Grounding your police in fantasies about a Divinity does not bring me comfort:<\/p>\n
The police department that wrongly shot<\/strong>\u00a0Breonna Taylor dead in her own apartment in 2020 had trained its officers just three years earlier that they are avengers who carry out \u201cGod\u2019s wrath on the wrongdoer.\u201d<\/p>\n
New reporting by the Louisville, Ky., independent newspaper\u00a0LEO<\/a><\/em>\u00a0documents that in 2017 Louisville Metro Police applied a Bible verse to a mandatory firearms training class. The verse from Romans 13:4 was superimposed over a \u201cthin blue line\u201d flag as the final image in the training slideshow. [Baptist News<\/strong><\/a>]<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
BN’s<\/strong><\/em> article seems at least faintly disapproving, but it’s not an opinion piece, but rather reporting. That this is a problem is apparent to some:<\/p>\n
Bruce Williams, senior pastor at Bates Memorial Baptist Church in the Smoketown community of Louisville, told LEO he finds use of the verse by Louisville police an example of \u201cweaponizing scriptures.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s more evidence of what\u2019s kind of in the DNA of America,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd that is a history of weaponizing scriptures to justify violence sometimes and damnable ends.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
If we momentarily discard the question of whether there’s a Divinity at all, one of the problems of a difficult text such as the Bible having such authority is that most folks don’t really sit down and read it. Instead, they take the word of their cleric.<\/p>\n
And if that cleric is ambitious?<\/p>\n
Shit like this happens.<\/p>\n
I don’t want my police officers fantasizing they’re God’s Avengers. I want police officers who are soberly aware of their responsibilities, and act accordingly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Grounding your police in fantasies about a Divinity does not bring me comfort: The police department that wrongly shot\u00a0Breonna Taylor dead in her own apartment in 2020 had trained its officers just three years earlier that they are avengers who carry out \u201cGod\u2019s wrath on the wrongdoer.\u201d New reporting by \u2026 Continue reading