I posted this on another thread on the same subject. Churches in general, and large churches in particular, attract troubled people who need God's help. Some of these people are mentally ill; others are fleeing from punitive ex-spouses; others have criminal backgrounds and/or drug problems and are trying with varying degrees of success to get their lives right. Such people can bring danger and violence to a church themselves or can attract loony contacts, because the church is the one place the ex knows where to find them every week at the same time. Drug and alcohol outreach programs churches sometimes run may attract emotionally unstable people, by definition.
I attend a church that in the past twenty years has grown to be a mega-church (on the low end of the scale of mega-churches). The pastor has been threatened repeatedly. Enough money is collected in tithing each week to attract criminals. There have been many security problems involving stalkers, ex-husbands, crazy people. So there is a very strong security presence there, involving both uniformed and plain-clothes off dutycops and at least one federal agent I know of.
I’m 64 years old and have attended a mainline Protestant church my entire life. In all those years I’ve only seen known one instance where someone came to the church looking for aid, who we felt was a potential threat. I happened to be in the office that day along with the secretary, and I was able to keep control of him verbally until an officer arrived. The situation never came close to being out of control, and we probably over reacted anyway.
If this is the type of environment in such churches today, I’m glad I’m not a part of that, er, culture.