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From the moment I learned of “The Call,” an appeal to religious professionals across the country to come to Minneapolis to join with local clergy and bear witness against aggressive and now deadly ICE operations in that city, I knew that I had to go. Our mission would also involve shielding vulnerable neighbors, community members, and parishioners from the violence inflicted by the federal government.
I had participated in more than my share of protests, and many of them, over decades, when I helped lead an extreme wing of the conservative religiopolitical movement. I blockaded abortion clinics, demonstrated in pro-life marches, and held press conferences after Supreme Court decisions that cut to the heart of the conservative agenda–gay marriage, for instance. Obviously, this Call to Minneapolis was very different, and I answered because, for the last twelve years, I have been trying to make amends for having played such a significant role as an evangelical Christian minister in the aggressive push to transform the United States into a “Christian nation.” I helped lay the groundwork for Donald Trump’s presidency and the imposition of Christian Nationalism as America’s officially privileged and highly destructive religion. I was dead wrong in doing so.
Now, I will spend the rest of my life attempting to put the same level of energy and commitment into causes aligned with the teachings of mercy, tolerance, and love that first drew me to evangelical Christianity. Minneapolis was such a cause.
In view of forecasted double-digit sub-zero temperatures, I had to scramble to procure the necessary gear to spare me from hypothermia. But I was also told to bring something else, which I’ve never packed, much less knew how to purchase: a military-grade gas mask. After watching several YouTube videos on the subject, I had one shipped to a friend’s address in suburban Minneapolis to avoid having it confiscated at airport security. I was ready to meet the moment.
Or so I thought.
Marchers observe and participate in the walk to the Target Center from the enclosed skywalksSam Van Pykeren
On the plane, heading to the epicenter of what I’m certain will go down as one of the great episodes of civil unrest and social mobilization in American history, I rehearse familiar Bible verses to build courage for what I might face. “For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control,” From Second Timothy. Thoughts of my family appear in my meditations, especially my precious, brown, 4-year-old grandson. Among the many reasons I am going to Minneapolis, one of the most important is to do what I can to help him inhabit a less threatening and, perhaps, a more welcoming world than the one today.
I also think of a beloved Trans family member. This event is being organized by a cohort of LGBTQ+-affirming activists and advocates. As a cisgender, heterosexual, and recovering Christian fundamentalist, when it comes to human sexuality and gender identity, this will be the first time I publicly identify with Queer people, in this case, Queer clergy. Instead of lecturing them on God’s perfect plan for human sexuality, as I used to do, they will teach me how a Christian must act in the face of government persecution and terror.
This may signal the final severing with my previous life. By simply keeping company with sexual and gender minorities, especially when they are ordained, I risk losing what few conservative evangelical friendships I’ve managed to sustain after breaking from my tribe on core issues like abortion and the unassailable primacy of the GOP. I now know that the vilification of an entire class of people is anti-Christian, anti-human, and anti-American.
By simply keeping company with sexual and gender minorities, especially when they are ordained, I risk losing what few conservative evangelical friendships I’ve managed to sustain after breaking from my tribe on core issues like abortion and the unassailable primacy of the GOP.
As we roll down the runway, I realize one reason going to Minneapolis felt so urgent for me was because of what happened to Renee Nicole Good, a stay-at-home mom in a same-sex marriage, who had been gunned down by ICE agents exactly two weeks ago. In the language of my faith, I’m on a prophetic mission. “Prophetic” means a moment when one is called to publicly proclaim the truth, even when many people are lying and believing lies. It is to confront evil and corruption when too many are averting their eyes. Renee was a neighborhood patrol observer, watching and documenting ICE actions against immigrants and others. I’ll join a chorus of religious leaders of conscience—rabbis, pastors, imams, monks, Protestant and Catholic bishops, priests, and nuns—demanding that the cruelty end, that ICE leave the state, that the vulnerable be protected and cared for, and those responsible for inflicting so much pain be held accountable.
As we touch down at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport, an almost Arctic-like frozen landscape is all around, I feel the clarity of what it means to answer this particular Call. Instead of wringing my hands and complaining about ICE, I am now able to do something about it.
With the wind chill, the temperature in Minneapolis was estimated to reach almost 40 below, and even for a Buffalo-raised boy like me, the prospect is daunting. After a fitful night’s sleep, piling on several layers of clothing, rehearsing how to turn on my heated socks and hand warmers, and texting my contact to arrange the delivery of my gas mask, I summon an Uber to take me to the church for our orientation.
