why did Mr. Watts hate us?

Why did we have to always live in fear?

Why did life have to be so hard?

Why didn’t God stop these bad things from happening?

Would God really allow one of us to get hurt?

Aware that I, at times, dreaded going to sleep, Momma would kneel down by my bed and recite the classic children’s prayer from the eighteenth century with me: “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” Those were not empty words. I meant every word of that prayer. I’m sure she did too.

Much to my surprise, I remember Momma began praying for Mr. Watts. She prayed long and hard for God to take away his root of bitterness and his deep-seated anger toward our family. And she prayed that Mr. Watts would one day give his heart to Jesus. When I asked her about that, she recited Matthew 5:44, saying, “Becky, Jesus said, ‘But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.’” Part of loving our enemies, she explained, included forgiving them when they wronged us—even if they hadn’t asked for forgiveness.

Even if they weren’t sorry.

Momma explained that we had been forgiven by Jesus for all of our sins, which is why He expected us, in turn, to forgive others. Taking the teachable moment one step further, she pointed to Romans 12:14, where Paul, a follower of Jesus, calls us to “bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not.” Looking back on those conversations, I can see that Momma was, as best she knew how, teaching me that forgiveness is close to the heart of God.

That forgiveness is the language of heaven.

That forgiveness should be a way of life.

Even when it was humanly inconceivable to do so.

I would soon need to be reminded of this perspective. And yet, thankfully, the welcomed respite from any serious display of trauma continued into February. This was especially good news for my mother, who spent her wedding anniversary giving her husband the ultimate anniversary present: a son. Which was quite the gift, considering she wasn’t supposed to be able to bear any children of her own.