Every week, I listen to the Bible Project podcast. Tim Mackie & Jon Collins are currently exploring the theme of cities in the Bible. This hasn’t really been my favorite podcast because it’s a series that focuses on urban life, and I don’t live in the exurban area between suburbs & rural areas.
This series has as its theme that cities tend to reflect both the good and bad in human nature. Don’t worry if you are not interested in reading my theological columns. In a moment, I will go beyond the Bible. Please bear with me. In Genesis, we see how Joseph uses the city structure to help neighbors during a famine. We also see the bad side of cities when Sodom and Gomorrah were plagued by sins.
This theme is not limited to the Bible. We’ve seen how cities have flourished in culture and art, but also how crime and corrupt practices plague urban areas. It is no secret that urban areas multiply the negatives and positives of human experience.
We know, of course, that the Democrats’ policies are responsible for many of the worst trends we see in our cities today. George Soros funded district attorneys refuse to enforce the law and bring criminals before justice. Meanwhile, sanctuary city policies attract illegal immigrants to the detriment of tax-paying and law-abiding citizens. The racial and political animosity brought by groups such as Black Lives Matter, Antifa, and the shortsighted approach to drug addiction and homelessness, along with government intrusions during the pandemic era, caused untold damage to American cities.
Our cities have suffered greatly under Democrat leadership. San Francisco provides maps to help people avoid actual piles in the street. New York puts illegals in luxurious hotels. Portland, Ore. and Seattle are unable to control the homeless drug addicts. People are fleeing Democrat cities by the thousands.
This trend is likely to continue until the city leaders can control crime. There is one bright spot in my city. Atlanta was a victim of Keisha Lance-Bottoms’ woke leadership, but the current mayor Andre Dickens is trying to tackle crime. (Despite throwing some bones to gun control activists after a recent city shooting).
Since months, I have been covering the controversy surrounding the proposed training center for law enforcement that the City of Atlanta is building. I won’t repeat everything — you can find my detailed coverage at the end of this article — but I will say that domestic terrorists who are linked to Antifa, and groups that the former Georgia governor candidate Stacey Abrams supported have caused havoc in the city. The vast majority of these terrorists are from outside Georgia and come from wealthy backgrounds.
The protesters pretended that they were “defending the forests” when, in fact, the training center had been a prison farm. Domestic terrorists were involved in a number of incidents, including the shooting of a state trooper and firebombing an Atlanta youth center. They also vandalized buildings, disrupted church services, and torched a police car. The Department of Homeland Security has refused to label these individuals as “violent extremists.” Dickens remained vigilant, a doctrinaire Democrat who believed that police training and first responder training would be beneficial for the community.
The Atlanta City Council finally voted on the funding of the project last week. The council heard 15 hours of public comments on Monday. Many of the residents in the area, who are mainly minorities, supported the project. They realize that not only will training police officers and firefighters be beneficial to everyone. The project was funded by the city council 11-4, despite the fact that leftist goons were chanting “Cop City won’t be built” at the time of the vote.
Mackie and Collins explore the city, and one of their themes is “the surprise” of the city. I’m not sure what it means as a theological idea, but Atlanta surprised many people by refusing to give in to the woke mob. Atlanta will continue to do the right thing by its citizens and keep them safe. We can expect to see more domestic terrorists. Perhaps more cities will follow suit.
