Sanctuary Is Not a Stage for Protest
By Jim Lagrone
Several years ago, I was serving the Arkansas Baptist State Convention. Part of that job was to preach in different churches around the state. One Sunday morning my route took me through downtown Little Rock. I saw a sight I had never seen before and never thought I would see.
On a street corner there were protestors holding signs and yelling at people walking to their church for a Sunday worship service. I later found out this was a frequent occurrence. The protestors did not like the president (ever heard of not liking a president?), and so they wanted that church to know it. I felt for the people and leaders who had to face that so many times. To my knowledge they never entered the sanctuary, and it never became a national story.
A church sanctuary is meant to be one of the last places in American life where the noise of politics is set aside and the soul can breathe. That unwritten rule was shattered recently in St. Paul when activists entered a church during a worship service and interrupted prayer with chants and confrontation.
The target was Cities Church, where one of the pastors also serves in a federal immigration enforcement role. Rather than protest outside, appeal to elected leaders, or engage in public debate, demonstrators chose to march into a sacred service and turn a house of worship into a political theater. In case you did not know, it is a SBC church who subscribes to the old London Confessional.
This was not courageous dissent. It was a violation.
The First Amendment protects both freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Those freedoms coexist because they respect boundaries. We demonstrate in public squares, not in sanctuaries. We debate in town halls, not in the middle of prayer. When activists cross that line, they trample the very liberties they claim to defend.
Most Americans instinctively understand this. We do not interrupt funerals. We do not storm weddings. We do not disrupt worship. These moments are sacred because they remind us that human beings are more than political actors. They are spiritual creatures seeking meaning, hope, and peace.
Those who defend the disruption argue that the cause is urgent, that injustice demands dramatic action. But once that logic is accepted, no place remains off-limits. Today it is a church. Tomorrow it could be a synagogue, a mosque, or a temple. If political passion justifies invading worship, then every sacred space becomes fair game.
That is not progress. It is cultural vandalism.
This is not a defense of any particular immigration policy or government agency. Reasonable people disagree sharply on those issues. Conservatives and liberals alike debate them every day. But the proper arena for that debate is the public square, the legislature, the courts, and the ballot box—not the pew.
A healthy society knows how to argue without desecrating what others hold holy. When we lose that restraint, we lose something far more important than a single Sunday service. We lose the shared understanding that there are spaces in our common life that deserve reverence.
Churches exist to proclaim eternal truths, to call hearts to repentance, and to offer grace in a weary world. They are not extensions of partisan conflict. They are sanctuaries.
If America is to remain a nation where people of faith can worship freely, we must reaffirm a simple principle: protest has its place, and so does prayer. The two should never be confused.
Defending that boundary is not a partisan act. It is an act of cultural preservation. It is how we ensure that, even in an age of division, there are still places where the noise stops and the soul can listen.
