While attending a public board meeting in the City Hall building, downtown Waterbury, I came across a conversation between a popular Reverend in the city, and a city board member. The city board member was speaking on a new program within the Waterbury Police Department that is going into various neighborhoods and recruiting members to a "citizens police academy". The board member was proudly boasting that he was part of this "citizens police academy", and telling everyone how great it was for the city to do this. The Reverend, not to be out done, wanted to quickly boast his credentials, working with law enforcement, when he shouted "I'm with the FBI!".
Immediately I found this disturbing, why is a Reverend, who gets trusted with the most intimate knowledge of peoples lives, working directly with the Federal Government law enforcement division? When I confronted him on it, the Reverend, at first, was downplaying the significance of his role with the FBI, and said he only receives training once in a while. Having more knowledge on the subject that I am sure he assumed me to have, I continued to probe and asked about the specifics of his training, including whether or not the FBI specifically told him which bible verses to preach to his "flock", including Romans 13. At this point, the Reverend seemed to be getting irritated, defensive, and told me that this (City Hall) is not the place to discuss scripture. Rather than continue the tense exchange, I chose to let the public meeting continue with its regularly scheduled agenda.
So why is the Federal government involved with training local religious leaders? The best answer I have come across is, FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Association) is working with thousands of religious leaders across the country, to create, what they call, a FEMA Clergy Response Team.
