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Once again, it's business as usual inside Los Angeles County's longest-running restaurant after it unexpectedly shut down earlier this month.

Several faith leaders called urgently for protecting the rights of worshippers while also expressing compassion for migrants after anti-immigration enforcement protesters disrupted a service at a Southern Baptist church in Minnesota. About three dozen protesters entered the Cities Church in St. Paul during Sunday service, some walking right up to the pulpit, others loudly chanting “ICE out” and “Renee Good,” referring to a woman who was fatally shot on Jan. 7 by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis. One of the church’s pastors, David Easterwood, leads the local ICE field office, and one of the leaders of the protest and prominent local activist Nekima Levy Armstrong said she’s also an ordained pastor. The Minnesota-Wisconsin Baptist Convention called what happened “an unacceptable trauma,” saying the service was ”forced to end prematurely” as protesters shouted “insults and accusations at youth, children, and families.” “I believe we must be resolute in two areas: encouraging our churches to provide compassionate pastoral care to these (migrant) families and standing firm for the sanctity of our houses of worship,” Trey Turner, who leads the convention, told The Associated Press on Monday. Cities Church belongs to the convention. The U.S. Department of Justice said it has opened a civil rights investigation. Minnesota Jan 18 FBI asks agents to travel to Minneapolis for temporary assignments amid protests, sources say Immigration Jan 17 Federal officials investigating Renee Good's widow in shooting probe, sources say The recent surge in operations in Minnesota has pitted more than 2,000 federal immigration officers against community activists and protesters. The Trump administration and Minnesota officials have traded blame for the heightened tensions. “No cause — political or otherwise — justifies the desecration of a sacred space or the intimidation and trauma inflicted on families gathered peacefully in the house of God,” Kevin Ezell, president of the North American Mission Board, said in a statement. “What occurred was not protest; it was lawless harassment.” Jonathan Parnell, the pastor who led the disrupted service, is a missionary with Ezell’s group and serves dozens of Southern Baptist churches in the area. Cities Church, housed in a Gothic-style, century-old stone building next to a college campus on one of the Twin Cities’ landmark boulevards, has not returned AP requests for comment. Christians disagree on immigration enforcement Christians in the United States are divided on the moral and legal dilemmas raised by immigration, including the presence of an estimated 11 million people who are in the country illegally and the spike in illegal border crossings and asylum requests during the Biden administration. Opinions differ between and within denominations on whether Christians must prioritize care for strangers and neighbors or the immigration enforcement push in the name of security. White evangelicals tend to support strong enforcement, while Catholic leaders have spoken in favor of migrant rights. The Southern Baptist Convention is the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S. and has a conservative evangelical theology. Miles Mullin, the vice-president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, said faith leaders can and often have led protests on social issues, but those should never prevent others from worshipping. “This is something that just shouldn’t happen in America,” Mullin said. “For Baptists, our worship services are sacred.” On Facebook, Levy Armstrong wrote about Sunday’s protest in religious terms: “It’s time for judgment to begin and it will begin in the House of God!!!” But Albert Mohler, the president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, called the protesters’ tactics unjustifiable. “For Christians, the precedent of invading a congregation at worship should be unthinkable,” Mohler said in an interview. “I think the…

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