Editorial October 2, 1989 Issue

Enmity, enemies, love, and prayer

William E. Moody

At a Protestant seminary in the southern United States a few years ago, the senior students were asked to design an unusual class project.^{See "Praying with the Klan," The Christian Century, May 10, 1989 .} The purpose of the project was to define a significant issue that had stirred controversy in the community and then explore a way to address that issue constructively. The students chose to attempt a dialogue with the Ku Klux Klan.

Their plan was to invite someone from the seminary and the local university, as well as a journalist and a representative from the Klan, to come together in a forum for public discussion. And from the very beginning, the students' hope was to have genuine communication and a search for understanding, not a debate.

At first, there was opposition to the project from people on both sides of the issue. However, Rachel Hosmer, an Episcopal clergywoman involved in the project, tells of the students' perseverance and courage as they went forward despite the resistance. She tells of how they tried to make contact with the Klan's Grand Dragon: "Two students set out along a lonely road into the sparsely wooded country ... to reach Klan headquarters, housed in wooden barracks, well stocked with guns and revolvers." And she tells how the students' offer was rejected because the Grand Dragon believed "no Klansman could get a fair hearing."

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