Protesters Disrupt Southern Baptist Church of Pastor Who Leads ICE Office in Minnesota
On Sunday (Jan. 18), an unplanned liturgy of “ICE out!” and “Justice for Renee Good!” erupted in the sanctuary of a Southern Baptist church in St. Paul, Minnesota. Activists marched into the building to protest the fact that one of the congregation’s pastors is the acting director of the St. Paul ICE field office.
David Easterwood, who is one of the pastors listed on the website of Cities Church in St. Paul, appeared on C-SPAN in October as acting director for the St. Paul ICE field office. Speaking during a press conference with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Easterwood talked about being “proud” of leading his ICE team. Last week, Easterwood made news for defending ICE actions in a free speech lawsuit by several Minnesota residents who were arrested while attempting to observe ICE actions. On Friday, a federal judge ordered limits on ICE, declaring they cannot arrest or detain “persons who are engaging in peaceful and unobstructive protest activity.”
After someone made the connection between ICE’s Easterwood and the church where he serves on staff, the Racial Justice Network, Black Lives Matter Minnesota, and Black Lives Matter Twin Cities organized an “ICE Out” protest at the church on Sunday. In a livestream of the protest, people can be heard shouting, “Justice for Renee Good!” “Hands up, don’t shoot,” and “ICE out!” as lead pastor Jonathan Parnell stands at the pulpit and congregants sit in the pews. A couple of protesters blew whistles, which have been used in numerous cities in recent months to warn about the presence of ICE.
As the chants continued, some members of the church silently walked out of the sanctuary while others engaged in conversations with protesters. After a few moments, Parnell started pointing at a protester and shouting, “Shame on you! Shame on you! This is a house of God!” As the chants continued, Parnell remained at the pulpit as a couple of other individuals from the church engaged him in a conversation. Later, he joined some of his members in mingling in the crowd and speaking with protesters.
“We’re here to worship Jesus,” Parnell said to journalist Don Lemon, who had followed the protesters in. “That’s what we’re about. … We’re about spreading the love of Jesus.”
Parnell also serves on the board of trustees of Bethlehem College and Seminary in Minneapolis, a school founded by Baptist Calvinist preacher John Piper. Last week, a professor at that school used the Sunday service at another church in the area to pray for God to bless ICE and “break the teeth” of ICE’s opponents.
After the protest at Cities Church on Sunday went on for about 15 minutes, the church’s musicians started playing music and singing. But the protesters continued, shouting, “David Easterwood out now!” Easterwood was not noticeable on the livestream. Several minutes later, the protesters left the sanctuary and continued their effort outside in the snow as they chanted, “Justice for our immigrant neighbors!” The protest inside the church lasted at least 23 minutes.
As the livestream continued outside the building, one of the organizers, Nekima Levy Armstrong, added that the church should “repent” and remove Easterwood as a pastor.
“How dare somebody claim to be a pastor while overseeing evil,” she said before referring to a prayer she apparently heard Parnell utter during the protest. “Now, you guys heard that pastor pray: ‘Dear Lord, please chasten us to get our house in order.’ That was the perfect prayer for such a time as this ‘cause that’s what we came to do. Get your house in order! Don’t pretend to be a church while harboring evil.”
“Jesus — who they claim to worship — went into the so-called houses of God, he flipped over tables. ‘Cause he said, this is not my father’s house, I don’t care what you pretend. So that’s what we did today. We flipped over a table for truth, justice, and righteousness,” added Armstrong, who said she is an ordained minister.
As videos of the protest quickly spread on social media Sunday, Angela Denker, a Lutheran minister in Minneapolis, praised the activists “for holding [Eastwood] and his congregation accountable.”
“You cannot worship a Savior on Sunday who was crucified by a violent State, while the rest of the week acting as a violent agent of an unjust state force who is killing and targeting Americans according to hate,” added Denker, author of Disciples of White Jesus. “Christian Nationalism is diametrically opposed to the gospel of Jesus.”
As a public witness,
Brian Kaylor
UPDATE: The U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division says it’s “investigating the potential violations of the federal FACE Act by these people desecrating a house of worship and interfering with Christian worshippers.” Southern Baptist Convention leaders are also condemning the protest, with the president of the SBC’s North American Mission Board pledging to “provide protection” for the church “if elected officials won’t contain lawlessness.”
Wow! Just ... wow. Why am I not surprised that ICE has a Southern Baptist pastor in a leadership role.