By Gretchen Keiser

In the shadow of July 4, a diverse group of Atlanta religious leaders issued a statement celebrating the pluralistic nature of America and deploring the continued existence of groups espousing “bigotry, racism and violence.”

These groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, “reject our nation’s founding principles by their efforts to prevent others from attaining full development as human beings,” the statement said.

“We, of the Atlanta religious community, are distressed by the persistence of this phenomenon. We reject what these extremist groups stand for. We pray they will reform their beliefs and grow morally and spiritually to embrace the ideal of freedom for all,” it said.

The press conference announcing the statement was co-sponsored by the Christian Council of Metropolitan Atlanta, the National Conference of Christians and Jews and the Georgia Christian Council of Churches. Some 61 people, including bishops, pastors, religious, laity and representatives from a variety of organizations and non-Christian faith signed the statement which was released at a press conference June 29 at the Omni International Hotel.

Among those signing were Archbishop Thomas Donnellan, the Rt. Rev. Frederick H. Talbot, presiding bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Georgia; the Rev. Joseph C. Coles, Jr., presiding bishop of the Christian Methodist Episcopal church; Bishop Bennett J. Sims of the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta; Bishop John of the Greek Orthodox Diocese of Atlanta; Dr. Glenn Iglehart, director of the Baptist Home Mission Board; Rabbi Donald Peterman, president of the Atlanta Rabbinic Association; Dr. Gerald S. Troutman, bishop of the Southeastern Synod of the Lutheran Church in America. Islamic and Eastern religious were also represented.

In focusing upon groups which espouse racism, there were several concerns other than the size of the groups, said Stuart Lewengrub, the director of the Southeastern Office of the Anti-Defamation League.

“It is our sense that the extremist movement may well have peaked in terms of numbers,” he said. “The threat we see is not so much in terms of their numerical support … as in that they incite to bigotry and they are violent.”

Don Newby, executive director of the Christian Council, said there had been incidents of harassment in 40 Georgia counties in the past year and that the statement had been generated in part by the continuing occurrence of racial incidents in the state.

The committee drafting the statement was chaired by the Rev. Jack T. Vaughn, executive director of the National Conference of Christians and Jews in Atlanta. He cited the diversity of people signing the statement as a “first step” toward a more unified effort to educate about and speak against groups that feed on racism and intolerance.

Lewengrub also noted that the statement was signed not only by those who had been targets of hate groups in the past such as Catholics, but by those “who have not been victims and targets.”