Last year, Pastor Jamal Bryant of New Birth Missionary Church coordinated a nationwide boycott against Target for discontinuing its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. Bryant underlined the importance of young people witnessing the Black Church leading the boycott. It reminded young people of the Black Church’s historic role in the ongoing struggle for racial equality, as well as the fact that the Civil Rights Movement is still relevant and requires active engagement.
Bryant most likely cited the well-known text “Many will come in my name, saying they are the Messiah, but they will deceive millions” to warn his congregation against false prophets. As a pastor carrying on the legacy of the civil rights struggle, Bryant should also warn young people about movements that claim to be similar to the Civil Rights Movement but are not.
For example, on a Sunday last month in Minnesota, a journalist accompanied a group of Black activists planning a “clandestine mission” to demonstrate inside a White church since one of its pastors also serves as the director of local ICE operations.
The activists’ leader stated that their purpose was to call attention to an “unacceptable overlap between religious leadership and immigration enforcement roles.” The leader also compared their rally to the Civil Rights Movement, in which activists disrupted the peace by sitting at white-only lunch counters. These activists stormed into the church, disrupted the service, and chanted against ICE.
When the Target boycott appeared to be effective, Bryant told a reporter that he was embarrassed by their success since it was the first time in the civil rights movement’s 70-year history that we redirected Black people to another White business. (Costco, specifically.) If Bryant was embarrassed by that, then the protestors who disrupted the church service should be a bigger embarrassment. Never before have activists stormed into a church to protest, claiming that their actions were equivalent to civil disobedience in the 1960s.
Bryant didn’t have to denounce the activists who stormed the church, but he should have been among the first to explain that the Minnesota activists acted outside the tradition of the Civil Rights Movement.
Bryant made no such statement.
However, an uninvited White preacher recently entered Bryant’s “progressive charismatic Christian Baptist megachurch” and caused a disturbance. The pastor warned the congregation that God would destroy their church if they did not repent of their wicked ways, which he defined as “race-baiting” and “stirring hatred among the children of God.”
Clearly, the White preacher was wrong.
Decades ago, members of the Westboro Baptist Church protested military funerals, claiming that America’s difficulties during the Iraq War were God’s punishment for the country’s tolerance of homosexuality. They actually carried signs that read “Thank God for Dead Soldiers.” Their message was morally repugnant and widely condemned, but they had the right to protest because the members of the Westboro Baptist Church ensured that their protests were legal by obtaining the necessary permits, staying away from the buildings where the funerals were held, and not being disruptive.
The White preacher and the activists in Minnesota could have properly exercised their right to protest by picketing across the street from the churches, but tiny protests done correctly rarely generate headlines, so they chose to be improper in order to get as much attention as possible. The security team at New Birth Missionary Church promptly escorted the White preacher off their property, and the county issued a no-trespass order prohibiting him from returning to the church.
Bryant made headlines when he complained about the incident at his church. Bryant demanded to know when US Attorney General Pam Bondi was going to issue an arrest warrant for the White preacher.
After the activists invaded the Minnesota church, Bondi posted, “Make no mistake: under President Trump’s leadership and this administration, you have the right to worship freely and safely. And, if I haven’t been clear already, if you violate that sacred right, we are coming after you.”
Several individuals involved in the Minnesota church protest were arrested.
Bryant saw the lack of a federal response to the disturbance at his church as a “double standard.” Bryant told the U.S. Attorney General, “If it’s wrong to disrupt a White church, then have the same energy in protecting Black ones.”
Bryant’s response was embarrassing because he presented himself as a victim. Not only was his church disrupted, like the church in Minnesota, but he also had to deal with a racist double standard that treats disrupters of Black churches differently than disrupters of White churches. The difference between the churches was not their racial make-up but rather their size. The security team at Bryant’s megachurch promptly dealt with a single demonstrator who received a no-trespass order. That is not the same as three dozen protesters entering a small church that didn’t have security and disrupting their service for an extended length of time.
The irony is that the White preacher who caused the disturbance at Bryant’s church accused Bryant of race-baiting, and Bryant proved him correct by claiming his church was the victim of a racist double standard.
