Politicized Weaponized Justice and Unintended Consequences
I laughed when I read about the end of the Trump IRS case. He was going to lose, so he pulled an appearant agreement with the Department of Justice, where attorneys are fleeing the use of the Department to go after Trump’s enemies. Trump doesn’t care that the evidence does not support a winning case. He wants his “enemies” charged, like he was. He was found guilty, by a jury of his peers.
A very smart attorney, someone say like James Comey, will be able to find a way to use this case, and the funds set aside, to charge the current Department of Injustice with discrimination, that these funds should be widely available to those who believe the Justice Department has gone after them for purposes of vengeance, rather that breaking the law. This gang of dunces have opened a loop of opportunity, just one more tragic comedy in a regime of careless, callous, destructive actions.
This is from the news service 1440:
| Anti-Weaponization Fund’ |
| The Justice Department yesterday announced a $1.776B taxpayer-funded program to compensate individuals who claim the DOJ politically targeted them. The figure appears to be a nod to America’s founding year. Payments would come from the Treasury’s Judgment Fund, an uncapped account used to settle federal cases. The “Anti-Weaponization Fund” is part of a settlement resolving President Donald Trump’s $10B lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns, along with civil claims tied to the Russia probe and the search of his Mar-a-Lago residence. Trump and his family will receive a formal apology but no monetary damages. The tax case stems from disclosures by a former IRS contractor who was sentenced to prison for leaking high-profile figures’ tax data between 2018 and 2020.A five-member commission, appointed by the attorney general and removable by Trump, will oversee claims through December 2028. The fund is modeled after an Obama-era program that compensated Native American farmers for discrimination in federal lending programs (see DOJ explanation). |
He who accuses, accuses himself.
Robert Reich: Freedom Summer 2026
Robert Reich shares an idea for hope in a shocking season of gerrymandering. Win anyway, by registering voters. Michelle Obama would say “we go high”:
Friends,
Yesterday I spoke with Tennessee state representative Justin Jones, one of the nation’s young Black leaders who’s been a rising star in Tennessee politics, about the Supreme Court’s shameful April 29 decision in Louisiana v. Callais, gutting Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
Jones told me that, at Trump’s urging, Tennessee Republicans had prepared a redistricting map even before the Court announced its decision. Then, despite pleas from Black voters and voting rights advocates, the white Republican legislators moved their meeting to another room without allowing the public in to watch, passed the new map out of committee, and enacted it within 24 hours.
The new map has eliminated Tennessee’s one remaining Democratic district around Memphis, a city of about 610,000 people, about two-thirds of whom are Black — by cracking it into three majority-white district, one stretching hundreds of miles. The map has also divided Nashville, another city with a Black majority, into five white-majority districts.
Jones described Tennessee house speaker Cameron Sexton as the “grand wizard in chief,” explaining that “that’s what they want to do. They want to create a process that is unfair and unequal.”
Other Southern states have joined Tennessee’s rush to redistrict.
Louisiana’s governor has ordered that the state’s ongoing congressional election be set aside while state lawmakers redraw maps to eliminate a Democratic-majority – that is, a Black-majority – seat covering Baton Rouge.
At Trump’s request, Alabama Republicans have approved legislation directing the governor to schedule new primary elections this year under a GOP-friendly map that would end districts represented by Black lawmakers, if courts lift an injunction on its redistricting.
The Mississippi legislature will soon convene in a Confederate-era capitol building that it hasn’t used in 100 years, presumably to eliminate the Democratic majority in the one Mississippi district held by a Black representative.
South Carolina’s Republican majority in the statehouse voted Wednesday to extend its legislative calendar, allowing time to consider whether they should eliminate the state’s sole Democratic-majority, Black-majority district, held by long-serving representative James Clyburn.
Florida was already in a special redistricting session when the Supreme Court announced its decision, enacting a congressional map for its 28 districts that packs Black and brown voters into four districts on the south Florida coast and Orlando, eliminating every other Democratic majority.
“We’re going backwards at warp speed,” Jones told me. “In just over a week, we’ve gone from the 1965 Voting Rights Act back to the era of Jim Crow.”
I asked him what he and other Black political leaders in the South were planning to do.
