Many religious leaders urgently called for the rights of worshipers to be protected while also expressing compassion for migrants following the enforcement of anti-immigration laws Protesters disrupted service At the Southern Baptist Church in Minnesota.
About three dozen demonstrators entered the Cities Church in St. Paul’s during Sunday’s Mass, some walking straight to the pulpit, others They shouted loudly, “The ice is out!” And “Rene Jade” in reference to A woman was fatally shot on January 7 by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis.
One of the church’s pastors, David Easterwood, leads the local ICE field office, and one of the protest leaders and prominent local activist Nekima Levy Armstrong said she is also an ordained minister.
The Minnesota-Wisconsin Baptist Convention called what happened “unacceptable trauma,” saying the service was “forced to end prematurely” while demonstrators chanted “insults and accusations against youth, children and families.”
“I believe we must be resolute in two areas: encouraging our churches to provide compassionate pastoral care to these (migrant) families and standing firm for the sanctity of our houses of worship,” Trey Turner, who is leading the conference, told The Associated Press on Monday. The Church of the Cities belongs to the Convention.
The US Department of Justice said it had opened a civil rights investigation.
The last A surge in operations In Minnesota, more than 2,000 federal immigration officers pitted against community activists and protesters. The Trump administration and Minnesota state officials blamed each other for the incident Growing tensions.
“There is no reason — political or otherwise — that justifies the desecration of a holy place or the intimidation and trauma experienced by families gathered peacefully in the House of the Lord,” Kevin Ezell, president of the North American Mission Board, said in a statement. “What happened was not a protest, but rather unlawful harassment.”
Jonathan Parnell, the pastor who led the disrupted service, is an evangelist with the Ezell group and serves dozens of Southern Baptist churches in the area. The Cities Church, housed in a century-old Gothic-style stone building next to the campus on one of the Twin Cities’ historic streets, did not respond to AP requests for comment.
Christians in the United States are Divided over moral and legal dilemmas Sparked by migration, including an estimated 11 million people who are in the country illegally and Height on illegal border crossings and asylum claims during the Biden administration.
Opinions differ between and within denominations on whether Christians should prioritize caring for strangers and neighbors or push immigration enforcement in the name of security. White evangelicals tend to support strong enforcement, while Catholic leaders have spoken in favor of immigrant rights.
The Southern Baptist Convention is the largest Protestant denomination in the United States and has conservative evangelical theology.
Religious leaders can and often do lead protests about social issues, but they should never prevent others from worshiping, said Miles Mullen, vice chair of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.
“This is something that should not happen in America,” Mullen said. “For Baptists, our worship services are sacred.”
On Facebook, Levi Armstrong wrote about Sunday’s protest in religious terms: “It is time for judgment to begin and it will begin in the house of God!!!”
But Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, called the protesters’ tactics unjustified.
“For Christians, the precedent of invading a group during worship should be unthinkable,” Mohler said in an interview. “I think the political left has crossed the threshold.”
Brian Caylor, a minister of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and leader of the Christian media organization Word&Way, having an ICE official serve as a chaplain is a “serious moral failure.”
But Caylor, who has spoken out against the Trump administration’s treatment of immigrants, said he was “very torn” by the actions of protesters inside the church.
“It would be very concerning if we saw this become a widespread tactic across the political spectrum,” he said.
a lot Religious leaders were horrified When the government announced last January that federal immigration agencies Arrests can be made at churches, schools and hospitalsAnd end the protection of people in sensitive places.
No immigration raids have been reported during church services, but some churches have posted notices on their doors stating that federal immigration officials are not allowed inside. Others have reported Decrease in attendance,especially during execution spikes.
Following the protest at the Cities Church, Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for civil rights at the US Department of Justice, said her office was investigating “possible violations of the federal FACE Act,” calling the protest “un-American and outrageous.”
The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act of 1994 prohibits interfering with or intimidating “any person by force or threat of force or physical obstruction who exercises or seeks to exercise the First Amendment right to religious freedom in a place of religious worship.”
White House press secretary Carolyn Leavitt warned in a social media post that “President Trump will not tolerate the intimidation and harassment of Christians in their sacred places of worship.”
Many pastors called for improved security in churches.
the Pastor Joe RigneyOne of the founding pastors of the Cities Church in 2015, who served there until 2023, said that safety would have been his first concern if the service had been disrupted by a group, especially since Deadly shooting At a Minneapolis Catholic School Mass last summer.
In a statement to the Associated Press, a spokesman for Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said that although people have the right to speak out, the governor does not support a place-of-worship boycott.
Also on Monday, the Justice Department informed the federal appeals court that it would appeal a decision Ruling that federal officers In the Minneapolis area, peaceful protesters who do not obstruct authorities cannot be detained or fired with tear gas. The case was filed in December on behalf of six activists from Minnesota, who are among thousands of people monitoring the activities of federal immigration officers in the region.
However, more protesters braved sub-zero temperatures (minus 8 degrees Celsius) on Monday to honor Martin Luther King Jr. Day in St. Paul. Some signs were waved from vehicles with messages including, “What did you do while your neighbors were kidnapped?” And “We love our Somali neighbors.”
Dozens of protesters also held a brief sit-in at a Target store in St. Paul, demanding that the retailer deny entry to federal agents. Target, based in Minneapolis, was subsequently criticized by activists Video showed federal agents Two employees detained at a store in Richfield, Minnesota.
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Associated Press journalists Holly Meyer in Nashville, Tennessee, Steve Karnovsky in Minneapolis, and Jack Brock in St. Paul, Minnesota, contributed.
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