American religious history is rife with protest movements and civil disobedience. Yet it is rare for political protests to happen inside a house of worship.
That is part of what makes the new case against anti-ICE protesters in St. Paul, Minnesota, unusual. The group interrupted a service last Sunday at Cities Church, a Southern Baptist congregation, where one of its pastors works for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Three of the protesters were arrested on federal charges Thursday.
Charles C. Haynes, a senior fellow for religious liberty at the Freedom Forum, a nonprofit group advocating for First Amendment rights, said disrupting a worship service is against the law – and that was likely the point.
Civil disobedience is by nature violating the law to bring attention to a cause. Famously, civil disobedience by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and others led to landmark legislation during the Civil Rights Movement.
Before her arrest Thursday, civil rights attorney Nekima Levy Armstrong, who describes herself as a Christian, depicted the protest in religious terms on Facebook: “It’s time for judgment to begin and it will begin in the House of God!!!”
Haynes said, “Absolutely, in my view, civil rights law should be invoked when people interfere with the religious freedom of others in their house of worship.” At the same time, he noted that protesters typically feel their cause is too urgent not to take drastic action.
More common are protests outside houses of worship, such as recent anti-Israel demonstrations outside s …