Here’s a story from 2019, via Colorado Public Radio’s Avery Lill, “During Yom Kippur, Multifaith Volunteers in Denver Keep a ‘Neighborhood Watch’ to Prevent Violence.”
Jews around the world will gather this evening to begin Yom Kippur, the Jewish holiday of atonement.
At one congregation in Denver, Christians and Muslims will also be in their midst, but not to participate.
Instead, they’ll act as a sort of “neighborhood watch.”
… After the Tree of Life shooting, Judaism Your Way increased its security at events, as did many synagogues and other places of worship around the country.
… Judaism Your Way is trying something new. It will retain private security, but they’re also inviting other faiths to be present at their gatherings, and they’re reciprocating through the Multifaith Volunteer Initiative.
This was about neighbors protecting their neighbors by standing watch against those with violent intent. It was about being present — a set of eyes to watch their back and to sound the alarm if danger approached.
This was a Good Thing. It was also, sadly, a necessary thing. Lill recited the litany of violence against houses of worship in 2019 that prompted this response: “More than 300 people died in the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, in mosques in New Zealand, and in churches in Sri Lanka.”
This is still a Good Thing and also still, sadly, a necessary thing — particularly now that those with violent intent are tax-funded thugs working for lawless federal agencies like ICE and Border Patrol.
Andy Olsen gives a good overview of the violent, lethal threat facing thousands of houses of worship in America today, “Hispanic Churches Groan Under Florida’s Double Immigration Crackdown“:
“In Florida, there’s a terrible fear,” said Blas Ramírez, a bishop with the International Pentecostal Holiness Church who lives in West Palm Beach and oversees several congregations up and down the state. He estimates that roughly a third of people in his churches are undocumented.
Attendance has dropped, Ramírez said. Venezuelans who might have worshiped in person last Sunday stayed home, for example, absorbing news that federal authorities had invoked an obscure wartime law to deport immigrants. They were processing constant rumors of sweeps by local police and reports that the federal government was flying Venezuelans to a megaprison in El Salvador, accusing them of being terrorists despite family members’ claims that some of them were only guilty of getting tattoos.
“Look, the president is applying a law from the 1800s to undocumented people, a law that applies to enemies of the United States,” Ramírez said. “What is that saying?”
It is not safe for these Florida Christians to go to church. That is wrong.
ICE is monitoring these churches. That is wrong.
This is what matters here and this is all that matters here.*
If I had world enough and time, I could go on for hours about all the misgivings I have about the theology and praxis of Pentecostal Holiness churches. I could do this through a systematic theology lens — critiquing their teachings on soteriology, eschatology, ecclesiology, etc. Or I could go chapter-and-verse to explain all the ways I find their health-and-wealth teachings contradictory to the gospel. Or I could take a “by their fruits ye shall know them” approach to critique the stunted, musical-chairs “ethics” produced by this theology. Or I could get into how this is just a colonial version of white evangelical white theology.
But none of that matters here.
Nor does it matter, as Olsen reports and many of those he interviews bitterly observe, that theses churches played a key role in electing Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis:
Latino evangelicals overwhelmingly supported Donald Trump during the 2024 presidential election, resonating with his messaging on the economy and traditional stance on issues like abortion and sexuality. Nearly two-thirds of Hispanic Protestants voted for the president, compared with just 46 percent of Hispanics overall. In Florida, the president enjoys more support among Hispanics than he does in other states with large Latino populations.
But when it comes to the president’s immigration actions, some of the state’s Hispanic evangelicals say they are growing disillusioned.
“We agree with the deportation of violent criminals and securing the border,” said Gabriel Salguero, pastor of The Gathering Place, an Assemblies of God church in Orlando. “What we’re concerned about is that, although that’s the rhetoric, that’s actually not what’s happening.”