I thought maybe 50 or 60 clergy would be here, but as I step into the lobby, it’s teeming with hundreds of religious leaders of all kinds, many wearing clerical collars, stoles, yarmulkes, turbans, and even bright orange Buddhist robes. The entire bottom floor of the very large sanctuary is nearly at capacity. Later, one of the organizers announces that over 1,000 people had registered, and it seems most of them have shown up. As I look around, I note both the similarities and the stark differences between this protest movement and the ones I had helped organize over some three decades. When what we all referred to as the “pro-life movement”—but I now realize was an “anti-abortion movement”—began, I had advocated for greater diversity on our rally platforms and among our ranks in the streets. I had some success with bringing a few women and Black and Indigenous people into visible roles. Eventually, white, middle-aged males dominated the movement, muscling all others out of the front lines. At first, I balked, but then I acquiesced, dismissing the hypermasculinity, patriarchy, and white supremacy as temporary devices to gain control of our sometimes-unruly ranks. Yet, it endured, reflecting what most evangelicals and Catholics believe: males are God’s preferred leaders.
In contrast, today’s anti-ICE movement celebrates the vast and glorious differences among us.
In my previous life of activism, I always felt the tension of pretending to be someone different from the kind of person I believed I truly was, deep inside. Then, I became intoxicated by the sheer power that I enjoyed, my access to powerful people, and the fact that they listened to me. I had a community back then, albeit one profoundly flawed, but also very supportive—at least to the chosen few who were members. When I split from that world, I found myself alone. As soon as I entered that crowded sanctuary, I felt as if I had come home. Until now, progressive spaces have felt a bit like new shoes—I liked them, but they hurt. Not here. The new shoe was not only comfortable, but it fit.
Protestors carry signs through downtown Minneapolis in sub-zero temperatures during the General Strike March.Sam Van Pykeren
Rev. Dr. Rebecca Voelkel took the pulpit, underscoring just who is behind this amazing mobilization of religious professionals. She’s on the steering committee for MARCH (the acronym for The Call’s sponsoring organization, Multifaith Anti-Racism, Change & Healing), which she describes as “an explicitly pro-queer, multifaith coalition committed to collective liberation.”
I cringe inwardly, but not for the reasons I once did. For most of my adult life, I saw such a confident statement of queer identity as an arrogant defiance of God’s will for human sexuality. But in this moment, I’m delightfully surprised by how much hope she inspires in me. She is a sign that even the church can change and fully embrace the people it once not only excluded but demonized. I feel a snag of discomfort because I know I’m being called to “come out,” publicly, in my own way, as fully affirming of queer people. Being in visible solidarity with MARCH puts me about as far as humanly possible from my previous identity as a standard-bearer in the arch-conservative Christian right.
As I sit here in this sanctuary with my evangelical sensibilities—even identity—teetering in the balance, I wonder if there are any others like me in the mix. So far, I’ve met clergy from a variety of liberal and progressive denominations, as well as from non-Christian religious bodies, but no evangelicals. It is mid-morning, and we are divided into groups for some training. Those of us who signed up to monitor ICE actions on Minneapolis streets are told to go to a large side room for preparation. I follow a stream of about 200 people to a dining hall where a woman in a clerical collar, buried beneath an oversized parka, explains that we will be dispatched to locations where ICE is actively knocking on doors, stopping vehicles, and “disappearing our immigrant neighbors.” We’re given small, orange plastic whistles and told to blow them loudly at the first sight of ICE agents. “Go toward them,” our instructor says. “But keep a safe distance. Others will come to manage the situation.” She pauses and continues, emphasizing this point: “Video everything.”
“Go toward them, but keep a safe distance. Others will come to manage the situation. Video everything.”
Now it’s time to go out into the streets. We’re given a few minutes to put on the extra layers we’ve all carried to the church, then we’re directed to one of five buses lined up outside. Once aboard, I sit down next to a young seminary student preparing for ordination in the Unitarian Church. I tell her I’m an evangelical minister, albeit a dissenting one, and she looks shocked. We agree to be a duo and watch out for each other.
A team leader stands up a few inches from me to announce that we are going to a Target store where ICE has been actively snatching employees and customers. We will be posted like sentries around the perimeter of the store. My rational mind tells me to avoid a confrontation at all costs, but my limbic system is driving me toward it. Part of me wants flight, the other, fight.
