Spanish Language Mass = “Reasonable Suspicion”

ICE setting up raids outside churches. Trump’s America. 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/S2f6mzb9WL

— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) October 15, 2025

One half of the UCC, the church which ordained me, was brought to America by German immigrants. They established a hospital, an orphanage, and a mental health facility in mid-19th century St. Louis, all of which are still operating.

Despite that, when WWI came and America got involved, German speakers were treated as suspect. I had church members in the church where I was the student pastor who had spoken only German in their long ago childhood home. That church had an old book with orders of worship in it in German, and in Fraktur, the old typeface that looks slightly Gothic to our eyes.  Hitler modernized that, to give you an idea how old that book was.

Families kept in memory stories of their ancestors during WWI being dragged out of church by the KKK, because they were worshipping in German. One such story involved a man asking plaintively how God would understand him if he didn’t pray in German.

Mock that if you will, and then think of which version of the 23rd psalm and the “Lord’s Prayer” you know. Odds are, it’s the KJV, which is not in the English you speak.

The past isn’t over. It isn’t even past. The only change is, now we’re doing it officially, rather than through private thugs.