NC pastor: What the Bible teaches us about ICE protests at church | Opinion

Last Sunday, a group of citizens interrupted a worship service at Cities Church in Minnesota to protest the illegal and violent actions of ICE agents against their neighbors. The protestors chose this non-violent disruption because one of the Cities Church pastors, David Easterwood, also works as the acting field director for ICE’s St. Paul office and has spoken about his support for the current operations. Protestors stood up during the sermon and cried out for justice for Renee Good, who was shot in the face by an ICE agent who is not under investigation, and for others who have been taken, often violently, in violation of the 4th and 5th amendments of the Bill of Rights.

I am a pastor who leads worship every Sunday. For me, this is the most sacred work possible. We meet in consecrated space. Our worship together is hallowed time. Gathering with the saints I love each week is the highest and holiest expression of life. I can’t fathom choosing to disrupt anyone’s act of worship.

But Jesus did.

The gospel of John says it happened in the very beginning of his ministry, Jesus walked into the temple and saw the courts filled with people selling cattle, sheep and doves and others seated at tables running currency exchange businesses. He made a whip out of cords and herded all the animals out, overturned the tables of the moneychangers scattering their coins all while screaming “get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a marketplace!” Compared to that, the disruption at Cities Church seems quite measured and restrained.

I believe all people should always be able to gather in peace to worship. But that isn’t possible in the Twin Cities right now. The United States Secretary for Homeland Security Kristi Noem rescinded long-standing policy restricting enforcement actions in so-called “sensitive locations” like churches, hospitals and schools. In Charlotte and across the country, ICE and CBP agents have detained people in all of these places. Jesus himself warns us, that “with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” That’s not karma; it’s the word of the Lord in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. When Christians cheer or turn away as their neighbors are hunted and captured while working, seeking medical care, shopping, going to school and gathering on church grounds, we should, if we believe the words of scripture are true, anticipate that the chaos and fear we have permitted to grow will eventually seep into our own lives.

Pastor Johnathon Parnell, who was preaching at the time of the disruption, released a statement condemning the protest as “shameful [and] unlawful,” declaring that it “will not be tolerated” because it “frightened children and created a scene marked by intimidation and threat.” And I agree. It is intolerable when children are deliberately frightened, when their daily lives are disrupted by intimidation and threats. Pastor Parnell is expressing a shepherd’s heart in his desire to shield and shelter the members of his flock.

The problem is, he only seems to care if the children in his church are traumatized. He cries out when the civil rights of his people are violated, but makes no public statement about the trauma experienced by neighborhood children. In a second piece he describes how he and his wife consoled their children, prayed with them and helped them to understand what had happened later in the comfort and safety of their home. That’s good parenting. But 5-year-old pre-schooler Liam Conejo Ramos is not so lucky. ICE agents used him as “bait” to lure his family members out of their home. He was subsequently detained along with his father. He is believed to be imprisoned somewhere in Texas. He and his family were legal asylum seekers with no deportation orders who were in this country lawfully. Liam is one of four students in the Columbia Heights Public Schools systems known to be taken by ICE.

Shouldn’t a pastor be as outraged by the fact that children are taken by ICE as he is by the fact that children were in a worship service disrupted by grown-ups shouting about ICE? Renee Good had children like the children in the Cities Church sanctuary. I am sure they are frightened of the people who shot their mother in the face, as well as by a government that refuses to investigate her killing but arrests two people involved in the Cities Church worship disruption.

Kevin Ezell, president of the North American Mission Board which employees Parnell, released a statement condemning the disruption “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, what occurred was not protest; it was lawless harassment.” As the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke tell it, Jesus disrupted worship in the temple during the last week of his life, days before he was crucified. As he drove people out and knocked over furniture he shouted, “It is written, ‘’My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a den of robbers.”

If Jesus disrupted worship because it co-existed with a marketplace that profited by up-charging worshippers, I can’t believe he is indifferent to pastors overseeing the administration of family separations, violent detentions and street executions. Maybe what disrupted worship in the sanctuary wasn’t the shouts of protesters but the church’s silent complicity in the violent oppression of their neighbors.

Kate Murphy is pastor of The Grove Presbyterian Church in Charlotte.

This story was originally published January 25, 2026 at 5:00 AM with the headline "NC pastor: What the Bible teaches us about ICE protests at church | Opinion."