Police shootings. Charleston church killings. The public resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan. As recent years engulfed America in intense debate about race, the genteel Gothic stone parish in little Lexington, Va., quietly debated its name. Could “R.E. Lee Memorial Church” commemorate the postwar fence-mender who had led their church and city out of destitution? Or could it only conjure the wicked institution of slavery for which Confederate Army Gen. Robert E. Lee fought?
In the past two years, church leadership held retreats about it. An anonymous survey was held. Thousands of dollars were paid to reconciliation experts trained in pacifism.