The Region : Fundamentalists Protest at Church

About 200 members of a fundamentalist Baptist church staged a brief demonstration in front of television preacher Gene Scott’s landmark downtown church to protest an attempt to declare the building a city historic monument and--as the building’s former owners have charged--to deprive them of the full potential value of the site. The protesters chanted “Shame on Bradley” and carried posters, one of which read “Bradley, Lindsay and Scott, The Evil Trinity.” Their leader, the Rev. Robert L. Hymers Jr., called the proposed historic monument declaration a “scam” on the part of Scott, Mayor Tom Bradley and City Councilmen Gilbert Lindsay and John Ferraro. Hymers, of the Fundamentalist Baptist Tabernacle, said he has no connection to either Scott or to the Church of the Open Door, which sold the landmark downtown church to Scott’s Wescott Christian Center. The controversial dispute arose after Wescott refused to continue making payments on the property because of an alleged deed restriction.