Minnesota Leftists Double Down on Anti-Church Protest as Feds Prepare for Arrests |
Minnesota leftists showed no pangs of conscience after disrupting a Sunday worship service at Cities Church in St. Paul. The church was targeted because one of its lay elders works in federal law enforcement—specifically, serving as the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement director for St. Paul. But, despite sparking national outrage, the anti-ICE demonstrators are only doubling down.
“Today, we are calling for the resignation of so-called pastor David Easterwood from Cities Church,” declared career activist Nekima Levy Armstrong, who led the Sunday demonstration, at a Tuesday press conference organized in front of the Hennepin County Government Center. “We are asking Cities Church to operate in truth and integrity and the true meaning of the gospel and to recognize that David Easterwood’s dual role as a pastor and the director of the ICE office is a most definite conflict of interest, and it cannot stand.”
The change in venue was the only accommodation activists made to public criticism, although it still lacked a reasonable connection between means and ends. On Sunday, agitators demonstrated in a church to protest government action. On Tuesday, they assembled at a government building to protest the church.
“In the New Testament, pastors are called by God and examined, affirmed, and held accountable by the local congregation alone, under the lordship of Christ. Political activists possess no jurisdiction over a church’s pastoral leadership,” David Closson, director of Family Research Council’s Center for Biblical Worldview, told The Washington Stand.
“Scripture is clear in the pastoral epistles, particularly 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, that a pastor’s qualifications are moral, doctrinal, and pastoral in nature, not political. Disqualification arises from moral failure, false teaching, or abuse of office, not from disagreement over public policy or the perceived political implications........