As Christian clergy throughout the US take part in ongoing protests in opposition to harsh immigration enforcement movements and extra investment for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, many are nonetheless thinking about the phrases of Rob Hirschfeld. On Jan. 18, 2026, Hirschfeld, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire, inspired clergy in his diocese to “prepare for a new era of martyrdom” and put their wills and affairs so as.
He asserted that “it may be that now is no longer the time for statements, but for us with our bodies to stand between the powers of this world and the most vulnerable.”
Hirschfeld’s phrases attracted numerous consideration, with clergy normally responding definitely, although a minimum of one priest argued that he “did not sign up to be a martyr” and had a circle of relatives and church depending on him.
Different clergy have willingly confronted arrest for his or her advocacy on behalf of immigrants, seeing it as an ethical calling. Rev. Karen Larson used to be arrested whilst protesting on the Minneapolis airport. She mentioned that after persons are being separated from their households and brought to unknown detention facilities, “this is our call” to protest on their behalf.
As a student of non secular ethics, I’m fascinated by how Christian clergy and thinkers believe non-public possibility after they really feel referred to as to interact in social motion.
Ethics of possibility
There are lots of examples of Christian leaders who’ve taken on dangers out of a spiritual and ethical legal responsibility to offer non secular take care of other people in want or suggest for oppressed communities.
Maximum knowledge at the dangers that clergy face of their roles as non secular leaders comes from research of non secular leaders in institutional settings, equivalent to hospitals or prisons.
Scholarship on clergy and chaplains in scientific settings issues to a pro legal responsibility to tackle dangers. Very similar to scientific suppliers who continuously see risking publicity to an infection as a part of their skilled duty, many clergy and chaplains in scientific settings perceive their vocation to incorporate this sort of possibility.
Clergy continuously need to set their very own fears apart.
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Questions on skilled dangers changed into in particular acute all over the early years of the HIV/AIDS disaster, when researchers had been unsure precisely how the illness used to be unfold and caregivers feared they could achieve HIV thru their bedside paintings.
In her memoir about chaplaincy with HIV sufferers, Audrey Elisa Kerr notes that Riverside Church in New York endured to arrange funerals, ministries and make stronger teams for HIV/AIDS sufferers regardless of “terror” within the wider neighborhood about contagion.
As a chaplain herself, Kerr says this tale of “radical hospitality” impressed her to put aside her personal fears and include her skilled function taking good care of individuals who had been sick and demise.
Monks and nuns of the Catholic Church who cared for HIV/AIDS sufferers within the Eighties risked each the worry of contagion and the disapproval in their bishops and communities, since lots of the other people they cared for had been males who had intercourse with males.
Some felt, on the other hand, that they will have to take care of the ones on the margins as a part of their function within the church or their monastic order. Sister Carol of the Health center Sisters of Saint Francis felt that it used to be merely her ethical responsibility as a sister to “go where she was needed,” regardless of doable possibility.
Exam of the moral tasks of chaplains and clergy ramped up all over the COVID-19 pandemic when a minimum of some priest, pastors and medical institution chaplains felt a duty to proceed visiting sufferers for non secular care.
In a mirrored image from 2020, Rev. David Hottinger, then running at Hennepin Healthcare in Minneapolis, famous that chaplains “felt privileged” to make use of their skilled talents, even supposing they took on further possibility as a result of they didn’t at all times have get admission to to ok protecting apparatus.
Dangers in different institutional settings don’t seem to be this sort of subject of lifestyles and loss of life. As a result of their skilled preaching serve as, on the other hand, clergy in church settings do settle for the chance of alienating church individuals after they really feel religiously referred to as to discuss social problems. Rev. Teri McDowell Ott has written about taking dangers when discussing LGBTQ+ inclusion and beginning a jail ministry.
Chance-taking all over social protest
For lots of clergy, non secular and moral tasks prolong past their paintings in establishments like church buildings and hospitals and come with their witness in public lifestyles.
Many really feel a duty to evangelise on problems of ethical significance, even subjects which can be regarded as arguable and may elicit robust confrontation. It’s common for monks and pastors in conservative church buildings to incorporate messages in opposition to legalized abortion of their sermons.
Tom Ascol of the Heart for Baptist Management recommended Baptist pastors to evangelise about abortion within the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election.
Rev. Leah Schade, a Lutheran minister and student, has argued that since 2017, mainline pastors have preached extra continuously on problems like racism, environmental justice or gun violence. Schade says pastors are impressed to talk extra bluntly about social problems as a result of their non secular worry for people who find themselves susceptible to hurt from injustice or executive insurance policies.
Some clergy view their ethical tasks as going past preaching and main them to on-the-ground advocacy and protest. Rev. Brandy Daniels of the Disciples of Christ denomination examines those tasks in an editorial on her participation in a gaggle of interfaith clergy in Portland, Oregon. The crowd used to be convened by way of an area rabbi and supported protesters for racial justice in Portland in 2017. In Daniels’ research, clergy took at the possibility of staying in the midst of protests and dealing with a violent police reaction with the intention to “bear moral witness,” one thing they had been each empowered and obligated to do as non secular leaders.
Risking their lives
There are extra excessive circumstances wherein clergy who challenged executive leaders or insurance policies had been killed for his or her phrases and movements of protest.
The respectable portrait of Archbishop Oscar Romero, displayed within the Metropolitan Cathedral for a memorial carrier in San Salvador, El Salvador, on March 24, 2018.
AP Photograph/Salvador Melendez
In a well known ancient instance, Bishop Oscar Romero, canonized as a martyred saint by way of the Roman Catholic Church in 2018, used to be assassinated in 1980 after talking out in opposition to human rights violations in opposition to deficient and Indigenous communities dedicated by way of the federal government of El Salvador. Romero considered himself, in his priestly function, as a consultant of God who used to be obliged to “give voice to the voiceless.”
All over contemporary protests in opposition to ICE in Minneapolis and in other places, many clergy risked arrest and physically hurt. Rev. Kenny Callaghan, a Metropolitan Neighborhood Church pastor, who says that ICE brokers in Minneapolis pointed a gun in his face and handcuffed him as he attempted to assist a lady they had been wondering, mentioned, “It’s in my DNA; I have to speak up for marginalized people.”
On Jan. 23, 2026, over 100 clergy had been arrested on the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport as they protested and prayed in opposition to ICE movements. Rev. Mariah Furness Tollgaard mentioned that she and others accredited being arrested as some way of demonstrating public make stronger for migrants who’re afraid to go away their houses.
In Chicago, ministers had been hit with projectiles and violently arrested. Presbyterian pastor David Black used to be shot within the head with a pepper spray projectile whilst protesting outdoor an immigration detention heart in October 2025.
The clergy have informed newshounds that they really feel a specific name to be out in public and to give protection to and make stronger their susceptible neighbors in opposition to ICE raids, at a time when households are afraid to visit faculty or paintings and U.S. voters had been swept up in enforcement techniques as neatly.
As I see it, for those and plenty of Christian clergy and ethicists, the decision to ministry contains a duty to precise their values of take care of susceptible neighbors exactly thru a public willingness to simply accept non-public possibility.
