The Facts: A Misguided Protest Against ICE Atrocities
Yesterday (1/18), protesters stormed into Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, interrupting worship to confront Pastor David Easterwood (who was absent) about his perpetuation of ICE atrocities in his role as acting director of the ICE St. Paul field office. The disruption followed legitimate outrage over ICE abuses and the killing of Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three who was fatally shot by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. Protesters chanted “ICE out” and “Justice for Renee Good” as congregants looked on, turning a sanctuary into a site of chaos and confrontation.
Storming into religious spaces to disrupt worship is not a legitimate protest. It is a profound strategic and moral failure that undermines the very causes it claims to advance.
Let me be clear: ICE’s enforcement tactics are brutal and violent, constituting state-sponsored terror against vulnerable communities. Renee Nicole Good was killed by an ICE agent, and those responsible must be held morally and legally accountable. David Easterwood’s dual role…as pastor and as an official overseeing these operations…is morally grotesque and indefensible.
But disrupting worship services does not confront that violence…it actually creates more. It violates a foundational principle of religious freedom that must remain inviolable…or else none of our sacred spaces will be safe when political winds shift.
The Fundamental Contradiction
For generations, movements for justice have defended religious freedom and opposed the persecution of faith communities. We’ve mourned when Black churches were bombed and burned. We’ve held vigils after synagogue shootings. We condemned attacks on mosques, Sikh gurdwaras, Hindu and Buddhist temples and the desecration of Indigenous sacred spaces.
We’ve understood why these acts were uniquely horrifying: they violated sanctuaries…places where people gather in vulnerability, trust and prayer.
When white supremacists attacked Black churches, they targeted the spiritual heart of a community. When antisemites attack synagogues or extremists interrupt mosques and gurdwaras, they terrorize people in their most intimate gathering spaces. These acts are universally condemned precisely because houses of worship are supposed to be protected from violence, intrusion and intimidation.
Now we are asked to abandon that principle because we are angry…and we are angry for good reason.
But anger does not grant permission to violate sacred space.
The protesters may not have carried weapons, but they brought fear and chaos into a sanctuary. They transformed a refuge into a confrontation zone, using a tactic long employed against marginalized and vulnerable faith communities: violating sacred space to send a political message.
The Dangerous Precedent That This Protest Against ICE Atrocities Sets
This action establishes a principle, whether its participants acknowledge it or not: that invading religious spaces is acceptable when the political cause feels urgent enough.
But who decides which causes qualify?
If activists can storm a church over a pastor’s government role, can anti-abortion groups disrupt worship at progressive congregations? Can anti-LGBTQ extremists target affirming churches? Can white supremacists decide a Black church is “too political” and invade the space? Can Islamaphobes barge into a mosque to burn a Quran?
If the answer is no to those scenarios, then it must also be no here. Religious freedom is not a selective principle. Once it becomes conditional, it ceases to exist.
Who Actually Gets Hurt?
Most of the people inside that church were not ICE agents. They were ordinary congregants: working people seeking community, elderly and disabled parishioners, children, people carrying grief, addiction and loneliness. They came to pray. Whether one believes they are praying to the right God in the right way or not should make no difference.
The principle of sanctuary does not depend on whether we approve of a congregation’s politics or find its theology admirable. It exists to protect human vulnerability during worship. That vulnerability was violated.
A Better Way to Push Back Against ICE Atrocities
There were…and still are…better ways to confront Easterwood and the system he represents.
Protest outside the church. Hold a press conference on the church’s front sidewalk. Organize a prayer vigil that embodies the values you believe he betrays. Invite clergy from other traditions…and even Easterwood’s own…to publicly name the moral contradiction between faith and enforcement violence. Build moral witness without invading sacred space.
None of these tactics weaken the cause. They strengthen it.
The Test of Principle
Principles do not exist for moments when they are easy. They exist precisely for moments like this…when anger against these ICE atrocities is more than justified, when injustice is real and when our principles feels tempting.
Sacred space is not a reward for good politics. It is a protection for human vulnerability.
Once we decide that worship can be disrupted based on our assessment of who deserves protection, we do not expand justice…we destroy the very principles that have shielded our own communities for generations.
We cannot build a more just society by normalizing the violation of sacred spaces. The line must hold…not because Easterwood necessarily deserves protection, but because worshippers everywhere do…especially those who are most vulnerable to reprisals for this action.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In