“There’ll be a lot of litigation,” he said, “but we can’t be optimistic with this Supreme Court.”
“So, what’s the strategy?”
“We need the biggest voter turnout in history this fall. Every Black person, every Brown person, every Democrat, everyone who cares about the moral soul of this nation has to vote for equal voting rights. Take over Congress. Increase our power in state legislatures. This is the only way to respond.”
“I’m with you,” I said, “but I really wonder whether that’s possible.”
“How about a new Freedom Summer?” Jones responded, with a smile. “A multi-racial force of young people fanning out across the South, registering voters, getting them to the polls, just like they did in 1964.”
“I remember. I lost a dear friend in Mississippi Freedom Summer.”
“I have no direct memory, of course,” Jones said. “I was born in 1995, thirty-one years after Freedom Summer. But the South is almost back to where it was then. So, yes, it’s possible. It’s got to be possible.”
I told him I’d share his idea with you, and ask you for your responses.
For Those Who Fall Victim to the Forces of Evil
Almighty God, our Refuge and our Rock, your loving care knows no bounds and embraces all the peoples of the earth: Defend and protect those who fall victim to the forces of evil, and as we remember this day those who endured depredation and death because of who they were, not because of what they had done or failed to do, give us the courage to stand against hatred and oppression, and to seek the dignity and well-being of all for the sake of our Savior Jesus Christ, in whom you have reconciled the world to yourself; and who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Today our Lectionary remembers the Armenian genocide:
GENOCIDE REMEMBRANCE
Genocide Remembrance Day is observed by Armenians in dispersed communities around the world on April 24. It is held annually to commemorate the victims of the Armenian Genocide from 1915 to 1923.
The date 24 April commemorates the Armenian notables deported from the Ottoman capital in 1915, of hundreds of Armenian intellectuals and community leaders, most of whom would be executed, which was a precursor to the ensuing events.
— more at Wikipedia
Although this date is specifically a remembrance of the Armenian genocide, it is clear from the collects that it is intended here to cover all genocides: the killing or harming of people simply because of which ethnic, religious, or national group to which they happen to belong.
My Problem With ICE
I have a long history with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. I’ve been in and out of the USA since I was a little girl. We have filled out countless forms for passports, and many times more those forms telling what we are bringing back into the country. The only time I ever had a problem with ICE was on returning from one of our African trips when I was bringing in wildebeest jerky from South Africa. I laugh now, it was me and a lot of African nationals shunted off. They were opening suitcases full of vegetables they were bringing back for family, and I was told my package of jerky was illegal in the United States. AdventureMan was annoyed with me, and I was ashamed I didn’t know. But they let me off with a mild scolding about infecting disease free animal life in the USA. I’ve never forgotten.
I’ve never minded the tiresome lines for immigration, always manned by sturdy, polite young people wanting to know where we’ve been and how did we like our trip; they were doing their job and they had been trained how to deal with people. In all my times going through those lines, I never saw any kind of incident.
They had a mission.
With the new administration, that mission changed, enlarged. They were given different, even SECRET orders, orders that encouraged them to commit the sorts of acts we saw in Minnesota. It always looked to me like those acts, committed on US Citizens, committed on resident citizens, smacked of incitement to violence. Why else would these customs and immigration officers be asked to violate the US Constitution in pursuing their mission?
I applaud those stoic and humor-filled Minnesotans who protested with restraint, who did not invite violent responses. Even if the Department of Justice will not cooperate in the investigations you are conducting into the murders of Minneapolis citizens, you are gathering witness from street cameras and witnesses against the illegal actions, and the lies and accusations, unjust, of the ICE officials and the Department of Justice. I applaud the restraint that forestalled any illusion of reason for a “national emergency” and activation of a military presence. The militaristic costumes of the immigration and customs officials did not fool nor intimadate you. Your patient, evidence based investigations will be embarrassment enough to those who thought to prevail by intimidation and brutality.
So we have to look at why the ICE men and women sent by our leader to Democratic states felt so empowered to misbehave?
