Clergy Response Teams?

The headline below was found on the KSLA News website along with a YouTube video proclaiming that clergy response teams are being groomed to handle emergencies and rioting during a declaration of martial law.

Homeland Security Enlists Clergy to Quell Public Unrest if Martial Law Ever Declared

It’s certainly an inflammatory headline (and you should read the story at KSLA News). So I went to Daily Kos to find out the truth of the matter. Here’s some of what was said there:

______________________________________________________________
“Clergy Response Teams” and “Christ In Action”
by Troutfishing

Wed Aug 22, 2007 at 04:47:11 PM PDT

Imagine that along with the black uniformed paramilitary troops sent by Blackwater USA to keep order in Katrina ravaged New Orleans, fundamentalist preachers working closely with those troops were preying on and seeking to convert the traumatized victims of the Katrina disaster. For the nicest of reasons.

Imagine that was just a test run for a new national program that’s in the works.

Was it true ? It’s currently impossible to say but here’s the skinny on what can be determined : private non-governmental clergy led disaster relief programs, which could be described as verging on “religious predation“, have in some cases have become entangled with government.

_____________________________________________________________

Now according to Troutfishing:

NOTE : I’ve decided that my original writeup was too “conspiratorial”, so I’ve substantially revised this story. As often is the case, some of the details of “Christ In Action” are just as interesting, if perhaps less menacing, than the “clergy response teams” described in the KSLA report.

“The pastoral community represents a large and often untapped resource in times of crisis. It possesses a unique aggregation of characteristics that makes it uniquely valuable amidst the turmoil of a psychological crisis….  the pastoral community may possess especially powerful restorative attributes…. This paper represents an initial effort to elucidate how the principles of pastoral care may be functionally integrated with those of crisis intervention.” reads a Spring 2000 NIMH paper on “Pastoral Crisis Intervention”. Since September 11, 2001 lines between private “pastoral crisis intervention” efforts and official government disaster relief operations have become increasingly blurred as , and a sensationalized Louisiana television station report asserting that “clergy response teams” played a role in pacifying the population of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina has raised questions about the evolving realm of religiously based disaster relief. It is not clear that “Christ In Action” (described later in this report) or other privately organized “pastoral crisis intervention” efforts are receiving federal, state, or local government funds, but some of these efforts are at the very least receiving government encouragement and what could be reasonably construed as government endorsement.

At this early stage there are far more questions, on the  evolving realm of  ”pastoral crisis intervention”,  than answers but the character of some of the efforts under that rubric is clear. As “Christ In Action” volunteer Gail Ritter who was working with the group’s Pentagon relief effort which was provisioned not just with food but also a pallet of Bibles, stated, “Hearts were ripe. People are so broken.”

Troutfishing refers to the KSLA report as hype and speculates on what the reality is:

Was it a hoax ? The veracity of the report is so far unknown, and I have not found evidence of working plans for the coordination, during domestic US disasters, of government troops with teams of clergy but the reality behind the hype points towards continued erosion of state-state boundaries.

The White House website notes the emergence of a private, non-governmental clergy disaster relief effort, “Christ In Action”, headed by Assemblies Of God minister Denny Nissley. According to a WH website page concerning lessons learned from the Katrina disaster:

“Dr. Denny Nissley, the Director of Christ in Action is organizing a Coalition of Faith-Based First Responders from around the Nation to be prepared for the next major disaster. This Coalition will perform disaster relief training for volunteers and will maintain a current roster of thousands of volunteers who can be quickly called upon to provide support during the next major disaster.”

______________________________________________________________

Sounds quite innocent but I don’t like it.  It seems to me when religion gets involved they find it very hard to “just” help in a disaster.  They bring and distribute Bibles (note above). They provide food and shelter but the victims often have to pray (whether they like it or not, are religious or not) kneeling at the side of the little cot they’ve been given to sleep on. 

And when the government promotes such religious involvement during times of disaster then they are crossing a line that our Founding Fathers purposely drew and suggested we DON”T cross.

maryt.