As we exit the bus in the Target parking lot, my seatmate and I choose a corner across the street. The fierce wind whips our clerical stoles. The cold literally takes our breath away. We hardly speak because our faces feel frozen, and we’re laser-focused on the area, looking for ICE, whatever ICE might look like.
Fifteen minutes pass. My stomach is tense. I see crystals forming along my partner’s eyebrows. We’ve spotted nothing, and no one has blown a whistle. I feel oddly disappointed, but silently correct myself: Why would I want any ICE activity? That would mean someone would likely be traumatized, injured, or even killed. Being ready for it doesn’t mean it should happen.
At the appointed time, we all make our way back to the bus. Others seem in a similar mood to mine: They came to do something, and it’s hard to appreciate that something was even accomplished. “You just learned how to be a constitutional observer,” she says. “Take that home to your own communities.”
Back at the church, I head towards a nicely furnished common area, hoping to warm up, when I see my friend Mariann Budde, Episcopal Bishop of Washington, DC. I didn’t know she’d be here, but I’m not surprised. She and her husband, Paul, raised their kids in Minneapolis, where she was a parish rector. Mariann is widely admired for using her sermon at the Washington National Cathedral to admonish Donald Trump during his second inaugural prayer service, appealing to him to show mercy to immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, and other marginalized groups. “You’re here!” Mariann exclaims. “I have to be,” I reply, and her smile is filled with understanding. She hugs me and goes quickly to another room, where another group waits to meet with her.
The sanctuary is filled again for a briefing on our options for tomorrow morning, before we join the main march through downtown that afternoon. We can either risk arrest in an act of civil disobedience at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport, protesting against Delta Airlines and Signature Aviation, both of which are involved in deportation flights for ICE. Or we can decide on a less risky option: a walking pilgrimage from the site of George Floyd’s murder by police officer Derek Chauvin in 2020, to the place where Renee Good died after being shot multiple times by ICE agent Jonathan Ross.
I’m conflicted, but in the end, I decide to go on the pilgrimage.
At around 3:00 in the afternoon, I sit in the gorgeous sanctuary, which has become a calming place, to take stock of how all of this is affecting me. There, I confront something I’ve largely suppressed until now: my feelings about remaining an evangelical, my faith home since I converted from the nominal Judaism of my father to born-again Christianity when I was sixteen years old. I’m surrounded by liberals, people I long condemned as apostates. Yet it’s these people who practice the original gospel of God’s love that I first heard 52 years ago.
For a minute, I meditate on a favorite quote from the writings of my posthumous mentor, the brave, brilliant, evangelical minister and World War II-era Christian ethicist and Nazi resister, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer left Germany in the late 1930s to study at Union Theological Seminary in New York. He abandoned a safe academic fellowship in the US to return to Germany and organize a church-based resistance movement. Eventually, he was arrested and sent to a concentration camp, where he was executed only a few weeks before the war ended. “Christianity stands or falls with its revolutionary protest against violence, arbitrariness, and pride of power and with its defense for the weak,” he preached to a London congregation in 1934. “Christianity has adjusted itself much too easily to the worship of power.”
“Christianity stands or falls with its revolutionary protest against violence, arbitrariness, and pride of power and with its defense for the weak,” he preached to a London congregation in 1934. “Christianity has adjusted itself much too easily to the worship of power.”
I am no longer able to straddle a middle line between conservative and progressive. As I sit in the sanctuary, I realize with stark simplicity something I had always known: Jesus was a radical who defied imperial power.
Minnesotans setup a mutual aid warming station with hot beverages and hand warmers for attendees of the General Strike March.Sam Van Pykeren
My day ends with a dinner served at the very large Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church, where three very friendly older parishioners are in charge of the buffet table in an art-gallery-like room arrayed with beautiful paintings and filled with round tables draped in white tablecloths. A dozen or so activists who have come in from the streets are scattered around. One of the volunteers serving the food tells me the church regularly provides dinner for low-income and homeless people in the community as part of a city-wide consortium of churches.
As I eat a plate of noodles, I await the delivery of my gas mask. The friend I had it shipped to, Doug Pagitt, is a minister and head of Vote Common Good, which works to disconnect Christian identity from Republican political affiliation.
