The Chicago Pastor Who Confronted ICE in a Viral Photo

The sidewalk outside of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing facility in Broadview, Ill., seems like an unusual place for an altar call, but that is where Rev. David Black of The First Presbyterian Church of Chicago felt moved to pray and invite ICE agents to repentance.

Since President Donald Trump launched a campaign of mass arrests and deportations in the Chicago area in September, many clergy, faith leaders, and concerned neighbors have been showing up to sing, pray, chant, lead communion, and bear witness in solidarity with people in their community who are being separated from their families, detained, deported, traumatized and forced into hiding. On Sept. 19, Black was on the sidewalk praying for ICE agents and detainees in Broadview when he and other protestors were met with violence. A Chicago Sun Times photo by Ashlee Rezin captured the moment masked ICE agents sprayed Black in the face with chemical irritants. As the image spread on social media, many people commented that the image seemed destined for history books—while others worried about whether the future will have history books.

“If they are doing this to pastors who are praying [...] then it makes me shudder to imagine what they might be doing to our neighbors behind closed doors.”

Black has since signed on to an ACLU lawsuit against the federal government for their excessive use of force in Broadview. But as Black is quick to point out, though he might be “the center of the spectacle right now” this story is not about him. He “shudders to think” what is happening off-camera to the “people [who] are unaccounted for, since being abducted and deported.” Hundreds of detainees who were taken to “Alligator Alcatraz” are no longer on ICE’s database, more than 200 men were sent to a torture prison in El Salvador without due process, and in a facility in Louisiana, detainees have reported abuse and denial of access to attorneys.

Black spoke with Sojourners associate editor Josina Guess about that moment of spontaneous prayer and violence, his abiding love for his community and the Bible, and his unbridled hope for greater liberation for all—both the oppressed and the oppressors.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Josina Guess, Sojourners: What motivated you to show up at ICE protests at the Broadview processing facility in your clerical collar?

Rev. David Black: I first showed up at Broadview in late August, at the invitation of friends and neighbors who were putting on a small protest and asked me if I would help keep them safe from police and do it as a member of the clergy. I showed up not to protest, necessarily, but to be a pastor in that setting at the invitation of people who are not Christians but recognized what it could it mean to be a clergy in a setting where people’s lives are at risk.

People were arrested for exercising their First Amendment rights, and I felt moved to pray. I knelt down in prayer, and the cops declined to arrest me, even though ICE officers were trying very hard to get them to arrest me. Then [ICE officers] moved in and dragged me across the concrete while I was praying for ICE officers who were driving a van and the detainees who were inside the van. The next week when we returned, it was with 50 clergy and 100 other protesters. There was sort of a spark in that moment where I think the clergy of Chicago recognized that there is incredible spiritual power that we wield.

I returned on Sept. 19 with a clergy colleague to support those who were outside the Broadview facility. That morning, [ICE officers] had been shooting pepper balls at protesters and [tear] gassing people.

I was never the smartest seminarian in the systematic theology classes, but I read my Bible every day and I feel very deeply rooted in the scriptures and very formed by what I see Jesus teaching us and how he’s calling us to imitate him. I was moved in that moment to pray in the verbatim words of Jesus, to warn the ICE officers who were standing on the roof about the spiritual consequences of their actions in language that was an echo of scriptural prophetic language talking about how generations after them would view their actions, and calling them to repent.

I quoted Jesus. I said, “Repent and believe the good news, the kingdom of God is at hand.” I invited them to an altar call. As I was speaking the words of Jesus that come to us through scripture, they opened fire on me and they shot me [with pepper balls] at least seven times, twice on the head, also on my torso, my arms, my legs, and very rapid fire.

Immediately there were other people nearby who were strangers to me, who rushed in to shield my body with their bodies. When I was shot on my head, the first time I was kind of stunned; the second time, I collapsed.