Many ICE hirees have law enforcement backgrounds. Many of them have served in the armed forces. They know the basics. They know the law. They must have had second thoughts, many of them, while conducting these unrestrained acts of violence characterized as arrests of “rapists, thieves and the mentally ill,” as they arrested family men, women – and children, with no criminal records.
As well as knowing the law, and the legal use of power, those who are Christian would know Christ’s admonition to love our neighbor as ourself. Those who are Jewish would know the Old Testament verses about welcoming the stranger. Those who were raised without religion might be familiar with Spiderman, who teaches us that with great power comes great responsibility.
These $50K hires are as expendable as Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem. Once they have served their purpose, they can be scapegoated for excessive zeal in pursuit of the mission, or charged with murder while their superiors, who put the secret policies into effect, escape blame and punishment.
Again, I applaud the Minnesotans, who with restraint, humor, and humanity, protected the weakest, the families and children, while EFFECTIVELY resisting the provocation they faced. Well done, Minnesota!
And lets take a minute to grieve the effects of the violence upon those who inflicted it, mere pawns in a greater game of thrones.
Slight of Hand and Wires and Mirrors; No Accountability
Our leader announced a speech to the nation, which turned out to be nothing but repeats of “Truth” social posts and comments previously made. A boring, disjointed 19 minutes of nothing credible. Credibility is stating a mission and following through. Chaos is changing the mission and its achievements every ten minutes or so. If you don’t believe me, watch the stock market.
Meanwhile, behind the curtain, The Great Oz and his handlers are changing how our democracy operates. The failed military officer, Pete Hegseth is examining and removing African Americans, females, and especially African American Females from promotion lists. He is firing the top general who questions his judgement in toying with a time honored system where the military chooses its leaders based on performance and leadership abilities, not their gender nor their color.
Does Hegseth understand demographics? Does he understand that military recruitment is problematic these days days, that the pool of recruits has shrunk dramatically? Does he understand that brawn no longer wins wars, but fighter planes, drones, new ideas and weapon development are fighting a new kind of war, where every gender and color contributes the the nuances of creative strategies available to a commander in chief who genuinely understands how to function in the fog of war?
Today Heather Cox Richardson alerts us to another slight of hand, the kind of small change the controllers hope will go unnoticed: The challenge of ACCOUNTABILITY and how it impedes a sitting President. She quotes the following, and it quite takes my breath away:
Yesterday Assistant Attorney General T. Elliot Gaiser, of the Office of Legal Counsel, published an opinion for the White House that claims the Presidential Records Act, which requires that presidents keep records of their official business and turn them over at the end of their term, is unconstitutional. Gaiser clerked for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.
“The PRA is not a valid exercise of Congress’s Article I authority and unconstitutionally intrudes on the independence and autonomy of the President guaranteed by Article II. The Act establishes a permanent and burdensome regime of congressional regulation of the Presidency untethered from any valid and identifiable legislative purpose,” the memo reads. “For these reasons, the PRA is unconstitutional, and the President need not further comply with its dictates.”
(taking a moment to catch my breath)
We burden our elected president with the requirement that we know what he does and why he is doing it?
How can anyone believe this lunacy? Any person in a position of responsibility has to answer to his polity! Elected politicians all the more. He answers to us, the voters.
Our leader has a lot to answer for. We can’t trust anything he says, from minute to minute. Our treasury has been declared insolvent. He is sending our children off to war with unclear orders and insufficient leadership.
He has hired a confederacy of ignorant, greedy sycophants. He has gutted our diplomatic service. He has gutted Consumer Oversight. He has gutted the Environmental Protection Agency. He has corrupted the Department of Education.
He is terrified he cannot win and is attempting to take over national elections. Meanwhile, he is bankrupting our country with garish monuments and wars we never agreed to fight.
He is subjecting women to outdated standards and taken away their rights to make decisions for their own bodies.
He is corrupting our social system, taking medical care away from those who need it most, and callously neglecting the veterans who have served our country so loyally.
He has made agreements with other countries that we only learn about by accidental comments.
This can’t go on. Give us Accountability. Oversight. Congressional Approval. Fair and Free Elections. Constitutional Restraints!