He’s been out of town, so he’s asked his friend, Matt Moberg, a volunteer chaplain to the NBA Timberwolves, to bring it to me. Matt arrives just as I’m finishing my meal. I learn he’s a former pastor and is now a successful artist. Like the others in the room, Matt’s done his turn on the streets demonstrating against ICE. He tells me, a bit awkwardly, that he no longer attends church. Once more, I return to Bonhoeffer and tell him that my all-time greatest earthly religious hero also stopped attending church because he said he could no longer find the true church.
As we walk out the door, I think we just may have rediscovered the true church that Matt and Bonhoeffer couldn’t find; a place where people who otherwise might not eat can do so with dignity,
When we get to Matt’s car in the parking lot, he hands me a package that does not contain my gas mask. He apparently picked up the wrong item at my friend’s house. I feel anxious about what I may encounter the next day. It doesn’t help that I learned from YouTube that tear gas is banned from the battlefield as a chemical weapon but can be used in city streets. Still, I’m so grateful that Matt made the effort.
When I awake, I open the Moravian Daily Texts app, the digital version of the longest continuously published Protestant Christian devotional, dating back to the 18th century. I read the biblical passages for the day, then this prayer:
“Lord Jesus, you have brought God’s glorious kingdom into greater focus. When you healed the sick, we began to see a day of healing and wholeness for all creation. When you fed the multitudes, we saw a day when there would be hunger no more. When you forgave sinners, we saw a day when all people would be reconciled. Draw us deeper into your kingdom to live on earth as in heaven. Amen.”
After putting on layer after layer, I feel prepared for whatever I might face today. It will begin with a walk, a procession really, the several blocks from where George Floyd was killed on May 20, 2020, which catalyzed the Black Lives Matter movement, to the site of Renee Good’s recent killing on January 7, 2026. We’ll board a bus at the same large Presbyterian church we were in yesterday, then drive to another church, this time Lutheran. A weather alert warns that the temperature will be -20, but the wind chill will make it feel like -47.
Once in the church near George Floyd Square, we assemble in the multipurpose sanctuary as the Korean-American pastor shares the story of the building’s sale to a community group that provides affordable housing. Her congregation now rents its former facility. Again, an echo of Bonhoeffer, who wrote from his Nazi prison cell in 1944, “The church is church only when it is there for others. As a first step, it must give away all its property to those in need.”
Marcia Howard, a community organizer and docent at the George Floyd Square Memorial, takes the microphone, and the crowd is mesmerized as she shares her background as a US Marine turned high school English teacher. A student of hers was responsible for the now-famous video of Floyd’s murder. After a few minutes, she lines us up and another guide, aptly named Kia Bible, takes us out the door and down the one block to the square. Along the way, I don’t feel as crippled by the bitter cold as I had anticipated, perhaps because I am so absorbed in Kia’s recounting of what happened that day. And how, in the aftermath of the murder, protestors occupied the same streets we are now walking, chanting “I can’t breathe,” as Floyd cried out before he died. They also shouted, “Black Lives Matter,” and thus one of the largest social movements in American history began.
We pause at the actual location where Floyd suffocated under a police officer’s knee. A number of us circle the spot where Kia indicates he took his last breath, calling for his mother. The patch of asphalt is surrounded by flowerpots, baskets, an empty red wicker chair, and the figurine of a Black man, seated, gazing forward. They are simple tokens of grief, rage, and respect that ensure we will forever remember his name.
As we silently disperse, we’re told that because of the temperature, we won’t walk to Renee Good’s memorial; instead, we’ll reboard the bus and drive over.
We turn into the neighborhood where the recent horror occurred, and our bus captain, a Caucasian Buddhist monk, informs us of the heavy presence of law enforcement and advises us to be as quiet and as unobtrusive as possible. We walk single-file along a sidewalk toward the tree and telephone pole that I recognize from the many videos I’ve watched of Renee’s killing. This is where her car careened off the road, struck another vehicle, and slammed into that pole, at the base of which is now a large collection of candles, flowers, cards, surrounding a simple wooden cross.
I step carefully past a tense police observer, as I read the many hand-written posters, one of which quotes my favorite verse in the New Testament, and the shortest in all English translations, “Jesus wept.” It refers to his reaction to the death of a friend and seems especially fitting here.
