I’m Still a (Mostly) No on In-Church Protests

Or, Why My Surprising Reaction Is a Sign of Hope

Two days ago, I posted my discomfort with the protest that took place inside Cities Church—a Southern Baptist Church in the decidedly northern Minnesota. I noted that this position would surprise many. After all, I’ve spent the last year decrying the evils of this presidential administration in general and of ICE in specific. I’ve been vocal about my disbelief that actual Christians seem to support this.

So you’d think I’d be all for disrupting the worship service of a church where a pastor, David Easterwood, was also an ICE official.

And yet, I wasn’t. Not because I didn’t understand the impulse. Not because I didn’t support the cause. Not because, as one Facebook commenter suggested, I believed worship should be safe and I was trying to protect “white bodies.” And not because, as another suggested, I subconsciously related to this congregation.

Ew. As if.

In fairness, I understand how they’d think this. Especially if this was the first post of mine they’d seen…ever. After all, lots of people who had been silent on (or supportive of) ICE’s brutal, illegal, un-American harassment tactics, on their murders of Renee Good and Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez (just a few miles east of my home), on ICE’s ill treatment of those within detention facilities were suddenly outraged over a disrupted worship service.

If you think that is how I have been, I get the uproar.

But alas, a quick scroll of my Facebook feed shows you it is not.

Believe me, I understand both the impulse and the rationale to disrupt that service. I understand that this non-violent action was about protecting the vulnerable, about seeking justice. I understand the importance of confronting a pastor about some very unChristlike behavior. And I understand that we are very close to something of a civil war.

Likewise, I know that Jesus flipped the money-changers’ tables. I know he kicked those dove-seller’s stools and drove them out of his father’s house. But hear me out (and this is where some of you are gonna get mad): Not all is fair or right in love and war. And Jesus (according to tradition) flipped those tables on a Monday. Flippin’ Monday of Holy Week. I think this matters. Maybe not.

Either way, there is something extra emotional about actions that happen in or are targeted at houses of worship. A firebomb that kills little girls getting ready for choir hits harder than one that kills them at Applebees. A swastika spray painted on the side of a synagogue packs a bigger punch than one painted on a WalMart wall. A community protesting the building of a mosque (or certainly, the bombing, the fires, et al that happen) stings more than protests for building a bandshell in the wrong place in a park. The story of a woman shot and killed on her way to church feels worse than if she were on her way to work.

Why?

Because by nature, places of worship elicit that response. They feel more vulnerable and thus hit our hearts harder. Places of worship are sanctuaries—safe places—or they should be—no matter who is worshiping inside or what or how they worship. Even if they are wrong. Even if they are very wrong as I do believe in the case of Cities Church in St. Paul.

And this is why, of course, the protestors chose to protest inside this. They were communicating the lack of safety a community felt by breaching the safety of worship.

I get it.

It struck harder to disrupt inside than to do so outside. The congregants described the act as “an unacceptable trauma.”

Uh huh. Right.

Even still, here’s where I land—as a liberal, privileged middle-aged white woman who has left jobs, lost clients and relationships over my unapologetic defense of the oppressed and vulnerable and in response to cruel and unChristlike treatment by Christians: It is our right to worship as we feel in this country. It is a church’s (or synagogue or mosque or temple or whatever) right to have clergy who believe horrible things. It is a church’s right to have a pastor who says horrible things. And I believe—to do so without reasonable disruption.

Partly, it’s just me. Because it feels impolite and because I’m socially awkward about disruptions (e.g., I had a hard time asking a grocery worker to scootch over so I could get to the bananas at Whole Foods earlier today).

But mostly it’s because this action—protesting during a church service—feels like crossing a big civil liberty line. And I’m a big civil liberties person (join us at the Illinois ACLU Lunch this April?).

I know the Right has crossed every line imaginable. But it doesn’t mean we need to. Or should.

To me, this action feels like book bans or burnings. We’re gonna shut you up because we don’t like what you say/think/feel.

To me, this feels like ICE banning clergy from serving the eucharist to ICE detainees. Only those the government approves are allowed to do this.

To me, this action feels like churches who say women or queers can’t be pastors. We’re not going to include your church in our city-wide gatherings because of your apostate beliefs—and tell congregants who disagree they are going to hell.

Of course, these aren’t equal. I mean, it was just one protest in a sea of absolute injustice and tyranny. I get that. Which is why I said on an outrage scale of 0 to 100, with this administration’s horrors being 100, I rank the St. Paul in-worship protest a 0.15.

But here’s the thing: I don’t want this to be the future of the Left. And I worry it could be. (Which, strangely, is a sign of hope that I can even consider this evil dictatorship will one day end!) After all, we know this country is willing to elect a tyrant. We know our Congress is bend the knee and turn away from accountability. I’m not fool enough to think this is only the domain of the Right.

There are Leftist megalomaniacs, you know. And there are folks out there licking their chops for this kind of unrestrained power.

I am not saying that’s what was happening in this church—but I worry it could be.

It’s not beyond the pale to think some day, an all-powerful Lefty could tell churches they either perform same-sex marriages and take offerings for abortions—or they must pay taxes. An all-powerful Lefty could decide that religious schools must teach evolution and about birth control, about the wide spectrum of genders, about sexuality and sex positions in their health classes—or lose funding or, again, pay taxes.

And while I support gay marriage and am pro-choice and while I believe in teaching students about sex (age-appropriately) and birth control and certainly evolution, I don’t think religious institutions should be forced to comply. This is still (barely) America.

And if I believe that, I have to defend the right of the Right to have a pastor who terrorizes communities, who kidnaps human beings, who pepper sprays protestors, who shoots women in the face and calls them fucking bitches afterward while casually walking to their cars. I long for the day these people are arrested, tried, and imprisoned, but in the meantime, it seems to be legal, so if a church wants that, God help them, but so be it!

Certainly, communities should know what this pastor does, what this church supports. Certainly, the press should be notified, protests should be held. Parents should be warned what sending their kids to this church’s VBS might entail. Certainly, Christians should act like Jesus—and march into the pastor’s office on a Monday. But interrupting their worship? Something historically and globally so rare and precious?

I still gotta say no. I’m nothing if not a person who stands up for the liberties of all. And sometimes, that really stinks.

In the meantime, please join me in contributing to one of the many amazing organizations in Minneapolis who are providing food for those who feel they cannot leave their homes due to the monstrous actions of ICE.