It’s tempting here to fall back into the classic joke from Adrian Botts: “‘I never thought leopards would eat MY face,’ sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party.” Yes, fine, they’re complicit in their own oppression. They been had, they been took, they been hoodwinked and bamboozled. Their once enthusiastic support for monsters is hurting us all and they bear some blame for the harm being done to themselves and to many others.
So yeah, the leopard joke is darkly funny because it’s accurate, but it’s also based on the essential point that voting for the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party is bad because decent people should not and will not stand by cheering while watching their neighbors’ faces get devoured by leopards. How much of a monster would you have to be to witness that and have nothing to say or do beyond “Ha-ha! I told you so!”
Also, read Olsen’s entire piece** and you’ll hear from several Hispanic evangelical pastors who did see this coming and who warned against it ahead of the election.
“Rescue those being led away to death,” Proverbs 24:11 says.* The second couplet of that verse is less famous: “Hold back those staggering toward slaughter.” It does not say “wash your hands of those staggering toward slaughter” because they brought this on themselves by voting for a demagogue who appealed to their worst instincts.
In any case, they’re no longer staggering toward slaughter, but they are still staggering. And they are in imminent danger of being led away to death by lawless, violent agents of a government that regards them all as inherently criminal and rights-less.
That’s all that matters here.
I do not know of any coordinated effort like the interfaith action in Denver in 2019 but it seems to me that a similar “neighborhood watch” network is urgently needed now to protect these neighbors from ICE. This would be a service that probably could only be provided safely by white folks.
I have no experience or expertise in organizing such a network. But if I had the opportunity, I’d gladly sign up for a shift to spend a Sunday morning in the parking lot of some Hispanic evangelical church, hanging out with some Quakers or atheists or whoever else volunteers, ready to blow a literal whistle or sound a literal alarm at any sign of Trump’s blackshirt army of deportation thugs. Or whatever it might look like.
Andre Henry has studied this kind of grassroots organizing, so let me recommend here his recent RNS op-ed, “In the battle to keep ICE from raiding houses of worship, the grassroots needs to flex more muscle“:
Religious organizations might think together about how Trump’s campaign against immigrants depends on their compliance and determine in advance specific ways they can refuse to cooperate. Some houses of worship have taken to posting signs declaring that they are private property and locking their doors once a service has begun. There is nothing illegal in video recording or livestreaming raids to preserve accountability.
Churches may refuse to provide records on possible undocumented members. Local houses of worship may want to organize a teach-in on I.C.E. tactics and strategies and the community’s resources and how the community’s resources can be used to protect immigrants, including distributing information on their rights.
To be sure, lawsuits and legislation have long been vital in the struggle against American racism. But legal battles for a more equitable America have always been part of a larger movement that included nonviolent direct action. The same is true today.
Amen.
I suspect such action to help protect these vulnerable Christians might have beneficial political/electoral effects that would help to dissuade any lingering support these neighbors might be tempted to provide for the anti-immigrant right. Maybe it would even help them to question the way their unexamined/not-permitted-to-be-examined “traditional stance on issues like abortion and sexuality” has been used to manipulate them. But none of that is the point here.
The point here is that our neighbors are in danger and we need to protect them.
* The threat now faced by Hispanic evangelical congregations is not unique to Hispanic evangelicals. Every religious or non-religious gathering perceived as “immigrant” faces a similar threat and deserves similar protection, whether its a Pentecostal Holiness church or a Santeria congregation or, I dunno, a mariachi concert.
** I’m particularly grateful to Andy Olsen for not doing what almost every other religion reporter on this beat has done — turning to that slimy MAGA creep Samuel Rodriguez for a “balancing” quote from the Vichy side of this dispute on whether or not other people have human rights.
*** The full saying here in Proverbs 24 is worth remembering:
If you falter in a time of trouble,
how small is your strength!
Rescue those being led away to death;
hold back those staggering toward slaughter.
If you say, “But we knew nothing about this,”
does not God who weighs the heart perceive it?
Does not God who guards your life know it?
Will God not repay everyone according to what they have done?
