Several faith leaders called urgently for protecting the rights of worshippers while also expressing compassion for migrants after anti-immigration enforcement protesters disrupted a service at a Southern Baptist church in Minnesota.
About three dozen protesters entered the Cities Church in St. Paul during Sunday service, some walking right up to the pulpit, others loudly chanting “ICE out” and “Renee Good,” referring to a woman who was fatally shot on Jan. 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 leaders of the protest and prominent local activist Nekima Levy Armstrong said she’s also an ordained pastor.
The Minnesota-Wisconsin Baptist Convention called what happened “an unacceptable trauma,” saying the service was ”forced to end prematurely” as protesters shouted “insults and accusations at 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 leads the convention, told The Associated Press on Monday. Cities Church belongs to the convention.
The U.S. Department of Justice said it has opened a civil rights investigation.
The recent surge in operations in Minnesota has pitted more than 2,000 federal immigration officers against community activists and protesters. The Trump administration and Minnesota officials have traded blame for the heightened tensions.
“No cause — political or otherwise — justifies the desecration of a sacred space or the intimidation and trauma inflicted on families gathered peacefully in the house of God,” Kevin Ezell, president of the North American Mission Board, said in a statement. “What occurred was not protest; it was lawless harassment.”
Jonathan Parnell, the pastor who led the disrupted service, is a missionary with Ezell’s group and serves dozens of Southern Baptist churches in the area. Cities Church, housed in a Gothic-style, century-old stone building next to a college campus on one of the Twin Cities’ landmark boulevards, has not returned AP requests for comment.
Christians in the United States are divided on the moral and legal dilemmas raised by immigration, including the presence of an estimated 11 million people who are in the country illegally and the spike in illegal border crossings and asylum requests during the Biden administration.
Opinions differ between and within denominations on whether Christians must prioritize care for strangers and neighbors or the immigration enforcement push in the name of security. White evangelicals tend to support strong enforcement, while Catholic leaders have spoken in favor of migrant rights.
The Southern Baptist Convention is the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S. and has a conservative evangelical theology.
Miles Mullin, the vice-president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, said faith leaders can and often have led protests on social issues, but those should never prevent others from worshipping.
“This is something that just shouldn’t happen in America,” Mullin said. “For Baptists, our worship services are sacred.”
On Facebook, Levy Armstrong wrote about Sunday’s protest in religious terms: “It’s time for judgment to begin and it will begin in the House of God!!!”
But Albert Mohler, the president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, called the protesters’ tactics unjustifiable.
“For Christians, the precedent of invading a congregation at worship should be unthinkable,” Mohler said in an interview. “I think the political left is crossing a threshold.”
Brian Kaylor, a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship-affiliated minister and leader of the Christian media organization Word&Way, called having an ICE official serve as a pastor “a serious moral failure.”
But Kaylor, who has spoken out against the Trump administration’s treatment of immigrants, said he was “very torn” by the protesters’ action inside a church.
“It would be very alarming if we come to see this become a widespread tactic across the political spectrum,” he said.
Many faith leaders were dismayed when the government announced last January that federal immigration agencies can make arrests in churches, schools and hospitals, ending the protection of people in sensitive spaces.
No immigration raids during church services have been reported, but some churches have posted notices on their doors saying no federal immigration officers are allowed inside. Others have reported a drop in attendance, particularly during enforcement surges.
Following the protest in Cities Church, Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Justice, said her office is investigating “potential violations of the federal FACE Act,” calling the protest “un-American and outrageous.”
The 1994 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act prohibits interference or intimidation of “any person by force, threat of force, or physical obstruction exercising or seeking to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship.”
White House press secretary Karoline 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.”
Several pastors called for better security in churches.
The Rev. Joe Rigney, one of the founding pastors at Cities Church in 2015 who served there until 2023, said safety would have been his first concern had a group disrupted service, especially since the fatal shooting at a Minneapolis Catholic school Mass last summer.
In a statement to the AP, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s spokesperson said that while people have a right to speak out, the governor doesn’t support interrupting a place of worship.
Also Monday, the Department of Justice notified a federal appeals court that it will appeal a ruling that federal officers in the Minneapolis area cannot detain or tear gas peaceful protesters who aren’t obstructing authorities. The case was filed in December on behalf of six Minnesota activists who are among thousands of people observing the activities of federal immigration officers in the area.
Yet more protesters braved temperatures that dipped below zero (minus 8 Celsius) Monday to honor Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in St. Paul. Some waved signs from vehicles bearing messages including, “What did you do while your neighbors were being kidnapped?” and “We love our Somali neighbors.”
Dozens of protesters also staged a brief sit-in at a Target store in St. Paul demanding that the retailer bar entry to federal agents. Target, headquartered in Minneapolis, has been criticized by activists after a video showed federal agents detaining two employees at a store in Richfield, Minnesota.
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Associated Press journalists Holly Meyer in Nashville, Tennessee, Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis and Jack Brook in St. Paul, Minnesota, contributed.
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