Who is my neighbor?

Southland Christian Center’s shopping mall odyssey

By Andrew Battista

When I read the New Testament, I always pay attention to the questions people ask Jesus.  For example, there is a famous conversation in which a Torah scholar asks Jesus what one must do to inherit eternal life.  Jesus tells him, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” a core tenant of the Jewish Law.  The scholar asks in return, “Who is my neighbor?”  This question obviously has a layered meaning.  The scholar isn’t asking who literally lives next to him; rather, he is trying to find out how far the ethic of justice suggested by the Law should extend.  The story Jesus tells to answer this question, known as the Parable of the Good Samaritan, seems to imply an infinite hospitality.  Everyone is our neighbor, even our most despised social enemies.  There are no limits to the deference and love we should show to others, whether or not their property is adjacent to us.

Spring on the Southland Christian collection pond. Photo by Danny Mayer.

Sometimes, though, it’s worth literalizing the text and thinking about neighbors as the people who really are affected by our stewardship of the land.  The megachurch Southland Christian Center, which purchased the abandoned Lexington Mall property on Richmond Road, has not been a good neighbor recently.  In the two years that have passed since the church acquired the 31-acre property from a Maryland-based real estate firm, the Lexington Herald-Leader has reported a string of disagreements between Southland and its new neighbors.  In early 2011, the owners of Perkins Restaurant filed a suit against Southland.  Restaurant owner Mark Perkins, who now leases his property from Southland, claimed that the church has misrepresented the actual value of the retail space his business occupies and doubled the rent.  According to Perkins this is a clear attempt to gouge prices and drive his restaurant out of business.  As one astute person asked on the online section of the newspaper story, “when did it become Christian to rob your neighbor?”

More seriously than the Perkins dispute, Southland is now implicated in what amounts to an issue of environmental justice.  Southland pastor Chris Hahn admitted that the church mortgaged its future to this construction project and encountered substantial costs that were not anticipated.  What was once a $19.3 million project has ballooned to a more than $24 million boondoggle, and there’s still no end in sight.  To recoup some of the costs, Southland now wants to fill in most of the giant retainer pond that separates the mall from Richmond Road and turn over the newly created property into commercial parcels of land.

The construction decisions Southland makes now have the potential to affect people in negative ways.  The people who live in the neighborhoods surrounding the mall worry that the existing pond holds a functional purpose and should not be filled in.  The pond collects runoff from rainwater and protects adjacent properties from floodwater damage.  Some neighbors feel duped by the church, while others have gone on record to say that they never really trusted Southland in the first place.

While it is to some degree noble that Southland Christian Center has tried to rescue a derelict property located in what Hipster Runoff blogger Carles would call “the ass-crack of suburbia,” we should not exonerate the church for biting off more than it can chew, especially if their attempts to stay within a budget pose an environmental risk to others.  Who is my neighbor?  Southland Christian Church, of all organizations, should ask this question as it tries to recuperate from the consequences of its empire-building growth model.