Since an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis last week, clergy in the Twin Cities have been at the forefront of efforts to protest ICE and Good’s murder. But at least one Calvinist pastor on Sunday (Jan. 11) instead offered a blessing for ICE and asked God to “break the teeth” of those who oppose ICE.
Andy Naselli is a systematic theology and New Testament professor at Bethlehem College and Seminary in Minneapolis, a school founded by Baptist Calvinist preacher John Piper and his church. In 2024, Naselli also started Christ the King Church in Stillwater, a community northwest of the Twin Cities. The phrase “Christ the King” has been popular in recent years among far-right Christian Nationalists.
Naselli published his prayer for ICE on Monday on the site of the Center for Baptist Leadership, a group seeking to push the Southern Baptist Convention further rightward. It’s led by William Wolfe, an official in the first Trump administration. On Friday — two days after Good’s murder — the CBL urged pastors to publicly pray for ICE officers on Sunday, insisting ICE agents are “heroic servants.” They followed that up by publishing Naselli’s prayer as an example of what they want in churches.
In his prayer, Naselli asked God to help ICE “accomplish their lawful and moral mission.”
“In particular, thank you for the ICE officers who are bravely and honorably doing their job here in the Twin Cities of Minnesota,” he added days after the murder of Good, ICE agents pepper-spraying students and staff at a high school, and ICE agents tear-gassing protesters. “Please encourage them and enable them to be righteous avengers who carry out your wrath on wrongdoers (Rom 13:3–4).”
When ICE agents believe they are “righteous avengers,” then executing someone turning away by unnecessarily shooting at the person through a side window is reframed as “honorable” and “moral.” With this rhetoric, Naselli echoed the state theology of the Department of Homeland Security, which frequently co-opts Bible verses to justify the militarized violence of ICE.
Naselli also denounced Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey in his prayer as “wicked government officials” for criticizing ICE. And he claimed ICE agents needed protection from “wicked men and women who are violent lawbreakers.” What he ignored were the facts that Good not only turned away from the ICE agents and didn’t hit one but also calmly explained in her last words, “I’m not mad at you.” The agent killed her anyway and angrily added, “F**king b**ch.”
A makeshift memorial at the site where Renee Nicole Good was shot and killed by an ICE officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, as seen on Jan. 9, 2026. (Craig Lassig/UPIAlamy Live News)
Having cast those who oppose ICE as “wicked,” Naselli then recited part of Psalm 58, an imprecatory Psalm. In 2010, Piper argued that Psalm 58 may not sound loving but is okay to pray against those whose “violence destroys the poor and the weak.” He further cast such violent “wicked” ones as “slaughterers” who go from town to town with their weapons. Psalm 58 would therefore much more likely describe ICE agents than people in their own communities armed with just cellphones and whistles. Yet, Piper’s professor read the same Psalm to instead side with the masked men who came into town with their weapons and again killed someone — after previously killing people in other cities. But theologians of the empire systematically misread the Bible in ways that glorify the principalities and powers of darkness.
“Break the teeth [of the wicked] in their mouths, O God,” Naselli recited in his prayer. “May they be like a slug that melts away as it moves along, like a stillborn child that never sees the sun.”
Naselli added in his prayer that “the people of Minnesota don’t deserve your kindness.” He cited as examples things he disagreed with “our magistrates” for doing, like protecting abortion access, defending the rights of transgender people, defending immigrants, and criticizing ICE agents. Naselli also linked to a piece suggesting that “lesser magistrates” should refuse to follow the laws of officials they deem ungodly. This fringe theological concept is highly anti-democratic but pushed by Christian Nationalists like Wolfe of the CBL.
In his prayer, Naselli asked for God to save the people anyway — by protecting ICE agents. He ended his prayer by suggesting protection for ICE was to bring peace and quiet to Minneapolis: “We ask all this so that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way (1 Tim 2:1–2).” In this truly upside-down worldview, Naselli cast the very force that brought chaos and violence to Minneapolis, that is currently terrorizing people at schools, Target stores, residential streets, and in their own homes, as the key to living “a peaceful and quiet life.” That Orwellian doublespeak makes as much sense as the Vietnam claim, “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.”
Sadly, each generation has preachers excited to stand up as chaplains for the empire. Like Southern Baptist leaders in the Confederacy, German Lutheran pastors in Nazi Germany, and Dutch Reformed preachers in the South African Apartheid regime. Thus, it’s not surprising to see a pastor blessing ICE for killing an unarmed mother. But that shouldn’t make it any less angering or immoral.
So to anyone who tries to bless the ICE killing of Renee Good, I remind them of the warning of Isaiah 5: Woe to those who call evil “good” and Good “evil.”
