By Casey Harper

An inability to squelch riots is a feature of a failing, or at least a flailing, nation. The U.S. has been struggling with this problem for a decade now, and police and urban-dwelling Americans are paying the highest price.

I covered the Baltimore riots in April of 2015, which erupted after Freddie Gray died in police custody, and left a smoldering CVS pharmacy, a few other battered buildings, and a general sense that masked men can get away with a lot more than we once thought. We later learned the city leaders purposefully allowed the rioting. They told police to stand down. As many of these cases are, this one was marked by ambiguity and missing details around the death, lots of anger, and the aforementioned riots that burned down parts of the city and left several injured — including me.

But this story is not about me or my black eye 10 years ago. It is about the trend, from Baltimore and Ferguson to the 2020 BLM riots that swept the nation with little to no consequences, to the anti-ICE riots that sprang up in Los Angeles and elsewhere and persist in Portland, where several were arrested earlier this week. ICE agents now face gunfire, rocks, and public condemnation from Democrats.

After the riots in Ferguson, Missouri, there were reports of nationwide police discouragement and a spike in violent crime in many places. This phenomenon occurred again in the aftermath of the 2020 riots. Police turnover increased as cops were maligned as racist. Meanwhile, violent crime spiked. Over the last decade, anecdotal evidence suggests police officers pulled back from high-crime neighborhoods, many fearful of becoming the next scapegoat for perceived institutional racism. 

I discussed this topic and more on the “Outstanding” podcast with Jason Johnson, a former cop who now serves as president of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund. Sam McCarthy, a writer for the Washington Stand who covers these topics, also joined us on the podcast.

“It devastated police morale,” Johnson said of the 2020 riots, “pretty much everywhere, to the point where there’s the immediate impact of surging crime. Crime surged in 2020 … [and] homicide numbers went up in 2020 pretty much everywhere — some places significantly, 70% in a one-year increase.” He continued, “We actually published a study on this very recently where we retrospectively looked at this data. We looked at the crime numbers, and then we looked at measures of police productivity. So when you think about hardworking police officer,” he prompted, “what do you think about them doing? You think about them making arrests, right? If you’re out there looking for criminals, you’re probably going to find them and you’re probably going to make an arrest or at least stop a stop, a traffic stop or a stop of a suspicious person. Traditionally, that’s how we kind of measured how productive our law enforcement officers are and how much work they’re doing,” Johnson explained. “And what we found was those numbers move in opposite directions. So the measures of police productivity in 2020 went down very sharply … [because] police are on the defensive.”

So, how should we think about this as Christians?

A few years ago, in a moment of uncharacteristic diligence, I memorized Romans 13. Take a look at this section:

“Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing” (Romans 13:1-6).

A few key takeaways: First, God considers government officials ministers of his wrath. Ministers. Extensions of his will. Second, God accepts punishing wrongdoers as a key and godly function of otherwise pagan governments.

Presumably, ungodly governments are at the very least expected to maintain the rule of law so that society can function and the gospel can be preached until Jesus returns and permanently manifests his more perfect governance. Inherent in this text is the idea that God supports police and doesn’t want to defund them, though reform is always an option. On top of that, God is angry at criminals and sees them as worthy of wrath — not simply victims of society and merely in need of rehabilitation. Lastly, government officials who deal with criminals, including police, are worthy of a certain amount of respect as ministers of God’s will, even if they don’t acknowledge God or walk in His ways. The Romans at the time of Paul’s writing certainly didn’t.

Of course, police must act justly. There are plenty of admonitions in Scripture about treating people, and particularly the downtrodden, with justice. But in the nation’s zeal for justice, many have forgotten the God-designed and vital role of police and the respect they deserve as a result.

“As long as you as long as you earn the respect, you will be respected,” Johnson said of these officers. “All that was taken away, and they said, ‘No, don’t respect these authority figures. They’re not good. And that that is the message that has been pumped out through popular media and throughout social media that so many young people are influenced by.”

Johnson said that because of the media narrative against police, becoming an officer “just didn’t have the same luster it had.”

“That That’s the reason that I was attracted to law enforcement. It seems like a way to do good in so many different ways. And they took that away.

Johnson made the point that young people are not as attracted to becoming officers because of the cultural narrative.

"It’s very simple. … [T]he people who have influence in our culture have to speak out about the positives of law enforcement and as a career as a profession, that it really is a good thing. It’s a good thing to do if you want to create a positive force in your community. And so, I think it’s as simple as that.”

Casey Harper is managing editor for broadcast for The Washington Stand and host of the Outstanding podcast.