Calvinist pastor prays for God to smite the people of Minneapolis

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on January 13, 2025.

A professor at John Piper’s Bethlehem Seminary prayed on Sunday not for God to protect the terrified people of Minneapolis, but for God to protect ICE from the violent people of Minneapolis.

“I’m a pastor in Minnesota. Here’s how I prayed for ICE yesterday,” the headline announced in a piece published by the Center for Baptist Leadership on Monday. “Please protect the ICE officers from wicked men and women who are violent lawbreakers,” prayed Andy Naselli, lead pastor of Christ the King Church in Stillwater, Minn., and professor of systematic theology and New Testament at Bethlehem.

In the introduction to his prayer, Naselli lamented Minnesota magistrates “acting unjustly … as anti-ICE protesters swarm into Minneapolis.”

Then he prayed: “Father, please enable the government authorities who work for ICE to accomplish their lawful and moral mission: to ‘protect America through criminal investigations and enforcing immigration laws to preserve national security and public safety.’”

ICE agent Jonathan Ross

Naselli described the ICE officials as brave and honorable, while calling Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey “wicked,” and accused them of “inciting lawbreaking.”

He went on to quote Psalm 58, asking God to break Walz and Frey’s teeth, to tear out their fangs, to make them vanish, to cause them to fail, to melt away like a slug, and to become like stillborn children.

Then Naselli gave five examples of Walz’s and Frey’s “sin”:

• “They have empowered people to murder babies in the wombs of their mothers.”
• “They have enforced policies that encourage transgenderism and that punish those who respect your good design for men and women.”
• “They have granted sanctuary to citizens of other countries who are trespassing, and they have stolen billions of tax dollars from hardworking citizens.”
• “They have encouraged protesters to obstruct the good and responsible work of law enforcement and to riot when they don’t get their way.”
• “They have used rhetoric and empowered policies that endanger honorable law enforcement, such as our fellow member who serves as an officer.”

His prayer concluded by asking for God’s mercy and grace, by praying the ICE officers would be skilled and just faithful servants who could be “a terror to bad conduct” and “righteous avengers who carry out your wrath on wrongdoers.”

And he topped it all off by closing with, “We ask all this so that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. And we ask all this in the name of Christ the King. Amen.”

A peaceful and quiet friendship

For full disclosure, I’ve personally known Andy Naselli for many years and would’ve considered him a friend prior to my deconstruction. We both went to Bob Jones University more than 20 years ago. We also attended the same church for a couple months at one point, until I left after the lead pastor asked me over coffee about the quality of my sex life and said it was his pastoral responsibility to know about the sex lives of every married couple in the church. Our next church occasionally invited Naselli to preach and dreamed of him possibly coming on staff someday.

John Piper

I really liked Naselli a lot. Coming from the isolated culture of fundamentalism, his willingness to work alongside mainstream conservative evangelicals like DA Carson or John Piper was refreshing. Since I’m a Denver Broncos fan, we also connected a lot based on our common appreciation for Tim Tebow.

Naselli always was very calm and kind with me. When he asked me to breakfast, he affirmed what he appreciated about me, encouraged me to attend Bethlehem Seminary and asked for my thoughts on his own career decisions. At one point during our breakfast, he asked with a smile on his face if I had heard of this really hilarious and intelligent writer named Doug Wilson. As a conservative at the time, I thought nothing of it. But looking back in light of Naselli’s prayer for ICE, it’s notable.

I share this to name how odd this entire story is for me.

When I hung out with Naselli, he had the presence of a healing father figure and a growing friend to me. I couldn’t come up with a single negative experience of him to share if I tried. In fact, I watched a really fun conversation about reading and writing between Naselli and Doug Wilson last night where you can get a sense for how relaxed I felt around him.

That’s right: A Doug Wilson conversation that didn’t cause my heart rate to race. When you’re one of the guys in that world, it can feel really chill and peaceful.

So how do I make sense of someone who was so nice to me supporting violent, authoritarian ICE agents without mentioning the woman they murdered during a Sunday morning prayer?

Continue reading at Baptist News Global.