Mayor Larry Langford’s Answer to Crime.
Several days ago I was reading The Friendly Atheist and came across the story of Mayor Larry Langford, who was dealing with the ever-increasing rate of crime in Birmingham, AL. His answer was to pray and to pass out Bibles to the citizens.
Langford is holding a family summit April 4, where he will hand out 5,000 bibles in English and Spanish.
“I’m gonna give you something far better than a gun to protect yourself with. I’m gonna give you the word of God,” Langford said. “He is the only source of protection you’ve got. I make no apologies for it. I serve a good God and I’m glad He found me.”
Just yesterday Ebon sent me this update on the crime-fighting tactics of Mayor Langford. It seems the Bibles weren’t enough.
Mayor Larry Langford declared Friday as “It’s Time to Pray Day” in Birmingham and will mark the event with a prayer service at Boutwell Auditorium.
Langford made the proclamation Tuesday during the City Council meeting.
“We’re going to pray for a change in this city,” he said.
During the service, participants will be given sackcloth to wear and ashes to put on their skin. The practice is mentioned in the Bible of the Bible as an act of repentance and humility.
Langford ordered 2,000 of the sacks.
“Even if you get upset, we’re still going to have it,” Langford said. “This city needs to humble itself.”
…..
“The moral fiber of this community is also our responsibility,” he said.
Langford also admonished the pastors surrounding him and others not to attend the rally for spectacle, but for a religious experience.
“Do not come looking pretty,” he said. “If you’re too cute to put a little ash on your hands, stay home. If you’re too cute to pray, stay home.”
There are definitely issues with Separation of Church and State there. Beyond that, I wonder if Mayor Langford has ever seen this study from 2005 that debunks the belief that a moral society depends on faith and religiosity.
A STRENGTHENING of religious faith is often raised as the answer to society’s ills. Peter Costello has said, for example, “that a recovery of faith would go a long way” to solving many of our society’s problems. The Prime Minister, too, has publicly argued for the societal benefits of religiosity, claiming that “the Christian religion is the greatest force for good in this nation”. Labor’s Lindsay Tanner, a self-described agnostic, seems to agree, stating that “without some kind of sustained spiritual input” our society will “degenerate into a bleak utilitarian shell that debases us all”.
Many ordinary Australians share the belief that religious faith is an indicator of morality, and it is accepted wisdom that high rates of religious practice correlate with lower rates of crime, promiscuity and abortion.
However, a study published in the Journal of Religion and Society, an American academic journal, set out to test this hypothesis and found there is an inverse relationship between religiosity and public health and social stability. The study, “Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies”, compared social indicators such as murder rates, abortion, suicide and teenage pregnancy using data from the International Social Survey Program, Gallup and other research bodies.
“In general,” writes the author, Gregory Paul, “higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies.”
A striking example of this is the US, which has the highest degrees of religious faith and the highest rates of homicide, abortion, STD infection and teenage pregnancy. The least religious countries - Japan, France and Scandinavia - have the lowest rates of violent crime, juvenile mortality and abortion….
He might also be interested in this study that shows prayer doesn’t work–at least not in the way intended.
Seeking to assess the effect of third-party prayer on patient outcomes, investigators found no evidence for divine intervention. They did, however, detect a possible proof for the power of negative thinking.
The three-year Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP), published in the April 4 American Heart Journal, was the largest-ever attempt to apply scientific methods to measure the influence of prayer on the well-being of another. It examined 1,800 patients undergoing heart-bypass surgery. On the eve of the operations, church groups began two weeks of praying for one set of patients. Each recipient had a praying contingent of about 70, none of whom knew the patient personally. The study found no differences in survival or complication rates compared with those who did not receive prayers. The only statistically significant blip appeared in a subgroup of patients who were prayed for and knew it. They experienced a higher rate of postsurgical heart arrhythmias (59 versus 52 percent of unaware subjects). …
It would behoove Mayor Langford to use more proven, practical means of solving his city’s crime problem. Handing out Bibles and forcing his religious faith on the citizens is not the answer. It will solve absolutely nothing, and in fact may make matters worse.
