In mid-April, 2017, Alabama’s Senate approved a bill that
would authorize Briarwood Presbyterian Church to create a police department. At
the time, the church hired off-duty police employees to provide security-- “a
common practice among nonprofit organizations.”[1]
With 4,000 congregants, a K-12 school and thousands of events on its land each
year, church officials had difficulty finding enough off-duty cops who were
available. More important than being able to make up for any shortages, the
proposed law “would empower a religious group to do a job usually performed by the
government.”[2] That
the group is religious in nature whereas police power is governmental (i.e.,
“church and state”) is less important than that the “job” had come to be viewed
societally, as per the quote from The New
York Times, as usually performed by government. In
other words, the slippery, subtle slope is itself a red flag.
The full essay is at "Private Police Forces."
1. Ian Lovett, “Alabama Church Wants Police Force,” The New York Times, April 17, 2017.
2. Ibid.