Following our earlier directives, I move quickly, pausing only to say a short, silent prayer. On the way to the bus, I realize that in the emotion of the moment, I had forgotten to leave a token of my respect for Renee’s moral courage. I sprint back to the site where I lay my little orange plastic whistle atop a drawing of her face, tracing her eyes with my fingers, thinking of my own, similarly-aged daughter. I bless Renee’s memory, then wipe my own eyes, the tears crystallizing on my gloves as I hurry back to the bus.
Protestors hold anti-ICE signs as part of a march outside of US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.Sam Van Pykeren
Our next stop is another Lutheran Church targeted by ICE numerous times because of its extraordinarily multicultural congregation and the surrounding neighborhood’s high immigrant population. We’ll eat lunch here as volunteers serve up bowls of hot soup. The quiet murmur of conversations is interrupted by someone shouting, “We’re in lockdown! ICE activity outside!” Just then, a security guard escorts an injured woman through the front door. I think I’m seeing chemical burns on her face. I later learn these were abrasions caused when ICE agents used a spring-loaded device to blast out her car’s side window.
It’s still early afternoon when we begin leaving in groups of five so that the doors won’t remain open for any extended period. We take every precaution we can to reduce the risk of ICE entering the premises. I rarely use profanity, but as we go, all I can say to myself is, “Damn!” ICE’s actions, and the Trump policies supporting them, are truly damnable, the opposite of the caring Christ, central to my faith, who shields the vulnerable, dignifies the ostracized, welcomes the excluded, and commands his followers to do the same.
I meet Sam Van Pykeren from Mother Jones, who is there to cover what has been unfolding in Minneapolis. He has rented a red jeep, and we’re off to meet other clergy for the massive one-mile march from an open green space aptly called The Commons to the giant Target Center arena, for a concluding rally. We park and join the massive boulevard-wide crowd as it begins to move forward. I try to stay with the small group of clergy around me, which is not easy. The clerical stoles around our necks aren’t always visible, given the close quarters and all the gear we’re wearing. One of the Unitarian ministers behind me reaches out and clasps my shoulder, and I understand she’s forming a kind of clergy conga line. It’s also metaphorical: the line of hands extended out towards me signals that these new colleagues have my back, and that we need each other in these times. I’ve never been terribly emotional, but I’ve cried a lot this day—and my eyes well up again as I am swept forward by this human river as it surges forward, exerting a palpable counterforce against ICE’s Operation Metro Surge that’s ravaging this city.
When Sam, who’s been walking alongside me, turns his camera and asks what I’m feeling, I can think of only one thing: All of the harm I’ve done to others: The women I traumatized outside the clinics, the gay and lesbian lovers who only wanted the same marital companionship I’ve enjoyed with my life partner, the many believing and non-believing Americans whose freedoms I threatened with biased religiously-motivated legislation. I tell Sam that being in solidarity with all these folks is part of the repair work I must do, in my own soul, and in the wider world, where people are now forced to live with the terrible consequences of what I enthusiastically participated in.
Evangelicals do not generally practice penance, or acts aimed at repairing the spiritual damage caused by sin. We believe in a too-easily dispensed grace. Our repentance is largely accomplished through private prayer: “Forgive me, Lord.” And bingo! God forgives and forgets our wrongs, absolving us from guilt and any need for restitution. Bonhoeffer called this “cheap grace.” In contrast, there is what he termed “costly grace.” He said Christians, especially church leaders, must verbally confess their sins, not just to God, but also to others, then act to repair the injury we’ve inflicted.
Instead of the planned one hour, the march takes two, and we settle into the arena around 4:00, an hour after the program’s announced start time. Liz Winstead welcomes everyone, identifying herself as a native Minnesotan and a comedian (I’ll later learn she is a co-creator of The Daily Show). I am once more reminded of how many women have been in leadership roles here, so markedly distinct from the old, patriarchal world that had been my spiritual and professional home for decades.
The march concluded at the Target Center where thousands filled the stadium to see local leaders, organizers, and politicians speak.Sam Van Pykeren
At least 20,000 people fill the stands, and more are arriving. Several faith leaders who represent major religious denominations —Dr. B. Charvez Russell from a Baptist church, Rabbi Lekach-Rosenberg, Imam Youssef Abdullah, and a Somali Muslim cleric—mount the platform. Vin Dion, an indigenous leader, hauntingly sings the American Indian Movement National Anthem. Composed of abstract sounds rather than distinct words, it’s not limited to one tribal language but available to all native peoples.
