If Your Church Won't Speak Out About a Deported Father (and Thousands More Like Him)—It May as Well Cancel Easter

As a former pastor of over two decades, I could seriously throw up right now.The Trump Administration wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a father of four, to a brutal prison in El Salvador and it is defiantly refusing to honor a SCOTUS ruling ordering him to be returned to his family. A flesh-and-blood human being made in the image of God (in Christian langauge) is knowingly being denied his human and civil rights by our president, separated from his family, and being traumatized in ways none of us can fathom.And in this same week leading into the Easter holiday, pastors all over this nation are posting their effusive, Chesire cat-grinning, "Hey Guys, come on out to our Easter services this weekend!" videos on social media, promising a joyous, festive celebration of the resurrection of Jesus—with ample parking, a cool teen ministry, and free candy for the kids.For hundreds of thousands of supposed spiritual communities, it will be business as usual—which means they will raise their hands to the heavens, singing songs about the freedom found in Jesus. They will openly weep as they rhapsodize about the miraculous work of God in their hearts and the world. They will work themselves into rapturous moments of jubilation—and they will say nothing about Kilmar Abrego Garcia. The millions of Christians filling those pews and sitting in those chairs won’t allow the messy, sickening reality of the suffering inflicted upon a husband and father (suffering, many of them enabled with their votes) to interrupt their self-sedating performative religiosity.And this is a flat-out sin.Churches, pastors, and ministers, If you won’t speak up on behalf of the least of these, if you aren’t willing to leverage your pulpits in the cause of the imprisoned; if you’re going to pretend everything is normal right now—just what in the hot-and-humid hell are you opening your doors for? Why do you exist? Seriously, what is your effin’ point?You should just cancel Easter, shut the show down and call it a day, because the Jesus you claim as your very reason for being told you why he showed up to begin with, saying in the Scriptures: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,because he has anointed meto proclaim good news to the poor.He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisonersand recovery of sight for the blind,to set the oppressed free,to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”This is the work you're supposed to be doing: the poor-lifting, prisoner-emancipating, oppressed-liberating work. This is why you’re here.It's not to hold church services. It's not to have impressive choir performances. It’s not to host weekly parties of privilege where you can feel good about yourselves while ignoring the horrors around you. It isn’t so that you can dazzle people with a dog-and-pony production designed to yank their heartstrings. It isn't so that you can get an extra few bucks in the offering basket and entertain people for an hour before they head to Cracker Barrel. (At least, it shouldn’t be.)So many churches have so lost the plot and so lost their courage, that they will completely ignore a human rights emergency (one among many created by this Administration,) all because they don't want to get their hands dirty or encounter turbulence or lose members.Christian friends, if your church and its leaders are doing business as usual and pretending like everything is fine—run like hell out the door. They have no interest in Jesus or anything he taught.No professed Christian has any business celebrating Easter while doing nothing to free an innocent man and to condemn the people who placed him in chains.Christians, this Easter, may you find your voice and hold on to your soul—or cancel Easter altogether.The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit johnpavlovitz.substack.com/subscribe