The recent lawsuit filed by Quaker groups against the federal government highlights an issue on which conservatives seem increasingly prone to waffle: the sanctity of religious freedom and the protection of churches from government overreach.
Conservatives often advocate for robust enforcement of immigration laws already on the books. Such is meet and right. But we also must remain legally and logically consistent in defending constitutional rights, especially the First Amendment’s promise of the freedom to worship free from government force and coercion.
David Bumgardner
ICE raids in local churches set a dangerous precedent and are an explicit affront to legal and ethical principles endemic to American law.
For millennia, houses of worship have been recognized as places of refuge, a concept dating back to biblical Cities of Refuge (see Numbers 35:6-34).
In the early days of Christendom in the Roman Empire, Emperor Theodosius granted churches the right to offer sanctuary and shelter to refugees and fugitives. This later was codified in the Codex Theodosianus (438 AD).
These ancient principles shaped the American legal tradition. The colonies deliberately rejected England’s heritage of tumultuous civic religion, including the English Civil War, the execution of Charles I, the disastrous Lord Protectorate of Cromwell, and King James’ abolition of the church sanctuary doctrine in 1623.
As conservatives, our commitment to constitutional originalism and limited government should lead us to oppose ICE raids in churches. Such actions violate:
“As conservatives, our commitment to constitutional originalism and limited government should lead us to oppose ICE raids in churches.”
- The First Amendment: The free exercise of religion is threatened when church spaces become targets for government enforcement actions. A church providing sanctuary engages in a religious act, and interfering with that act constitutes state intrusion into spiritual practice. The disruption of public worship, especially on the Lord’s Day, also belies the aforementioned historical precedents.
- The Fourth Amendment: The protection against unreasonable searches and seizures applies to places of worship just as it does to private homes. Entering churches without proper judicial oversight sets a dangerous precedent.
- The Fifth Amendment: Due process may be questioned when people are arrested in places where they have been promised refuge.
- The Fourteenth Amendment: Unequal enforcement that disproportionately targets local churches violates the Equal Protection Clause.
- The Religious Freedom Restoration Act: RFRA was a legislative masterpiece. It sets a nearly impassable bar for the governmental burden on religious exercise. A church’s decision to feed, water and shelter migrants (regardless of their legal status) is an act of religious faith. Government interference in that religious act may violate RFRA.
These legal protections need not allow persistent flouting of immigration law by progressive bodies claiming religious exemptions. The sanctity of the church worship hour has been protected in common, civil and criminal law across societies and cultures for millennia.
The conservative movement rightly has fought against government intrusion in churches regarding pandemic restrictions, speech codes and taxation. We cannot and must not apply these principles selectively because they are not currently politically expedient.
Take, for example, the recent excoriation of conservative pastor Matt Crawford of Cordova, Tenn. Crawford was crucified on social media for this statement in his Sunday morning sermon: “No one is being sheltered or kept here. I don’t like the idea (of government raids in the church’s worship) and I think you probably agree. I don’t want people who come here to be ministered to and to hear the gospel to be afraid to come here. So I’m disappointed by that change. I hope we can believe both in the rule of law and feel we don’t want worship services disrupted by that.”
“The church sanctuary doctrine is not a progressive talking point.”
Crawford noted he does not know the immigration status of all the members of his church’s Spanish ministry and does not feel called to police that. In his logic (and indeed, in the logic of the Founders), the church’s role is to be the church: to preach the gospel, feed the hungry and see people converted to faith in Jesus Christ. The state’s role is to enforce the law without infringing individual liberty. In a word, immigration is under the state’s jurisdiction, and the public worship of God is under the church’s jurisdiction.
This doctrine, known as the “Two Swords,” was popularized by Pope Gelasius in AD 494. It emphasized the state’s role is to ensure and enforce obedience to civil law, while the church enforces obedience to divine law among the faithful. This later was developed in the American colonies into the Establishment Clause.
Thus, the American Christian ideal is a free church in a free state, where the state ensures obedience to civil and criminal law and the church ensures fidelity to divine law. History has shown the consequences are disastrous if the two are ever confused, mingled or welded together.
In conclusion, the church sanctuary doctrine is not a progressive talking point. Conservatives should defend this historically and legally significant principle as part of our broader commitment to religious freedom.
Anything else is an affront to liberty and liberty’s God.
David Bumgardner is a graduate of Southwestern Seminary’s Texas Baptist College and is a former BNG Clemons Fellow. He lives in North Texas and is a graduate theology student at Winebrenner Theological Seminary of the University of Findlay, Ohio.
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