Security is focus at churches, mosques amid heightened fears

Associated Press

BIRMINGHAM, ALA.

In Alabama, a Presbyterian church wanted to be able to hire its own police for protection. Mosque leaders around the country are meeting with law-enforcement officials as an anti-Muslim furor fuels arson attacks and vandalism. And the Federal Emergency Management Agency has been holding specialized training for congregations for “all hazards, including active-shooter incidents.”

Religious congregations across the U.S. are concentrating on safety like never before after a season of violence, from the slaughter unleashed in June by a white shooter at a historically black church in Charleston, S.C., to the killings this month in San Bernardino, Calif.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations said 2015 is shaping up as the worst year ever for U.S. mosques, amid the backlash to the Islamic-extremist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, and the intensifying anti-Muslim rhetoric from Donald Trump and others seeking the GOP presidential nomination. Preliminary 2015 data collected by the civil-rights group found 71 reported cases of vandalism, harassment and threats, with 29 of those incidents occurring since the Nov. 13 assaults in France.

The Anti-Defamation League, which works to secure Jewish sites, has been organizing safety training around the country with other faith groups, including an Austin, Texas, event with police and the African Methodist Episcopal Churches of Greater Austin that drew participants from 35 churches and three mosques. The Charleston church attacked in June, Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, is part of the national African Methodist Episcopal denomination.

Christian churches have been refining their security plans ahead of receiving some of their largest crowds of the year for Christmas.