Rev. Jeff Doucette is a firm believer in the power of music as a form of resistance. The minister at Enniskillen Tyrone United, a rural church on the outskirts of Bowmanville, Ont., decided to host an evening of singing songs in solidarity with Minneapolis on Feb. 19. This comes after the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers and amid the Trump administration’s widespread crackdown on immigrants.
Doucette says he was inspired by the many videos of people gathered in churches and out on the streets in Minneapolis using song as a form of protest and wanted to bring that movement to his community.
You may unsubscribe from any of our newsletters at any time.
Doucette took to social media on Feb. 4 to share the event on the local Facebook pages in the region. When he returned from work that day, his wife broke the news that there was an outpouring of hateful comments on the posts.
“I was just surprised by the hatred,” Doucette says. “I shouldn’t be, because I know what the world is like with a lot of what’s happening right now. But it still amazes me at the level of fear, the level of hatred, the level of division and how people embrace that. I don’t understand that.”
Within around two and a half hours, the comments got so bad that Doucette decided to take down the posts.
“Some [people told me] like, ‘Well, I’m not surprised, Jeff. You know, from the area, it’s quite conservative,’” he says. “I’m like, this has got nothing to do with politics. This has got to do with humanity.”
More on Broadview:
- This Minneapolis church is providing frontline help amid ICE operations
- Charlie Angus sounds the alarm on fascism
- Why a former evangelical author is challenging faith in firearms
Doucette says the comments spanned from making fun of the concept of the event to denying that ICE officers had murdered civilians. (No charges have been laid against the officers who killed Good and Pretti.) He finds it upsetting that “the world has allowed us to be gas[lit] into hating and looking at people as others.”
“The world needs to push back, and music does that,” he says. “Music pushes back when the world tries to tell us a different way of living, singing just has that power.”
Despite the online resistance, Doucette is even more determined to put on the event, pledging that the comments would only encourage them to sing even louder.
“This is what I keep telling [my congregation], we can’t back down,” he says. “My whole hope is for people to say there are ways that we can be in solidarity, that a small rural church can just say there are different ways that we can stand up to the world and be a voice for a different way of living the gospel.”
***
Sarah Grishpul is an intern at Broadview.
Thanks for reading
Independent journalism rooted
in faith and justice is under threat
Broadview is the only media organization in Canada offering thoughtful, values-driven journalism from an inclusive, progressive Christian perspective. But our work depends on your support. If you value what you've just read, please act now.
A gift today helps keep this journalism alive tomorrow.
With gratitude,
