Security Guards in Church and Other Thoughts

Shoutout to KXOL Mega 96.3 Los Angeles, the perpetual soundtrack of my car! 

I grew up on radio, a very different type of radio than this station: primarily conservative talkshows and Evangelical sermons, although I do remember a time when I was younger and K-Earth 101 occupied a larger amount of my parents' listening time. I've never really gotten into TV or podcasts, but good old zero-effort, zero-decision-making radio stations are my thing.

Mega 96.3 has a wonderful group of people hosting and deejaying their station who are full of positive and inspiring things to say, and there have been several times on my way to work in the morning when I've found myself thinking how refreshing it is to hear people who don't agree on everything still having a good time together. Disagreements on religious perspectives come up for instance, and nobody sounds angry!

This morning, the hosts started talking about why fewer people are going to church these days and then patched in their man on the street who was asking people, "What do you think churches should do that would get more people to come?" 

The very first person's response was that they should have security guards so people would feel safer.

This comment is far too relatable. It was far too easy for the hosts to agree that might do the trick and for neither me nor most likely anyone else listening to think that was a strange connection to draw. I think in the long run society would be better off if fewer people felt they needed churches, but I hate the idea of even a single person who would rather be attending a place of worship right now staying home because they fear violence. Much better to have people in church than out of it for a reason like that.

I don't even know what I want to say about this necessarily, just that I had to bring it up somewhere. Just that it's infuriating that this is what's at the top of people's minds, that they have to say they don't want to get killed for following their conscience or traditions. Hearing that makes me so sad. I probably don't stop to write down things that make me happy often enough, but that's because when something is happy I don't feel like I need to get it off my chest. 

As far as actually trying to say anything other than "this sucks" about these thoughts, I sure wish I could say something that would somehow put an end to everyone's fear of being caught up in mass violence in public places, but all I can think of to say is that it's always worthwhile to emphasize our respect for each others' differing views. I spend a lot of time criticizing a lot of religious views now, and I like the idea of more people coming to share views like mine on those topics, but my biggest goal, more than people agreeing with me or not being religious, is that we would all practice our views no matter what they are in ways that build other people up. I spend so much time criticizing certain ways of practicing Christianity because those are the ideologies I've had the most firsthand experience seeing the downsides of. I've seen them turn people away from doing what's practical and helpful often enough that I've accumulated a lot of critiques and alternatives to offer to them. The goal in anything I say isn't to get people to change what they call themselves; it's to get them to successfully do what's practical and helpful more often.

If we stick with this depressing subject of public violence, it's worth reminding ourselves that people who commit these acts come from a variety of religious and nonreligious positions. You can't just get people to fall into an ideological category and trust it to ward off wrong actions all by itself. I wasn't planning to write anything at all today, so I haven't prepared a helpful practical thing to talk about, but I have just thought of something that would fit the bill that I'll plan to post about as soon as possible. 

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