{"id":3556,"date":"2026-06-09T13:18:19","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T18:18:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/?p=3556"},"modified":"2026-06-09T13:18:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T18:18:19","slug":"progressive-religious-activism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/2026\/06\/09\/progressive-religious-activism\/","title":{"rendered":"Progressive Religious Activism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Three people wearing stoles over their coats kneel with their eyes closed in front of Terminal 1 at MSP airport. Behind them, police officers in riot gear arrest two other protesters. Photo by Anastasia Dulle, 2026.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On the coldest day of the winter in Minnesota, I stood in a crowd of witnesses at the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport and watched as about 100 clergy members got arrested while praying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The clergy, who represented a variety of religious traditions, had gathered at the airport to block traffic in protest of the Department of Homeland Security\u2019s siege of the Twin Cities during Operation Metro Surge. Specifically, they protested the use of MSP Airport for deportation flights, the detention of immigrants who worked at the airport, and the cooperation of airlines with ICE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The clergy marched and sang together in a crowd before kneeling in a long line in front of the Terminal 1 Departures gates. Many spoke prayers out loud, their voices overlapping as the crowd of hundreds of onlookers cheered, raised signs, and called out protest chants. Some of the clergy joined in reciting the Lord\u2019s Prayer together. Many of those praying held hands, while others held signs bearing the names of airport workers detained by ICE. Some knelt with their eyes closed, their lips moving silently as their breath froze against their scarves or the hoods of their coats. Ice clung to the beard of the man praying in front of me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Police officers ultimately arrested the line of protesters one by one, leading them onto buses with their wrists zip-tied. By the time the last clergy members were arrested, they had been kneeling on the pavement and praying, in -20 F weather, for over two hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This protest was part of a wider \u201cDay of Truth and Freedom,\u201d a general strike and resistance against the ICE siege in Minnesota. Later that afternoon, over 50,000 people gathered to protest in downtown Minneapolis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The clergy\u2019s protest is just one example of the wide range of religious responses to ICE enforcement \u2013 and to crisis and political conflict more broadly. The variety of expressions of religion amid the Twin Cities ICE surge stands as a microcosm of the wider culture of American religion and politics in public life, which is multifaceted, fraught, and contested. One important element of these dynamics, illustrated in part by the airport protest, is progressive religious activism: the place of religion in movements for progressive social change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Religion in Social Movements<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Progressive activism and social movements seek to push society to become more politically, socially, or economically just. While many may think of religion as a conservative social force in the U.S. and around the world, there is also a long history of religious involvement in progressive social movements. In the 18th and 19th centuries, for example, members of different Christian denominations played major roles in movements to abolish slavery in Great Britain and the United States. Liberation theology emerged in Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s as a widely influential movement that grounded political action in an ethic of solidarity with the poor and most marginalized. During the same time, the Black Church in the United States was a crucial source of community organizing, mobilization, and moral authority in the Civil Rights Movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n