Yeah, sometimes it is right to disrupt a church service

Last Sunday a dozen aggressive anti-ICE protestors entered Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota and disrupted the service, harassing congregants and chanting anti-ICE slogans. When this news broke, Christians nationwide were immediately livid and howling for 'justice'. Many are now calling for President Trump to charge the protesters with violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE), a charge that could send them to prison for at least a year if not much more.

Thus once again, Christians demonstrate how backwards their priorities truly are.

Does my take surprise you? Then you must not have followed this blog for very long.

Yes, I can understand how un-nerving it can be to have your Sunday morning peace shattered by a bunch of strangers loudly condemning you. But rarely in 16 years of anti-abortion advocacy have I seen Christians respond with as much outrage as they showed this week. Many seem far more irate about this temporary invasion of their safe space than they've ever been over the continuous slaughter of their preborn neighbor, a practice that has claimed the lives of over 60 million image bearers of God.

I think I can speak from experience, since I too have 'invaded' churches before, to plead on behalf of the unborn children my brethren are so willing to abandon.

The photo below depicts a scene from one such activity. My friend and me lay down on the pavement outside the doors of a local church with the images of preborn and aborted children, along with other signs that read "Just step over me as you step over these kids". Congregants leaving Sunday service couldn't help seeing us there and were definitely troubled. What you see in the picture is the church's pastor berating my friend for his impudence and demanding we leave the property.

I've done many such church repent projects. Sometimes I've stood on the sidewalk at the entrance and preached to cars driving in and out. Other times I've leafletted cars in the parking lot. Often I've stood outside the doors of Christian music concerts or carried large signs through the midst of Christian festivals.

The most adventuristic church repent on record, however, was undertaken by an acquaintance of mine. In 2019 this man actually went inside a large African-American church and interrupted the Sunday morning service by going up on stage to show them a large abortion victim image and loudly denouncing their tolerance of child-killing. Unfortunately I cannot at this time locate the footage.

In many cases, churches will call the police and attempt to have us removed from their property. If they are faster than we, they will send out people to remove our literature from the cars on which we'd placed it. While some pastors are willing to come out and discuss why we were there and hear our exhortation, most simply just wanted us gone. It is obvious that the one thing you aren't allowed to do in church is rebuke the sin of other believers. Church, for most, is where one goes to feel safe, and we were violating that expectation.

Last week's anti-ICE protesters entered Cities Church to castigate them for not defending illegal immigrants, a cause which most Christians I associate with think is bogus. By contrast I have entered churches to castigate them for not defending preborn children, a cause which all Christians should embrace. Yet the response from the church is basically the same: rejection, defensiveness and pushback. I wonder, would evangelical America expect me to be charged with FACE (again) just as they are demanding of the anti-ICE crew?

Whatever you think of last Sunday's incident, you need to recognize that there are, indeed, times for which such actions are justified. Jesus rebuked his neighbors in the synagogue in Nazareth and overturned the tables in the temple. Peter, James and John preached an impromptu, unauthorized sermon of repentance in the temple , were commanded by temple authorities to stop, and then did it a second time (Acts 3, 4:25)! A church service is a sacred thing, to be sure. But even scared things can, under certain circumstances, be interrupted (Matthew 5:23-24).

This response, I think, demonstrates what modern American Christianity really cares about. Over and over again they have proven that the routine which they've grown up with and the emotional comfort it brings is more vital to them than the tiny lives who they've never met. Now they may even go so far as to use the FACE Act to crush anyone who puts their normal Sunday morning in jeopardy.

The 1994 FACE Act was designed to prevent pro-lifers from peacefully blockading the doors of abortion clinics with their bodies. The 'place of religious worship' clause in FACE was inserted to make the bill more palatable to Congressional Republicans, who no doubt felt their Christian constituents would like it. They were right. Most Christians had never taken the risk of rescuing in the first place, but were vehemently defensive of the property on which their churches sat.

In this way the church traded obedience for accommodation, and I fear they are going to do the same thing all over again.