Sam and I leave early to head to Rabbi Lekach-Rosenberg’s synagogue, Shir Tikvah, for their Friday night Shabbat prayer service. When we get there, the building is packed. My impression over the past few days is that all the various communities in Minneapolis have turned out in force to their respective houses of worship, seeking spiritual strength as much as solace. The congregation sings repetitive, and deeply spiritual melodies called nigunim. Described as a “song without words” or a mystical prayer, the nigun uses vocalizations to deepen spiritual connection and foster community. It’s beautifully reminiscent of the American Indian anthem we heard earlier at the arena.
It is my last day in Minneapolis–or so I think. I grab breakfast, finish packing, then head to Sam’s room, where he’s set up a makeshift recording studio to capture a last couple of videos in which I’ll reflect on the unforgettable past three days. Before we get started, Sam asks if I’m following the news. I tell him, no. “They’ve shot another person,” he says.
I wish I could say that I was surprised, but in at least one conversation this week, I said, with a terrible sense of foreboding, “They’re going to kill more people.”
I wish I could say that I was surprised, but in at least one conversation this week, I said, with a terrible sense of foreboding, “They’re going to kill more people.”
As Sam asks questions about the past few days, I talk about what I saw, heard, and learned but it’s difficult for me not to start sobbing—perhaps because of exhaustion, or feeling overwhelmed by the human saga that is Minneapolis under siege, or maybe I’m simply in that category of an elderly guy who is no longer very accomplished at controlling his emotions. After we finish, I hug him goodbye, retrieve my luggage, and head to the nearby Light Rail to go to the airport.
Meanwhile, alerts pop up on my phone announcing that Alex Pretti had been shot multiple times by federal immigration agents.
As I stand in the security line for my flight home, another alert appears on my phone. MARCH is asking any visiting clergy still in the Twin Cities area to remain a bit longer to be part of a response to the recent killing. When I call my wife, Cheryl, to tell her what’s happened, she already had seen the news. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem had said, without evidence, that the deceased man brandished a weapon, calling him a “domestic terrorist.” I’m scrolling madly through the day’s news, and I see that Noem and Trump are justifying the killing, claiming the individual “intended on doing maximum harm to ICE agents.”
I don’t believe a word of it.
I ask Cheryl if she’s comfortable with me staying another day or two, and there is no hesitation when she responds, “You must.”
My friend, Doug Pagitt tells me that I can stay with him and his wife, Shelley, at their home in a nearby suburb. By the time I arrive there, I’ve already been invited to a memorial prayer service for immigration enforcement’s latest fatal victim, Alex Pretti, who had been identified as a beloved, 37-year-old VA nurse. The service will be held at Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church, not far from where he was killed. Shelley lends me her car, and I head over.
Along the way, I’m distracted by the sight of clusters of people huddled on street corners, holding candles, some singing dirges. I slow down. As I turn and follow my GPS, I see more of them. They are everywhere, a night sky on earth, and I realize that a spontaneous candlelight vigil for Alex Pretti has spread throughout the city.
I arrive at the church and enter through a door just off the packed parking lot at the rear of the building. The bulletin boards in the hallway tell me a lot about the congregation. They have the usual Sunday school, youth, family, and scouting programs, as well as a concert series that complements their Sunday services. But they also have programs on racial justice, mental health and wellness, a free food pantry, and outreach to help those who suffer from loneliness. This is obviously a deeply caring group of people.
A greeter guides me to an assembly hall. A few people are scattered among 50 or so chairs arranged in neat rows, facing a table at the front. It would be impressive if just these dozen folks came out on such a freezing-cold night to memorialize a man they’ve never met, but I see someone open what looks like the main doors at the front of the building. Now, a procession of heavily bundled-up people enters, holding electric candles of various shapes and sizes, and they just keep coming.
A woman comes to the front and greets everyone. She doesn’t introduce herself, but I assume that she’s the pastor. In a matter of hours, this quiet, not large church in the middle of a nondescript middle-class neighborhood has organized a vigil mourning the death of someone I’m sure few participants even knew. The space has become packed, and people are now standing against all the walls and spilling into a small enclave. As the pastor guides the mourners through prayers, readings, and testimonials, the ritual becomes as much a memorial for Alex Pretti as it is a protest against the government forces that killed him. A woman tells the group she is an immigrant and a naturalized citizen who has lived in the community for years and never felt unsafe until ICE came. She cries. I hear weeping around me. My eyes well up, too. At some point, the pastor makes a casual reference to her wife, but for me, the significance is enormous.
