Protesting the ICE Pastor (updated 23 January 2026)

When Anti-ICE protesters disrupted a church service in St. Paul, Minnesota it was indeed sacrilege and every Christian should be offended.

However, we would never call on the US government to prosecute such people. We don't go to Egypt for help. They should have been greeted and offered hospitality.

But why aren't more Christians outraged when ICE invades church property and blocks access to services in order to arrest people or to collect names and other information? The latter has occurred on multiple documented occasions with undercover agents infiltrating church services. Or what about the countless instances of ICE personnel standing outside church buildings armed and sometimes in balaclavas? Why aren't Christians upset by this?

Despite declarations made by the Trump administration about the right to enter churches, ICE has more or less avoided invading actual buildings. Since so much of what this near-paramilitary force does is legally questionable, to enter without a warrant would only lead to more judicial scrutiny and public criticism. Trump and Bondi don't want a showdown with the Supreme Court.

Make no mistake, the Anti-ICE protest in St. Paul was a gift to Trump and allows his regime to pivot away from coverage regarding the murder-execution of Renee Good - and to downplay and spin the draconian tactics of ICE, which is starting to look more and more like a secret police or Gestapo-inspired organisation.

Of course I've heard no Christian voices express concern, astonishment, or outrage over the notion that this Southern Baptist pastor is the top ICE official in St. Paul. This demonstrates not only the degraded nature of this SBC congregation but the ethical collapse of Christian leaders in the United States. If one of your pastors works for ICE - leave that congregation. Your congregation is led by morally bankrupt and blind fools who apparently can't tell the difference between the gospel and the filth found in a street gutter. I was reminded of this today when listening to Michael Geer of the Pennsylvania Family Institute justify the ICE mission in light of Acts 17 - since Paul (he argues) refers to nations, and nations have borders, it is therefore legitimate to protect and enforce them.

This is where the spin is at its worst. This shouldn't be a legal issue for Christians. It's a moral one and while I expect Babylon to defend its borders, I take issue with any Christian who will don the badge of Babylon and with violence arrest, chain, and cage other people - let alone other professing Christians. That's treason. Not to America but to Zion, the Kingdom of Christ. They should be put out of the Church.

Christian leaders like Geer are simply false teachers who promote idolatry.

Denny Burk of Southern Seminary argued on Todd Wilken's Issues Etc. that Christians should not take vengeance on a personal level but is enthusiastic over the notion of the state taking action against these disruptive protesters. In other words, it would be wrong Todd Wilken to attack them as an individual on Sunday, but on Monday morning Wilken could put on an ICE uniform, badge, and gun and proceed to tackle the protesters, force their faces into the dirt, while shackling them and putting them in a cage - all the while proclaiming the goodness and mercy of God. And if they resist, it's perfectly permissible to kill them.

Thanks to the shift that took place with Constantine, this kind of ethical bifurcation became normative in Christian thinking. It completely flies in the face of the New Testament, but through the kind of sophistry advocated by Burk, such distinctions between individual and office are permitted. In other words, you can leave your Christianity behind on Monday morning when you take up your role and duties connected to an office. This is why most of the Church operates in the ethical sewer that makes it a laughing stock to the world. It's because this kind of thinking is applied to Christian participation in government, business, academia, etc.

These same people accuse separatists like me of being 'Sunday Only' Christians even while they embody the very principle. They seek to influence and even transform the world - instead they simply invite the world and its values into the Church and transform it, making it indistinguishable from Babylon. 

Shame on that congregation that people from the street had to come in to protest this man - this phoney shepherd of God's people. The congregation should have been protesting his appointment and rising up en masse in the face of this fraudulent man daring to handle God's Word.

That's the real sacrilege here.

Further, it would seem many of the protesters put a Christian spin on what they were doing - overturning the tables of the money-changers is an example that has been repeatedly appealed to. The problem is, their arguments are not rooted in the New Testament but in Enlightenment categories. That said, some of the ethical concerns I heard voiced do in fact put the Christian Right to shame. But for them to demand democratic activism is an imperative - they are way out of line and off base. 

This whole episode just leaves one's head spinning. You can't make this stuff up. It's truly stranger than fiction.

And again, everyone is talking about Greenland, Venezuela, ICE, Minnesota - and the Epstein scandal has faded away.