League of Women Voters: State of Union Bingo Cards
Gotta love those ladies in pearls, although lately the League has been attracting a much younger group of activists. An amazingly non-political group, the League looks at issues and candidates, and encourages INFORMED voters. All people are welcome; in spite of the name, the league also includes men. This is a group that makes a difference.
With their wicked sense of humor, the National League encourages all Americans to watch the dreaded State of the Union speech tonight, and has published a set of Bingo Cards to keep you engaged. You can download them for yourself and your family members at League of Women Voters: State of the Union Bingo or you can print these, which I downloaded from their website.
Yes, I am a member of this group. They keep up with the important issues, and they invite speakers to meetings to explain the substance to the public. They educate people about voting rights without bias.
They help with elections, and, where allowed, they help register new voters – people turning 18, new citizens, people who haven’t voted before. The current stereotype of this group as elderly educated women in pearls is quickly changing as super-charged young people seek to exert their rights in an orderly, lawful fashion.
By uniting women from all parties and all walks of life, they have a big voice and have effectively challenged unjust and unconstitutional laws at the local, state, and national levels. They take their commitment voting rights, issues, and impartiality very seriously.
And, they have a wonderful sense of humor 😄.
No Grown-Ups in Charge
We thought we would change the world, my generation. How on earth did we end up with a President who has the self-control, self-restraint, self-discipline, and dignity of a two-year-old?
How did we end up with a President who supports COAL, flying in the face of science, and wants to roll back protections against climate change, air pollution, water pollution, vaccinations, human rights, and stewardship of earthly resources?
What happened to the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, where we worked on harmony and understanding, and the dignity of ALL human beings?
How did we get stuck with a government of morons, whose first move was to remove all the bureaucratics who knew what they were doing? How did we allow all the oversights to be abolished?
How do we continue to allow the oligarchs to forbid the completion of a bridge between Canada and Michigan because of a conflict with a rich man who owns a competing bridge? How do we allow a Presidency which makes private deals to enrich his sons and son-in-law with opaque deals outside the public view?
How do we accept a new army of MERCENARIES, attracted by a $50K bonus for signing on, who have paltry training, disobey standard policing standards and who act with disregard to our national constitution?
I may be old, but I am not blind, nor am I stupid. I see, to my horror. I witness, and I document. I am part of a large and growing crowd of witnesses, (dead and alive!) who will call this administration to account for their grave injustices.
Pam Bondi, who cannot answer questions, who is protecting her boss, mentioned over one million times in the Epstein files, pointing her finger.
This week I attended a school service at our church, and the Old Testament reading was from Isaiah. It heartened me; this is what we are teaching our children
ISAIAH 58: 6-10
“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
9 Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.”
Let us shine. Let us seek to shine.
“Your Mission is to Shine”
Today, our priest took on the brave task of dealing – not with politics or political events, (God forbid!) but addressing how we, as members of the body of Christ, are to respond to these events. We are to be light. We are to do what the bible tells us to do. We are to treat our fellow human beings – even those who are not like us, who do not share our opinions, with the dignity and love with which every human being were created.
Holy Smokes! That’s a tall order. We are to love one another. We are to welcome the stranger. We are to share. We are not to gossip or say mean things about our friends – or anyone!
In the resources posted online for his sermon, he quotes C. Andrew Doyle, 9th Bishop of Texas, from his blog. Because it is publicly posted, I am sharing because when he posts, he expects people to read.
Tuesday, January 27, 2026
An Embodied Christian Call to De‑escalation, Dignity, and Truthfulness in Immigration Enforcement
O God,… we thank Thee for Thy Church, founded upon Thy Word, that challenges us to do more than sing and pray, but go out and work as though the very answer to our prayers depended on us and not upon Thee… Help us to realize that man was created to shine like the stars and live on through all eternity. Keep us, we pray, in perfect peace, help us to walk together, pray together, sing together, and live together until that day when all God’s children, Black, White, Red, and Yellow, will rejoice in one common band of humanity in the kingdom of our Lord and of our God, we pray. Amen.
— Martin Luther King Jr.
A pastoral and theological statement for this moment — with particular concern for Minnesota.
