Pastor Jonathan Parnell was leading Sunday service at Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, on January 18, when the house of worship was overtaken by anti-ICE agitators chanting “Justice for Renee Good” and “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” at terrified congregants.
The group included self-proclaimed journalist Don Lemon, who, along with more than 35 others, has been charged with federal crimes related to violations of the Ku Klux Klan Act and FACE Act. The latter makes it a crime to “by force or threat of force or by physical obstruction, intentionally injures, intimidates or interferes with or attempts to injure, intimidate or interfere with any person lawfully exercising or seeking to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship.”
On Thursday’s show, Pastor Parnell and his attorney Renee Carlson joined Megyn to discuss his experience and what comes next in the legal fight.
How It Started
As the pastor explained, it was a Sunday like any other with his congregation gathering to worship. He said he was “at the highest point of our liturgy” and about to read from chapter 13 of the Gospel of John “in the section that’s called the ‘Farewell Discourse’ – which is the longest Thursday night in the history of the world when Jesus is is teaching his disciples in his final moments with them” – when the agitators stormed in.
“In chapter 13, Jesus teaches us to love one another as he has loved us,” Parnell shared. “And so just as I was about to read these verses, a woman begins approaching me on the far right side of our church building. She’s followed by a few other folks, and then she calls out [and] interrupts me… As soon as she says something, almost like a flash mob, people got up in our sanctuary, converged in the center of our sanctuary, and were chanting, were shouting, have their fists raised.”
Parnell called the scene “extremely chaotic” and said some congregants began to flee out the back of the building, while others tried to take cover. As the agitators shouted slogans like “hands up don’t shoot,” he recalled terrified children “putting their hands up in fear.”
“That’s the moment when I turned to the woman who had initiated the protest… and I told her what I would say now. It was shameful. Shame on her. It was a rebuke. We were there to worship Jesus. It is the house of God. It’s a sanctuary,” he recalled. “She invaded that space, and this mob invaded that space with anger and rage. And then from there, it began to just get louder. More chanting. People were blowing whistles. It was an absolutely disorienting moment.”
In the aftermath of the August 2025 mass shooting at the Church of the Annunciation in Minneapolis that left two children dead, Parnell said the invasion was “horrifying” to many in attendance. “There were definitely folks who believed it was an active shooter situation, fleeing, they thought, for their lives,” he said.
Lemon Gets Involved
As Lemon’s livestream of the incident showed, he eventually made his way to Parnell, who remained at the pulpit, to try to get his reaction. The pastor recounted what happened when Lemon stuck the microphone in his face:
“In the midst of all that chaos, absolute mayhem, an individual kind of spawned in and stuck a microphone in my face and asked me what I thought about what was going on. And then instantly, as he began to talk to me, others came forward with microphones and cameras, and it kind of surrounded me. And he was asking me again, what was going on with that? What did I think about it? And I told him, it was shameful, it’s unacceptable, this should not happen ever. And then in the midst of that conversation… he makes a comment about me pushing him.”
Parnell said that comment marked “the turning point” for him in believing Lemon was there with the agitators and not as a member of the press as he has suggested. “That’s when I realized this guy is here with them, he’s trying to incite me, and I was trying to, as best as I can, disengage from that encounter as quickly as I could, trying to be a gentleman as well, trying to be kind,” the pastor recalled. “But it was a very disorienting moment, and one of those things that I’ve thought about so many times afterwards. It just should never happen again.”
The Legal Battle
To that point, Carlson, general counsel at True North Legal, the nonprofit law firm representing the church, said “there is never an excuse to invade a church” and one cannot “[hide] under journalism when they’ve really violated the law.”
Carlson said she was encouraged that a federal grand jury found probable cause to indict Lemon in the case, but she criticized Minnesota state prosecutors for not doing more. “What’s also shameful though is… that, in the state of Minnesota, there is this sense of anti-religious bigotry that has to stop,” she said. “We are very thankful that the Department of Justice has come in, has been aggressive about bringing these wrongdoers to justice. But we have not heard anything from the state’s Attorney General [Keith Ellison] as far as enforcing the law.”
When Megyn asked Carlson if there is going to be a civil lawsuit brought against any of the agitators, she seemingly left the door open. “The freedom to worship is certainly important. That’s something that the church is taking very seriously,” she said. “I can’t get into the legal strategy here today, but… the church is exploring all options to make sure that services is protected and then this never happens again.”
‘Going to Be Okay’
In the meantime, Parnell said his congregation is still healing. “I get the question a lot: How is your church doing? How are things going? And again, ultimately, I want to say, because Jesus is real, we’re going to be okay. We have a hope. We have a future,” he shared. “At the same time… we don’t want to ignore reality… We have seriously increased our security measures. We have children who are still afraid to come back to church. We’re still working through lots of things as a congregation. But, ultimately, we know God has been so kind to us and so we’re very thankful for that.”
“Our church is made up of people from all kinds of different walks of life. It’s been our mission to gather to worship Jesus weekly, to love and serve one another, to seek the good of these Twin Cities,” the pastor added. “We know who we are, and we’re sticking to that. We’re continuing to fulfill our mission to be who God has called us to be.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Parnell and Carlson by tuning in to episode 1,266 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s The Megyn Kelly Channel (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.