When Church Misses The Point

Sunday, January 18, 2026

So it seems that in Minnesota a church is organizing a general strike against I.C.E.  That article contains a list of participating businesses that is, to my mind, pathetically short.  For such a strike to be truly effective this list would have to be so long as to defy publication. But snark aside, my soul aches for this church – I think they have missed the point.

The church is indeed called to welcome the stranger and care for the traveler.  But that is different than harboring fugitives and gangs that are here only to harm Americans.  I would be sympathetic to a church housing and defending refugees from political or religious persecution, but that is not what we are dealing with here.  We are dealing with gangs that have entered the country illegally to defraud the government or sell poison.  Fentanyl OD deaths are down, significantly.  I do not think it coincidental that this happens as we get a better handle on immigration.  So I think this church and its affiliates are missing the point on what precisely is going on here.

But I also think they are missing a point that Jesus made in the Sermon on the Mount:

“Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in this same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Let’s assume for just a moment that I.C.E. is utterly in the wrong and they are defending sympathetic refugees of the type I previously mentioned.  Calling for a general strike is not the response that Jesus would call for.  Here He quite plainly calls for Christians to suffer the persecution visited upon them.  Jesus Himself did exactly that as He was executed, despite His complete innocence.

The persecution of innocence speaks much louder to the wrong involved than fighting said persecution.  The execution of an innocent changed the world.

Yesterday we looked at the fact that genuine environmental change cannot be created, it must rise organically – through the marketplace.  And so martyrdom.  The movement behind these anti-I.C.E. actions in Minnesota are trying to make a martyr out of Renee Good, but she is not a martyr.  If she were her death would speak for itself.  Simply put she lacked the requisite innocence.  She was there to make trouble.

It is time for us to learn, and especially for the church to learn, that a thing can be tragic but not unrighteous and that righteousness speaks louder in passivity than in action.