Reuben Rock is not afraid.
“What God has for me, is for me,” said the trustee of St. John Baptist of Woodford.
Trust in God—but be wary of the children of men was the message driven home at a July 2 meeting on church security organized jointly by the Caroline County Sheriff’s Office and the Rev. Duane Fields of Oxford Mt. Zion Baptist Church.
In a summer that has seen the apparently racially driven shooting by a young white supremacist of nine parishioners of Charleston, S.C.’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church and a string of church fires throughout the southeast, security is on the minds of many church leaders and members, particularly within the black community.
“We live in a different world,” the Rev. Marvin Fields of 2nd Mt. Zion Baptist Church told the assembly. “People just don’t respect anything or anybody.”
The July 2 meeting brought together pastors and parishioners from seven local churches, several representatives of the Caroline County Sheriff’s Office, including Sheriff Tony Lippa and Major Scott Moser, Del. Buddy Fowler and Commonwealth’s Attorney candidate John Mahoney.
In a series of presentations Lippa, Deputy Sam Smith, Moser and Mahoney laid out the legal and practical options that churches, as private organizations, have to protect their property and the people on it.
“In every aspect of life, we have to walk differently than we did in the past,” said Moser.
Although the image of a church as a sanctuary with all doors set open is deeply imprinted on the minds of many, the reality of the modern world no longer allows such a model, he said. During services and events, all doors save the front one should be locked. Keys should be monitored and the parking lot watched. A security plan should be in place and widely understood by members, and designated parishioners should be entrusted with security duties to keep watch over the flock and, if appropriate, intervene in a situation or call the police.
“God’s going to take care of us, but he also gives us the ability to make decisions,” Moser said.
One of those decisions, Lippa pointed out, is whether churches permit or bar weapons from crossing their threshold—a choice granted them by the Virginia state code.
“Whether you want anyone to carry a weapon into a church, that’s up to you,” he told pastors.
To some of those present, the solution lay in authorizing designated people in the congregation to carry guns in case trouble broke out—but with others this prospect sat uneasily.
“We have a constitutional right to protect ourselves,” said Stanley Jones, a deacon at Oxford Mt. Zion and a former superintendent of Caroline County Public Schools. “We don’t mind calling the sheriff, but we have to protect ourselves.”
Still, said Rev. Marvin Fields, “some people don’t feel comfortable coming to a church with someone who has a gun.”
“What if your person ends up killing someone who hasn’t done anything?” he asked, suggesting that off-duty contracts with law enforcement officers might be a better solution.
No consensus was reached July 2 on the firearms question, but many of those present went away with a heightened understanding of how to begin taking steps toward protecting their flock.
“Dialogue is what we need,” Rock told the Progress. “We need to reach the masses. It’s not a black thing or a white thing; it’s a community thing.”
It’s a conversation, he said, that is a long time overdue and reflects a general stance among churches of being reactive instead of proactive.
“South Carolina,” he said, “is a wake-up call.”