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The Touch, the Feel of God
18 April 2005A St. Paul local news station, WCCO, delivers a fuzzy -- in terms of both warm sentiment and lack of detail -- report on "the God Squad": a volunteer group of Christian clergy associated with the local police force who minister to victims and their families at local crime scenes, and pray for "neighborhoods, elders, youth, themselves and the police." "'We bring the touch of God,'" to violent crime scenes, explains one Squad minister. What does that mean, besides a slogan borrowed from American Cotton? WCCO's report doesn't explain exactly -- nor does it give any clue to the squad's operations or effectiveness other than a recent drop in violent crime, and the Squad's expressed wish to expand into other cities -- but we do get testimony from a grieving mother who was pacified by the Squad at the site of her son's murder, and came to see their presence as proof that "God had not left her," and the Squad's own sense of their role as spokesmen for Christianity, when they say "'we are the only Bible some people will ever see.'" Whether it's in the purview of the St. Paul P.D. to offer such theodicy-lite or walking Bibles to crime victims, or even whether they plan to offer walking Korans as well, we don't learn. But what's left to ask, after you've got the money quote: We bring the touch of God?
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