it s now been reported by the shreveport times and that local reporting has been picked up nationally by talking points memo. the sheriff s department there says operation exodus is designed to build a local paramilitary force to deal with the threat of, you know, threats and stuff. in the words of the shreveport times , quote, the bossier sheriff s office is launching a program called operation exodus, a policing plan for an end of the world scenario involving a mostly white group of ex-police volunteers and a 50 caliber machine gun inspired in part from the book of exodus in the bible. the .50-caliber machine gun is for real, mounted on something the sheriff s office calls the war wagon. i so wish we had a picture of the bossier county sheriff s war wagon with the .50-caliber mounted machine gun. we do not have a picture of that. we do have these awesome shots
sheriff explaining he named it exodus because of the book of exodus is one of the things that most caught my attention about this and made me most want to talk to you about it, but it s not just the name of this militia group. when you get into the details of it, it turns out that the sheriff is also planning to use church facilities in the event of the kind of emergency he imagination that they d have to call out this group. do you think there is a broader effort to try to bring churches and the militia movement together and have you ever seen that before? well, absolutely. look, as you know, because you ve read my book crazy for god which is this story about how i came out of the religious right and changed my mind and why i did that, you know, ever since the 1970s, the link between the far right, the religious right, the looney right and churches involved in everything from the antiabortion movement to the secessionist movement to the christian school movement, home school movem
sheriff dean if beyond just naming his militia after the boosk exodus, he was also motivated by an expectation of the rapture by the end of days, sheriff dean declined to comment on that. joining us now is frank shaffer, author of crazy for god and a blogger for the huffington post. thanks very much for joining us tonight. i appreciate your time. my pleasure. thanks for having me on, rachel. operation exodus draws its name from the book of exodus in the bible, the sheriff explains that in his press release. what do you make of linking an effort like this to the old testament? well, it s kind of symbolic because the story of exodus is the jews the people of god fleeing an unjust ruler so obviously it s a backhanded comment about the united states government, barack obama, what have you. and in my mind it links up with the sheriffs who at the c-pac meeting a couple weeks ago took an oath to break the law and not follow orders if they don t like what they re told. really this is j
expectation that they re somehow serving god by doing this or fighting i don t know what. it isn t terrorism they re fighting. they re just putting together a little militia group to flee the rulers they don t agree with i guess and kind of the dick cheney america. you know, we ve given up on our government protecting us. we say the president is not doing his job so we give the .50 cal machine gun to some old guy on a pickup truck and shotguns to good ole boys an guess they ll take care of it. the name of this group, the sheriff explaining he named it exodus because of the book of exodus is one of the things that most caught my attention about this and made me most want to talk to you about it but it s not just the name of this militia group. when you get into the details of it turns out that the sheriff is also planning to use church facilities in the event of the kind of emergency he manlgs he d have to call out this group. do you think there is a broader effort to try to bring chu
the world scenario involving a mostly white group of ex-police volunteers and a 50 caliber machine gun inspired in part from the book of exodus in the bible. the .50-caliber machine gun is for real, mounted on something the sheriff s office calls the war wagon. i so wish we had a picture of the bossier county sheriff s war wagon with the .50-caliber mounted machine gun. we do have these awesome shots of this 1955 chevy/monster truck thingy that is also called the war wagon but i don t think that s what they re putting the gun on. i think it s a different war wagon. the way operation exodus is going in bossier parish is that the sheriff came up with this idea. he put out the press release and then the sheriff proactively contacted people who lived in bossier parish who he wanted to join this little militia. and the sheriff chose 200 people, 195 of the 200 are white men, the sheriff is providing