Christian cops’ prayers answered

A Christian policing group which believes that the power of prayer can catch criminals and keep officers safe from harm has been awarded a £10,000 grant from the Home Office to widen its involvement with local church groups.

The Christian Police Association (CPA) are encouraging members of the public to ‘adopt a cop’ and pray for them while they are on patrol.

Subjects that the association says congregations should be encouraged to pray for include “helping officers make on-the-spot decisions” and encouraging them to “resist corruption”.

The Christian Police Association also states: ‘There is circumstantial evidence to suggest that prayer may help to reduce crime and community tension.’

The grant has come as the CPA launch the new CoAct project, which aims to encourage police officers and Christian members of the public to work together to fight crime.

The initiative, which will be partly funded with the Home Office grant encourages Christians to work with offenders coming out of prison, set up youth groups to prevent crime and anti-social behaviour, and work as “peacemakers”, mediating in communities.

The CoAct website states: ‘Do some research, read local newspapers, talk to your Neighbourhood police officer, check out the police website, find out the trouble hotspots, listen to local radio and TV news and use relevant items as prayer fuel.

‘Be informed when praying and be specific. As you find out about a particular issue, continue to pray about every aspect of it. Keep praying and keep watching.
Its website adds: ‘Praying specifically for your local policing situation may well bring tangible results.’

Don Axcell, the executive director of the 2,000-strong CPA and a retired sergeant for the Met, told Police Review today: ‘In one particular area, an officer was investigating an incident but he had not been able to apprehend a suspect.

‘He encouraged a church to pray for him and within days a suspect had been arrested and charged.

‘In another area, an officer encouraged churches to pray about domestic burglary and over the year it came down by 30 per cent.

‘We do not discount good police work, which is why we call it circumstantial evidence.’

But Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said the Government should not be funding religious-oriented police organisations which he believes have helped factionalise officers into competing camps.

“I have no objection to a local congregation praying for their community but the Government should not be funding these sorts of sectarian police groups,” he said. “If there’s one institution that should be avowedly secular, it is the police force. Yet we have Christian, Muslim and Jewish police associations all battling for greater recognition and government funding.”