(RNS) — Less than a week after her death, Renee Good is being compared to Christian martyrs who were killed while witnessing for their faith.
The public policy arm of the Presbyterian Church (USA) said Tuesday (Jan. 13) that Renee Good, a Minnesota protester killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent on Wednesday, gave her life for the sake of others, like Jesus or Martin Luther King Jr.
“We lament and mourn the loss of Ms. Good, a widow of a veteran, a wife and a mother who put herself in harm’s way not out of any desire to do harm, but to observe and bear witness to the actions of ICE,” the Presbyterian Office of Public Witness, a PC(USA) agency, said in a public statement.
The statement, which begins with the words of Jesus from the Gospel of John, that “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends,” compares Good to King, the slain civil rights icon, and to a group of Catholic women who were killed in El Salvador, saying Good has joined “a sacred lineage of faithful witnesses who have risked and lost their lives in defense of human dignity.”
“In the coming week, we will remember the life and witness of the martyred Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who called this nation to a ‘radical revolution of values,’” the Public Witness office said. “Values that demand divestment from racism, materialism and militarism. Ms. Good’s life …