We all want separation of church and state, as in, “Keep your [deity] off my law books.” But why does nobody complain about sheriff’s deputies going into churches? Maybe it is because the entry is officially part of a program developed by the North Carolina Sheriff’s Association’s Church Security Group. It’s got a name and a program, and the name gets extra points because it says “security.” For the uninitiated, “security” is code for, “Yo, gummint, expand hither.”
Topics discussed in the training materials include:
- Conducting a Security Risk Assessment
- Developing a Place of Worship Security Plan
- What to do during the Critical Incident
- What to do immediately after the Critical Incident
- The need to provide Crisis Intervention Stress Management afterward.
Note the strategic capitalization of terms. Ooh, how official! I can’t help but see the potential for, shall we say, new and diverse energies, in this program, like having to go through naked body scanners to worship, or maybe instructing pastors to keep track of wingnuts clinging too bitterly to their Bibles.
