US faith leaders opposed to ICE raids counsel nonviolent resistance and lead by example
When the Rev. Edward Anderson rallied in Los Angeles this week against the Trump administration’s intensifying immigration crackdown, he positioned himself between law enforcement and his fellow protesters, serving as a human buffer.
Anderson, who leads McCarty Memorial Christian Church in the city’s West Adams Terrace neighborhood, believes he was upholding his moral duty to stand against injustice, but in a nonviolent manner that his faith demands.
“It is imperative that people of faith speak out because silence in the face of injustice is complicity,” he said.
Some U.S. religious leaders are taking a stand about President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, including ones citing Scripture to explain their support for his policies and others citing it to explain their resistance. For many of those condemning how federal agents are rounding up and deporting people who are in the country illegally, though, nonviolent resistance is the best — and only — way to effect positive change.
State and local leaders have accused Trump of inflaming tensions and raising the risk of violence by deploying National Guard troops and Marines to Los Angeles in response to the protests, which have been daily since last week. Although most have been peaceful, some have resulted in clashes between protesters and law enforcement.
Elected officials, including LA Mayor Karen Bass, have called on protesters to remain peaceful, saying violence will only inflame the situation.
It’s a message religious leaders can get behind.
“The moral message is clear: we do not accept the world as it is. We respond to cruelty with courage, to hatred with love,” Rabbi Sharon Brous said this week at an interfaith vigil in Los Angeles, where the mayor imposed a downtown curfew.
The Rev. Jacqui Lewis, senior pastor of Middle Collegiate Church in New York City, said nonviolent resistance is a core belief of her congregation, which has been feeding and helping newly arrived immigrants and demonstrating to support them.
“We’re like Jesus — nonviolent,” said Lewis.
But nonviolence isn’t silence, she said, adding that it “often means confronting people with the truth. … We understand that social change has happened because people of faith and spiritual imagination guided the streets peacefully.”
Her flock plans to take part in one of Saturday’s “No Kings” rallies, which are happening in cities throughout the country to protest Trump’s policies and which will take place during a military parade in Washington.
Nonviolence and a slow path to change
Nonviolent protest has a proven track record in the U.S., having been successfully used by, among others, the Rev. Martin Luther King during the Civil Rights movement.
However, Michael Nagler, co-founder of The Metta Center for Nonviolence, a California-based nonprofit involved in education and advocacy, cautioned that nonviolence and civil disobedience come with suffering and sacrifice.
He pointed to the sacred Hindu text the Bhagavad Gita, which advises practicing action without getting attached to the result.
“Principled nonviolence comes from this awareness that the divine resides in each and every one of us and every life is precious,” he said. “You believe that a solution can always be worked out where all parties have their legitimate needs met.”
Nonviolence might not yield immediate results, but it eventually has a deeper impact and fewer casualties than the alternative, Nagler said. In the context of the current struggle, a positive result might mean getting the administration to deal with immigrants more humanely, he said.
Faith leaders can play a crucial role in the demonstrations, said the Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, president of Interfaith Alliance. They can provide “a sense of shield” and a “spiritual force” for demonstrators, and inspire “a reduction of harm and nonviolent presence … in a space where it appears that there’s only a spiraling of violence.”
Partnering with local Los Angeles organizations and labor unions, Anderson said his congregation has led prayer vigils, helped migrants learn about their rights, and advised other faith leaders about what to do if ICE shows up at their houses of worship.
“As clergy and community leaders, we are not only called to preach justice but to embody it, to be present in the pain of our people, and to lift up the sacred worth of every human life,” he said in an email.
Anderson said he draws strength from the Bible’s calls to welcome the stranger, defend the oppressed and love thy neighbor.
Views among faith leaders are hardly uniform, with others citing the Bible as a reason for supporting Trump’s crackdown.
There are many faith leaders, notably in the evangelical ranks, who support the immigration crackdown.
“I support 100% President Trump’s goal of protecting our country from evildoers, whether from within or without,” said the Rev. Robert Jeffress, a longtime Trump supporter who is a Southern Baptist pastor at a Dallas megachurch. “The president has authority from the Constitution and the Bible to do exactly what he’s doing.”
Regarding the protests, Jeffress said, “People have a right to be wrong. But they don’t have the right to be wrong in a violent manner.”
Committed to interfaith action and working together
The Archdiocese of Los Angeles, which participated in an interfaith prayer vigil in Grand Park on Tuesday, said it plans to remain engaged. That gathering showed that people of different faiths can unite and pray for a compassionate way forward, said the Rev. Parker Sandoval, the Catholic archdiocese’s vice chancellor.
“A lot of people are living in fear now, whether it’s fear of violence or the fear of being separated from their families,” he said. “God insists that we are not alone or without hope. Evil, no matter what form it takes, does not have the last word.”
Seth Zuihō Segall, a Zen Buddhist priest affiliated with the Buddhist Coalition for Democracy, said he and his colleagues are appalled by images of masked, armed federal immigration agents “whisking people off the streets and into cars.” He stressed via email that opposition to these developments should be nonviolent.
“Non-harming, non-hatred, and nonviolence are at the very core of the Buddha’s message,” he wrote. “We strive to treat all people — even those whose actions appall us — as buddhas-in-progress.”
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