Introduction
Episcopal Bishop of Minnesota Craig LoyaI write this statement not as a political pundit but as a pastor and teacher of the Christian faith, as a bishop in the line of the Apostles, now having served in that particular office for 18 years. I have read and followed events regarding immigration throughout my time as bishop and have made no secret of my belief that the church is called to serve all people. Over the last month, I have been watching events across the country, with particular interest in Minnesota.
The Church exists to care for souls, which means I will care for souls on both sides of any partisan debate. I will speak both to Republicans and Democrats, to Independents and the politically exhausted, to immigrants and citizens, to agents and to those who fear the agents, to people who protest and to people who feel threatened by protest. I will not tell anyone how to vote. But neither will I stand silently when fear overwhelms our public life. How could I? Our hearts grieve at what we are bearing witness to in the world around us, especially as it has to do with immigration.
Across the country, immigration enforcement has become a flashpoint of fear and rage. In Minnesota, that tension has sharpened into tragedy and public crisis.
In recent weeks, Minnesota has seen increased federal immigration enforcement, described by the DHS as the largest operation ever, alongside mass arrests, major protests, and increasingly fraught encounters between federal agents and Minnesotans. This includes multiple shootings involving federal immigration agents in Minneapolis this January alone, including both the killing of Renée Good and this weekend’s shooting that killed Alex Pretti. Nationwide demonstrations have followed over the past week, bringing unrest beyond Minnesota state lines.
Many Minnesotans who support aggressive enforcement are motivated by real concerns: the rule of law, public safety, fairness to those who immigrate legally, and the fear that communities can’t absorb disorder. Those concerns deserve a hearing. But no concern, however sincere, justifies dehumanization, disproportionate force, or policies that treat human beings as leverage.
In parallel with this violence, we have watched the conflict escalate rhetorically and tactically: on threats to invoke the Insurrection Act, talk of “occupation,” and weaponized public speech hardened into competing moral absolutes.
This is precisely the kind of moment that Christians should practice what I have elsewhere called an embodied apologetic: arguing not merely with words but demonstrating publicly, concretely, and nonviolently what we believe about the human person, the nature of authority, and the lordship of Jesus Christ.
By demonstrating, I mean far more than marching or civil disobedience. I mean demonstrating the love of Christ to all people. Remembering that in the migrant in our midst, we see the neighbor as defined by Jesus and the stranger God tells us to care for.
Groundwork: immigration enforcement and the theological depth of creation
To sit quietly while immigrants are demonized, blamed for crime, or dehumanized is to sit quietly while Christian doctrine is being threatened.
The Christian claim is that the Word became flesh, that humanity is encountered, named, and raised to new life in the material particularity of Jesus Christ. The Christian faith does not treat bodies, human lives, or human faces as incidental. When Christians claim that the incarnation altered the universe, we mean that the material world has theological depth.
Every human being bears the image of God, including the migrant at the border and the undocumented worker. That includes the asylum seeker fleeing gunfire and the citizen bystander who gets caught in the middle. It includes the protester holding a sign in the street and the federal agent wearing the uniform.
Human dignity is not conferred by paperwork, politics, or popularity. Human dignity is linked to God by the very generosity of the Godhead to bring us into being.
And when we understand human sinfulness not simply as “bad behavior” but as the fracture between what God has made and our too-often selfish desire to remake creation in our own image…well, then we have a theological framework for our contemporary moment.
The doctrine of sin explains our predicament. But the Christian gospel that Jesus Christ entered into our fractured humanity to redeem and reconcile us to God is our explanation of how things change.
As Christians understand human brokenness and healing, we are neither naïve about fear and disorder nor resigned to it. We recognize sin; we name it; we flee from it. But we do not stand and watch it with holy indifference.
We do not sanctify fear, baptize cruelty, or call dehumanization “prudence.” To insist otherwise isn’t pragmatism; it’s theological divorce: declaring some aspects of creation safe for politics and using Christian language to justify policies or tactics that degrade human dignity or scapegoat racial and ethnic minorities. The Church cannot allow this faith, the faith of every Christian generation, to be twisted in the service of anti-immigrant cruelty.
Which means we cannot accept a public order so structured that it trains us, through constant repetition and a steady diet of dehumanizing rhetoric, to see some people as contaminants, vermin, or existential threats by virtue of their very existence. That’s not realism. It’s idolatry.
