Now, Even Civic Leaders Are Admitting The Church Has the Solution to America's Problems

Jessilyn Justice : Jun 2, 2015
Charisma news

"If you have an active faith community in your community, you can't help but notice that." -Longwood, Florida, Mayor Joe Deruso

(Baltimore, MD)—Mere miles away from the shot that triggered a refocus on racism in modern-day society, a small crowd gathered to determine how God's peace could reign in an age of rioting and destruction. (Photo: Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)

According to pastors, politicians and police officers, it all boils down to one thing: Faith leaders taking an active presence in their communities and being the first line of defense when chaos breaks out.

"If the moral breakdown that's at the root of that is something that we desperately need the faith-based community to inject itself into and show us leadership in bringing the flock back to the mores," says Winter Springs, Florida, Mayor Charles Lacey. "I think the establishment of a moral community is paramount to being a fundamental solution to the problem."

And given his community's response to the Trayvon Martin shooting in 2012, he's right.

Lacey's city of Winter Springs is in Seminole County, Florida, as is Sanford, where Martin was fatally shot by George Zimmerman.

Why didn't Sanford turn into similar riotous protests as Ferguson, Cleveland or Baltimore?

It was faith and the role of pastors taking an active presence in their communities, says Ed Allen, who was the incident commander during the Martin shooting and Zimmerman trial.

"Our first line of defense in the community is our pastors," Allen says. Not police, not residents, but men and women of God who pour out their souls on behalf of their neighborhoods.

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