The manufacturer’s warnings for pepper balls, which are manufactured in Lake Forest, Ill., say on page four that if pepper balls are shot at heads, necks, spines, and other sensitive areas, they can be deadly. So, it’s either a case of the ICE officers being very poorly trained and supervised, which I think is the case, and/or a case of very malicious intent, which I think could also be the case. Regardless, it is deeply disturbing that people are being paid and equipped by our government and our tax dollars to brutalize people in this way.

I’m the center of the spectacle right now, but this story is not about me. If they are doing this to pastors who are praying and protesters who are singing songs and holding hands and chanting and peacefully showing up to voice their conscience─journalists, teachers, mothers, elders─then it makes me shudder to imagine what they might be doing to our neighbors behind closed doors and in these outsourced internment camps, in [places like] El Salvador.

To me, stepping into that moment was the purest expression I could find in my faith, to pray for those that I felt were my enemies, to seek their blessing and conversion.

In the progressive church, we’ve come to really cringe at a lot of traditional Christian language, but I’m so deeply convicted about the importance of evangelism. That’s what I was doing. It was a ministry of evangelism. I was proclaiming the good news and calling sinners to repentance in deep compassion, because I believe that all bullies are frightened children who deserve to be well and whom God wants to deliver from the spiritual forces of evil that have overtaken them.

I believe in the most traditional and literal way possible that Jesus has called his followers, not just the pastors, all of his followers, into ministries of healing and exorcism and disciple-making. And to me, that’s what this moment is all about.

The world needs to be healed. People’s wounds need to be healed, and they deserve to be healed. I am convicted that demons are not just a metaphor, they are not a misdiagnosis for a psychological condition; they are a real presence, that we have been given the power—through Jesus’ name—of casting [them] out of this world.

And we have been neglecting that and pretending that it’s not real, because it’s scary, and people will think we’re crazy. But I’ve seen, week after week at Broadview, those spiritual powers come to bear.

I’m not the only one witnessing it. I’m hearing people of faith and people of no faith using the word “demons” to describe what we are up against. People recognize that the evil we are facing in this country right now, and in the world, does not have a political solution. It does not have an economic solution. It does not have a social solution. It only has a spiritual solution. The solution is for us to return to understanding what it means to be human, made in the image of God, and to be human among humans who are made in the sacred image of God.

After the ICE agents shot me in the head, I was led away by strangers and friends to a place nearby where medics started helping me, trying to wash out my eyes, make sure I was okay, and I was completely disabled. While they were taking care of me, the gates of the facility opened, and an ICE vehicle started coming out. And the ICE agents, there were maybe 20 of them, came out of the gate with no warning, started shoving into the crowd, pushing people down, slamming people into the concrete and into fences.

I got shoved down, and I was able to recover for a moment, and that’s when I was sprayed in the face. I was just standing there trying to get away. They were using a kettling maneuver to get us into a place where we could not escape, and they were brandishing their weapons. And I was terrified that they were going to kill us in that moment. I was able to sort of stumble out, and I found a news crew.

The news crews had moved pretty far back, because they were being shot at, too. I found a news crew, and I told them that the ICE agents are kettling protesters, their weapons are out, and please get in there and tell the story of what’s happening.

Because I cannot emphasize this enough: We have come with our voices, we have come with prayers and songs of liberation and chants and words of condemnation, and they have responded with escalating violence and also with statements from the DHS [Department of Homeland Security], which are complete fabrications, claiming that protesters are rioting, which is not true, that protesters are throwing rocks and bottles, which is not true.

The most malicious part of that particular statement is they claim that protesters were throwing fireworks at the ICE agents. What we witnessed on the ground is that same night, ICE agents were throwing canisters of tear gas, smoke grenades, flashbangs into the crowd, and into the smoke, they were throwing fireworks from the roof, we could see them throwing the fireworks into the smoke from the roof, and they were using it as a false flag operation to justify increasing violence against us.

Had you been doing anything to prepare yourself, physically or psychologically or spiritually, for the potential of violence? Had you been anticipating that it might happen?

I am under no illusions about how human power works; the Bible is also very clear about this. We have a story of the origin of the kings in Israel, and what happened when the people were given kings, and the biblical witness is that human power will always lead to the consolidation of coercive and violent power that tries to expand itself, which is again, demonic.