And when that mythology attaches itself to nation-states, bullets inevitably follow. The Church has seen where such theological claims lead when fused with nationalism, racial mythology, and demands for unquestioned allegiance.
Christ alone is Lord. No other power takes precedence over the Church in Christ. And when any political ideology inclines that way, Christians must stand against it. If race-craft and nationalist mythology run rampant unchecked in our politics, they will destroy our democracy. Worse still, they are in the end a theological threat to the church.
If federal agents lose sight of their own humanity or basic constitutional rights amid tense confrontations, everyone loses. We are not only witnessing a newfound morality that allows harm, but we are also allowing a state to do moral injury to those who serve in law enforcement.
De‑escalation is Christian obedience
Because Christ is Lord, we cannot tolerate panic as policy. Christian leaders should call for immediate de‑escalation tactics in Minnesota and nationwide, especially from federal leaders, federal agencies, and ICE. Here’s why and how:
Because life is not a bargaining chip. When policies or tactical shifts treat human bodies as leverage, political leverage, intimidation leverage, violent “force multiplier” leverage, the state courts us into an anti‑human logic that Christians cannot affirm. It’s that simple.
Because fear is contagious. When immigration enforcement looks like a militarized invasion, everyone gets trained to be afraid: parents who teach their kids to hide, workers who avoid hospitals and schools, congregations that fear gathering for worship, citizens who fear recording with their phones, and agents who become afraid, too (more reactive, more quick to see every person of color as a threat).
That fear feeds on itself. Dehumanization multiplies. When any human group is treated as subhuman, everyone’s capacity for recognizing humanity begins to slip away, including the humanity of agents ordered to do their jobs.
Because the Church has something unique to say about what it means to be human.
Unlike many voices in our public life, the Church does not merely talk about human dignity; our allegiance to Christ compels us to embody it. Our witness must not be a slogan; it must be a public pattern of life: prayerful, truthful, courageous, nonviolent, hospitable, committed to the dignity of our neighbors and the strangers who live among us.
For these reasons and more, what we’re seeing must be named:
Agents are operating with increasing combat‑style visibility: helmets and vests, crowd‑control weaponry designed for more confrontational policing, tactical vehicles, and face masks.
Such a posture is often experienced as intimidation rather than order, and it can train communities toward avoidance and suspicion.
Whether you believe immigration law is too harsh or not harsh enough, Christians cannot remain silent about how our public life is changing. Domination is not justice.
When repeated lethal encounters happen across a concentrated operation, even if investigations ultimately exonerate agents in each incident, the moral burden shifts.
The question is no longer simply, “Was this legal?” but “What kind of society are we becoming, if incidents like this become normalized?”
Immediate steps we are asking for, nationwide
Stop. Take a breath. Listen. De‑escalate.
How can federal agencies and federal leaders de‑escalate tactics and posture immediately?
Pause operations that have produced multiple lethal encounters over a short period of time and inflicted widespread trauma across immigrant communities. Commit to visible accountability: name badges, clear chains of command, and timely release of video and incident documentation consistent with due process. Prioritize de‑escalation techniques in training materials and practices — especially community‑engaged operations where children and bystanders are likely to be present. End tactics that reasonably read as intimidation. Even if lawful, if their predictable effect is widespread fear and trauma in communities, stop them and adopt alternatives.
The DHS itself has framed this Minnesota operation as “the largest enforcement operation we’ve ever conducted in Minnesota.” That is cause for additional, not lesser, scrutiny.
What can state and local leaders do to protect both public safety and civil liberties?
Fully protect lawful protest while continuing to hold protesters civilly and criminally accountable should violence occur. Commit to clear nonviolent crowd‑management techniques that don’t replicate wartime intimidation. Do everything in your power to lower the temperature, rather than rhetorically inflaming the situation. Provide additional support and resources for communities experiencing disproportionate fear, including immigrant communities, communities of color, and neighborhoods receiving saturation enforcement.
What can protesters and activists do to practice disciplined nonviolence?