After the benediction and dismissal, I talk with a few people. At least three of them tell me they aren’t members of this or any church, but Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church does so much for the community and given the horribly unjust killing that day on the streets of their community, they had to come.
This deeply moving, deeply spiritual, deeply human experience is the fruit of a gay pastor’s ministry. Once again, I realize how terribly wrong I had been, how terribly wrong so many of my fellow evangelical Christians are, in believing that these people should be pariahs. Instead, they prove to be more fully reflect the model of Jesus than I, or that many of my coreligionists do.
When I return to the Pagitts’ house, my friend Doug has arrived home from Florida. Perched on the edge of the sofa in his family room, half-dressed in a ski suit, he welcomes me by saying, “I’m headed to the site of Alex Pretti’s murder. Want to come?” My answer is obvious. Within a few minutes, we’re in Doug’s SUV heading for the Whittier neighborhood in South Minneapolis. We get there a little before 9:30.
The snow makes it difficult to park on the narrow side streets, but we eventually find a hollowed-out spot. Doug knows the area well. He was a pastor for 20 years in this gritty, working-class section, with its high immigrant population. His church, “Solomon’s Porch,” was a rare progressive evangelical congregation. The work was hard here, he tells me as we walk, but they were some of the most meaningful years of his life.
After a few blocks, we hear what sounds like a drum circle, then the same resonant, sometimes-piercing Native American chant-like singing I heard in the arena. As we get closer to the stretch of Nicollet Avenue where Alex was killed, we see a semi-circle of about 100 people, gazing down on another sidewalk shrine made of the familiar floral arrangements, myriad votive candles, and hand-scrawled signs reading “Do Not Look Away,” “Nurses are Heroes,” and “Empathy & Patience.” It’s a lot like Renee’s, except for a touching personal tribute of two stethoscopes.
I decide to kneel and pray, which is my custom at moments like this. Draping my minister’s stole over my shoulders, I wait until a quiet moment, then bend down on one knee and recite the Lord’s Prayer. Before I finish, a cry goes up from somewhere in the crowd: “Say his name!” The group responds, “Alex Pretti!” It becomes repetitive and rhythmic, and I adopt it as a litany, a form of prayer that uses a series of invocations and responses. It’s perfect for the moment and seems divinely orchestrated.
We get back to Doug’s after eleven o’clock. Their house is a charming, but very simple kind of ramshackle, one-hundred-year-old farmhouse. As I get ready for bed, I find myself comparing it to some of the mansions my former movement leaders lived in—the ones who drove BMWs, flashed American Express Cobalt Cards, flew on private jets. Doug and Shelley’s humble lifestyle seems so much closer to that of Jesus, who said, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have their nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”
I end my day lying my head on a simple single bed in a freezing-cold room with a too-low ceiling and sleep like a baby.
I awaken to a notice on my phone asking all available clergy to come back to San Pablo/St. Paul Lutheran Church—where I had seen the woman’s bloodied face— to encircle the premises. We’re no longer under an embargo for reporting names and places. The world needs to know where immigration enforcement is perpetrating its atrocities, and who the people are that are so courageously repelling it.
I text Doug in the next room to tell him my plans, and he wants to go as well. After a quick breakfast, we’re out the door again, bundled up like ice fishermen.
San Pablo/Saint Paul church, located in South Minneapolis, is in a vibrant, multicultural neighborhood. About 80 percent of its residents are people of color. It’s also an area that’s been assailed by hundreds of ICE officers. Residents are so fearful that many won’t leave their homes. This congregation has responded vigorously to the threat. Pastor Hierald Osorto and his congregation have declared their space a “sacred sanctuary,” staging singing vigils to comfort their shaken community, created bright fluorescent signs to mark the exact locations of ICE abductions as a public witness to federal actions, and held “Lament and Hope” services for spiritual support.
The church also provides practical aid to those targeted by enforcement operations, including running a safe medical clinic inside its facility, providing immigrant families with money for rent and legal fees, delivering food and offering rides to work to help them avoid public transportation, where many ICE arrests have occurred.
Doug and I join about 25 clergy who are placed along the periphery of the church property, two-by-two, equidistant from one another, with orders to watch for ICE activity and sound our whistles if we see any. We’re also there to act as a comforting presence for folks walking to church or being dropped off in front to attend the morning service.
