Bishop E.W. Jackson of Virginia is calling on churches to support law enforcement this Sunday in the wake of a sniper attack that killed five Dallas police officers during a protest earlier this week.

President of the non-profit Staying True to America’s National Destiny, or STAND, Jackson — an occasional Stream contributor — issued a press release Saturday asking pastors to preach Romans 13, which teaches respect for authorities, on what he is calling “STAND With Law Enforcement Sunday.”

“We should pray for law enforcement instead of persecuting them. We should honor them instead of harassing them. And yes, we should hold wrongdoers accountable, but let’s heal our country instead of tearing it apart,” Jackson said.

Near the conclusion of a peaceful Black Lives Matter rally in downtown Dallas last Thursday, 25-year-old Micah Xavier Johnson fired on police officers, killing five and wounding seven. Before being killed by Dallas police early Friday morning, Johnson said he wanted to kill white people and especially white officers.

The rally was one of many taking place around the nation in response to the deaths of Alton Sterling of Louisiana and Philando Castile of Minnesota, black men killed by white officers this week.

After the shooting at the Dallas rally, police officers in Georgia, Missouri and Tennessee were also attacked.

Jackson, a black man and candidate for Virginia’s Lt. Governor in 2013, criticized in a Facebook video the violence against police, adding that President Obama “has never failed — never failed — to use every opportunity to stoke racial division, and has continually blamed the police any time there has been any incident, even before the facts come in.”

“The reality is we’ve got to come together across all racial and cultural lines,” Jackson said. “We’ve got to be one nation under God, with liberty and justice for all. We’ve got to have leadership that seeks to bring us together rather than tearing us apart.”

Jackson’s call to “STAND With Law Enforcement” follows an interfaith, interracial prayer gathering in downtown Dallas on Friday.