Commitment Card for Peaceful Protests
You are angry. You are grieving. Many of you are operating in understandable fear for your lives. But Christians do not get to numb ourselves to moral agency in the adrenaline of a crowd. Violence is not leadership. If you condemn dehumanization, you cannot then dehumanize the person in the uniform. If you are going to protest for dignity, you must demonstrate dignity.
What can the Church do?
Hold public prayers for peace and truthfulness.
Explicitly call on Christians to lower the temperature where they are: online, in-person, wherever misinformation, dehumanization, and fury are allowed to settle and fester.
Teach our people that anger is human, but vengeance is demonic. Demand better of our leaders. Insist on civil institutions that honor human dignity.
Open churches for pastoral care where needed.
For immigrants afraid to leave their homes. For families disrupted by ICE raids and detentions. For anxious citizens who feel too afraid to leave their homes. And yes, for agents’ families who love their children too much to let them keep policing. In the Diocese of Texas, we do not have the luxury of believing only one side of this conflict sits in our pews.
Consider organizing accompaniment/aid in lawful and disciplined ways: Food. Shelter support. Transportation to court hearings. Connections to legal resources. Trauma care. Emergency family preparedness plans. We are currently doing this in the Diocese of Texas, as are many dioceses around the country. You can contribute to our legal fund here. You can contribute and learn more about our convening a multi-faith initiative here feeding people. We will have a new immigration portal up in the near future. I hope this will inspire you to gather local leaders to demonstrate God’s love in Christ in various ways to our immigrant neighbors near our churches.
Train de‑escalation teams for vigils/demonstrations: Teams whose explicit task is to lower the temperature, protect the vulnerable, and prevent further harm. Consider training specific leaders for this ministry if it does not already exist in your community.
Preach and teach the holistic truth of Christian anthropology starting now. That Scripture does not sort people into worthy and unworthy buckets as our habit of Christian life. That there is no politics or policy so vital that we should make an idol of it. That we will not hand the American Church over as a get-out-of-accountability-free card to any national leader or political party that demands our silence or allegiance in return for temporary power.
Christianity is a serious faith precisely because it comes with a seriousness of expectation: that we will love our neighbors as ourselves. That we will speak truth to power. That we will love our enemies. And while Christians are not the silent majority, perhaps the silent Church will speak now.
The Associated Press has reported clergy in Minnesota risking arrest as part of their public witness.
People of faith are beginning to recognize what’s at stake in this moment.
We preach forgiveness, and we preach against sin.
We preach that Christ alone is Lord.
If we say the Word became flesh, we cannot allow policies and tactical shifts that treat human flesh as disposable. If we say Christ alone is Lord, we will not give the silence of the Church to any leader, any political party, or any government agency that demands our blessing as the price of patriotic cooperation.
Social de‑escalation is not merely political point‑scoring. It’s a confession that God’s government doesn’t require us to terrorize our neighbors into obedience, that Christ doesn’t radiate power through humiliation, and that the Spirit produces something other than fear within those who follow him.
Friends, we have been here before in our nation’s history. During my tenure, it was not that long ago that we faced the George Floyd period, among others. Yet, many who will read this can remember the fight for desegregation. We must rise to our better angels again in this moment, wherever we find ourselves. So I say:
To the anxious in our congregations: you are not forgotten.
To immigrant communities in our states: you are not alone.
To officers and agents who feel beyond the reach of critique or moral accountability: you are wrong about that. And, you are also not beyond God’s grace.
To the Church: we must not become the chaplain of fear.
Friends: de‑escalate.
Let’s insist publicly, prayerfully, and steadfastly for social de‑escalation in Minnesota and nationwide. Let’s demand accountable governance and policies that recognize our common dignity. Let’s refuse every ideology that functions by dehumanization. And let’s practice an embodied Christianity that shows our neighbors what it looks like when citizens are governed, not by panic, but by the peace of Christ.
Because otherwise it is not merely a political failure – it is a spiritual failure: a society willing to forget what a human being is. May God give us the courage to tell the truth. The discipline to refuse violence. And the grace to become, together, the kind of people who can carry that peace into a frightened world.
Posted by C. Andrew Doyle at 9:06 AM
Labels: ICE, immigrant, immigration, immigration reform, minneapolis, minnesota
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