We depicted pastors and parishioners being dragged from their sanctuaries by jackbooted paramilitary thugs for preaching the simple gospel. I would tell our constituents there were only two ways to avoid such a nightmare: send my organization a donation and always vote for Republicans.
My mind reels as I take my position alongside my companions. We’re actually guarding Christians from heavily armed federal agents. For too many years, I signed off on right-wing fundraising packages that used fictional accounts of imminent attacks on churches by radically secularist government regimes–at that time, it was code for “Democratic presidents.” We depicted pastors and parishioners being dragged from their sanctuaries by jackbooted paramilitary thugs for preaching the simple gospel. I would tell our constituents there were only two ways to avoid such a nightmare: send my organization a donation and always vote for Republicans. This Sunday morning, I am living that nightmare, only it’s a Republican majority and a maniacal MAGA president who has brought it to reality—aided and abetted by millions who claim to be followers of Christ.
During the three hours that we hold vigil outside San Pablo/St. Paul, there are two sightings of ICE agents in black SUVS, and a whistle blows a few blocks away. I’m told to stay in my position. I greet churchgoers, wave to neighbors who guardedly look out their windows or occasionally crack open their doors, and wave back to appreciative motorists, most of them dark-complected.
This was the first day I brought the gas mask I had purchased for this strange mission, but I never needed it. Once we are officially relieved of duty, I throw it into Doug’s car and tell him to give it to someone who does. We drive off, intentionally stopping at a local immigrant-owned Ethiopian restaurant to pick up food before heading back to Doug’s place.
My head swims with thoughts about what is happening in this city, and with the clergy I’ve been with these last four days; so much that I’ve learned, observed, and been inspired by. I’m especially fixated on a scene from my first time at San Pablo/St. Paul Church, two days ago. It’s an image of Pastor Osorto, crumpled in a chair, looking emotionally depleted and physically exhausted. Yet he preached this morning, served Holy Communion to his equally exhausted congregants, welcomed them to a community lunch table afterwards, and no doubt consoled more than one of them. He is a consummate shepherd of souls.
Oh, I also learned today that Pastor Osorto is a devoted husband to his husband.
Rev. Rob Schenck holds his stole above his head, showing off the embroidered cross while he marches alongside protesters.Sam Van Pykeren
And now it is time for me to return home, but Winter Storm Fern had disrupted travel in 40 states. 24 governors have issued emergency declarations. I’m jumping between carriers, purchasing tickets, only to have my flight cancelled and refunded. I’m surprised not to have triggered a security alert with my credit card company.
Yes, trying to get home is enormously frustrating, but it gives me some time in a kind of nether-region to process what I’ve experienced. As I pore over my notes, scroll through my photos, and touch a whistle I never blew, I see countless faces, hear myriad voices, and feel indescribable emotions that range from despair to exhilaration. I run out of tissues as I think of Renee’s wife and children, Alex’s parents and siblings, and the many stories of children screaming for their parents. But I also recall the faith leaders, community organizers, public officials, and mostly ordinary people, who have selflessly, relentlessly, and bravely risen to the moment to protect the most vulnerable, preserve democracy, and resist what is looking more and more like a form of fascistic tyranny once unimaginable in our country.
I could leave this city discouraged, but my faith has been renewed—in the human family, in the power of the people, and in the caring, loving Christianity I was introduced to 52 years ago when I converted. And I leave with something else: a resolve to do better by widening my embrace, to learn from those who know suffering themselves, and stand unapologetically with those who stand up to what is manifestly wrong. I saw that in so many this past week. But for me, as someone who spent so many years demonizing those who were different, among them many of whom were LGBTQ, I felt both a deep regret and a great admiration for my queer clergy siblings. I can only imagine how much better a person, a pastor, even an evangelist, I would have been, had I seen them then, as being the gift of God, they are to me now.
It took three days, but finally I was heading home. As we climb toward cruising altitude, I considered the split-screen experience that was Minneapolis for me. On one side was the ever-expanding reality I inhabited, filled with human beings who desperately need each other and show up for one another in incredibly generous ways. On the other side of my screen was the narrow, imaginary, ever-more-constricted self-serving world that my Christian nationalist cohorts now seek to violently impose on everyone but themselves. I resolve to work and pray in ways that will help others, like me, to see what they are missing. To see that in disrespecting their fellow human beings, they insult the very One who created them. As Jesus warned, “we reap what we sow.”
Thank you, Minneapolis.
