History meets mystery at Confederate monument (NC)
BY JOHN DEEM
... On July 20, a Cornelius police officer patrolling near the church discovered the monument had been defaced with graffiti ...
“The church does not have the authority to make decisions about the Confederate monument,” said the Rev. Mary John Dye, senior pastor at Mt. Zion United Methodist. “The monument and the property around the monument are not the property of the church” ...
Mecklenburg County property records list only Mt. Zion United Methodist Church as owner of the monument site. The N.C. Secretary of State’s office lists no organization operating under the name Mt. Zion Monument Association. And Dye said she knows of no modern-day legal custodian of the Mt. Zion Monument Association ...
“Our denomination has consistently deplored and repudiated the premises of white supremacy,” said Dye, whose first assignment as a pastor was in a predominantly black church in Mississippi, which she said was the first such cross-racial pastoral appointment in a United Methodist Church in that state. “Hatred is the opposite of the teaching of Christian faith, and racism in any manifestation is not consistent with the values of the United Methodist Church” ...
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/community/lake-norman-mooresville/article29276779.html