Demonology talks about how demons consume, they devour, they need more to consume, they devour, they need more and more, and that’s how power is working in this country. So, did I know that they were going to use that violence against us? No. Am I surprised? No.

Because again, I read my Bible every day and I take it very seriously, it’s the Word of God. I believe that it shows us the time that we are in, and the end of it, in a way that I find profoundly hopeful. Because what Jesus was saying is that the end of the world is near, and it is good news, because these are the birth pangs of a new creation.

Again, it’s evangelical. It’s telling people this is good news, and people feel it so deeply when we show up in solidarity and mutual aid, when people put on inflatable costumes, and with the unbelievable, breathtaking joy of being part of a new creation together, people feel it in their bones.

I am profoundly enchanted and hopeful, and there isn’t an ounce of cynicism in my body, because I see God doing incredible things, and every person on the ground, regardless of whether they consciously believe in God or not, is seeing God do incredible things.

DHS and the White House are putting out materials to recruit ICE agents using scripture and worship music to try and sanctify their work. I’m curious how you respond to these folks who are also claiming an evangelical zeal about their work.

It is long past time for faithful Christians of conscience in this country to reclaim the language and the tradition that has been ripped away from us and that we’ve tried to distance ourselves from because we’re trying not to look like those Christians.

My response to them is all in the Bible. It is anathema. It is a desolating sacrilege. It is the raising up of an atrocious idol, which people are called to worship.

It makes me furious because it dishonors Christ and it disgraces God and God’s grace and mercy and love. The book of the Revelation of St. John, I believe, speaks very clearly about this kind of pattern. I don’t believe that the end of the world and the apocalypse are one future point in time. I think it’s something that is continually unfolding and was unfolding in the Roman Empire and is still unfolding now.

My sincere hope is that all of those people are converted. They are under a profound confusion and they need to be called back into the path to Christ’s kingdom. I believe that people operate under good intentions, that people try so hard to be good.

As a Presbyterian and somebody who really believes the tenets of Reformed Orthodoxy, I also believe in total depravity, that we think we know what is good and we do not, we cannot. We need to be led where God wants us to go.

When I look at a lot of my Christian siblings, who I see being so profoundly confused and misled, I believe they have been made to follow a faith that is based in fear, coercion, and control. The way that many fundamentalist churches and the way that these recruiting videos are framing Christianity is that if you don't do this, you will burn in hell.

There’s a deliverance minister from the 20th century who said that wherever there is coercion, there is not God. I need every church in America to look at its soul and ask, “Are we proclaiming coercion or are we proclaiming the liberation of Christ?”

Because Christ has called us to liberation. The only question we need to answer, which Jesus asks to someone he heals, is “Do you want to be well?” And unfortunately, I think a lot of Christians are not ready to admit that they are unwell. They’re stuck in the pride of needing their woundedness to look like power.

And at the end of the day, we are all children of God, which means we are children. We are frightened. We do not know how to be human well. We need guidance. And we have a God who is our parent, who was our father, for other people who is their mother.

We have a Lord and Savior who is present to guide us and to call us into obedience and conformity with his will. And that is freedom and liberation because God knows what we want and God wants what we want. And we can surrender to God and be made well, if only we are ready to admit that, yes, we are sinners. Not they are sinners, but we are sinners. We’re called to stand shoulder to shoulder, confess our sins and turn to Christ. In my church, that's what we do every single Sunday.

We are imperfect, but it’s enough. It’s enough for God because God meets us in our weakness and makes our weakness God’s strength. I have no fear of this moment. I know that God’s glory is pouring out into the world in such a miraculous and wondrous way. God’s power and strength and glory are all over this. And I really hope that more of my siblings who pastor other churches, who minister in other churches, who lead Bible studies, who lead missions, will proclaim their witness of what God is doing right now to liberate the world and all of its people.

“When I look at a lot of my Christian siblings, who I see being so profoundly confused and misled, I believe they have been made to follow a faith that is based in fear, coercion, and control.”