A Baptist church near Rochester, N.Y., was prepared to stand its ground when a municipal official demanded it change the wording on the sign in front of the building: “DO JUSTICE, LOVE KINDNESS, ABOLISH ICE.”
A code enforcement officer called Jan. 28 to report the village had received multiple complaints about the message, said Dan Brockway, lead pastor of Brockport First Baptist Church, in a Jan. 30 Facebook video. “That’s nothing new for us. We get angry calls at our church all the time. We have gotten a number of them this week over the sign.”
Dan Brock
Holding firm on social justice issues also is nothing new for the American Baptist Churches in the USA congregation and for Brockway, who was in Minneapolis the week before to participate in mass demonstrations against abuses by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“I told him I have no intention of changing the message on the sign because it is not political,” the pastor said. “I find that to be a moral message and well within our rights as a religious organization to express.”
Brockway said he also explained the sign is changed weekly and would be replaced beginning Feb. 2, anyway. “He then told me his next call is going to be to the code enforcement board and they will start (the process) to remove our right to have the sign at all.”
At issue is whether political messaging — however defined — is prohibited on the sign according to an agreement between First Baptist and the village more than a decade ago. The sign required a variance because it is electronic and therefore not in keeping with the historic nature of the building and the community.
The church also was told the variance limited messages to those exclusively promoting community and church events. But Brockway said the “abolish ICE” message coincided with an event held at the church Jan. 28 to protest the killing of Alex Pretti by Border Patrol agents the previous Saturday.
“We had about 200 folks from the church and the community come out to join us in praying for the community in Minneapolis and communities around the country that are being terrorized by ICE right now,” Brockway said. “We stood right in front of the church, right next to that sign. That message on the sign was planned to correspond with that church and community event.”
Brockway later said his video, posted along with a village email address, must have worked. The church received an email Jan. 31 that an attorney consulted by the officer concluded no variance or village ordinance can restrict the content of the church sign.
And what “all the Bible nerds already know” is that “DO JUSTICE, LOVE KINDNESS, ABOLISH ICE” is a paraphrase of Micah 6:8, which reads “do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with your God,” Brockway said.
“And Micah 6 just so happens to be one of the Lectionary readings for this Sunday. Thousands of churches around the world are going to be hearing that passage read aloud. You might even hear a sermon on it at your church, and so therefore I think [we’re] well within our right to put something like that on the sign.”