By Joshua Arnold

A Tuesday hearing in front of the House Committee on Homeland Security turned nasty as Democrats got their first chance since the shooting death of Alex Pretti to sink their rhetorical teeth into Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons. Just before the two-hour mark, Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) drew a Nazi comparison, and the hearing somehow went downhill from there.

Goldman Questioning

Goldman pressed Lyons on ICE officers asking people to show proof of citizenship and invoked comparisons to “very nefarious regimes” that also required proof of citizenship. “Is Nazi Germany one?” asked Goldman, who is Jewish. Lyons refused to answer what he called “the wrong type of questioning” and snapped, “The Holocaust Museum is on 14th Street and Independence. If you want to go see Nazis, that’s where it is.”

“People are simply making valid observations about your tactics, which are un-American and outright fascist,” Goldman shot back. “If you don’t want to be called a fascist regime or secret police, then stop acting like one.”

As a matter of logic, however, Goldman’s syllogism was invalid, since it committed the “fallacy of the undistributed middle.” When distilled down, his argument ran thus: ICE checks for citizenship; the Nazi regime checked for citizenship; therefore, ICE is like the Nazi regime. But the same logical form could (fallaciously) prove that Martin Luther King, Jr. was like Adolph Hitler, since both were men, or since both breathed air.

Indeed, the only valid observation to draw from Goldman’s unrelated premises is that both ICE and the Nazi regime are instances of some unnamed entity that checks for citizenship. Since citizens belong to and comprise nations, the entity that checks for citizenship is known as a national government. To be logically valid, what Goldman should have said was this: “If you don’t want to be called a national government, then stop acting like one.” That is where his argument really leads.

McIver Questioning

Believe it or not, the worst was yet to come. Half an hour later, Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.) launched her own safari to hunt Lyons. (Yes, this is the same McIver who was indicted on two federal counts of assaulting immigration officers when she tried to force her way into an ICE detention center on May 9, 2025.)

“Mr. Lyons, do your consider yourself a religious man?” McIver began. “Yes, ma'am,” he answered. “Oh, okay,” McIver responded, in a voice that conveyed, “Well, that’s surprising, but it makes my job easier.”

McIver’s next line was designed to be the zinger, “Well, how do you think Judgment Day will work for you with so much blood on your hands?” Lyons treated that accusation like the improper smear that it was, “I’m not going to entertain that question, ma'am.” But McIver was not ready to let the matter drop, “Oh, okay, of course not. Do you think you’re going to hell?”

At this point, Committee Chairman Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.) retook the floor, although not without difficulty. “While vigorous disagreement is part of the legislative process, members are reminded that we must adhere to established standards of decorum in debate,” he insisted. “Witnesses are here voluntarily. I will continue to remind members that, while oversight is important, aggressively attacking those witnesses personally is inappropriate and not in keeping with the traditions of our committee.”

One point should be made in McIver’s favor. It is refreshing to hear a politician speak of Judgment Day as an assumed certainty. Too often, those who wish to be popular in the world (a category that includes most politicians and even many preachers) will avoid any discussion of God’s judgment to avoid giving offense. But Scripture clearly teaches that “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil” (2 Corinthians 5:10).

Yet there are also several problems with McIver’s comments. First, taken on its face, McIver was engaged in outright judgment over a disputable matter. Nowhere does the Bible prescribe an immigration policy for all nations in all eras, and Christians who believe the same gospel and same Scriptures can come in good faith to widely varying conclusions over what a biblical immigration policy would look like for America in the 21st century. In Romans 14, Paul exhorted Christians to show one another charity over such disputable matters. “Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. … So then each of us will give an account of himself to God” (Romans 14:4, 12).

Second, McIver’s comments assumed that Lyons was guilty by association of shootings committed by other people. Scripture primarily teaches that individuals are only responsible before God for their own sins. “The soul who sins shall die. … The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself” (Ezekiel 18:20). And, even if Lyons bears added responsibility in his leadership role, that does not necessarily make him responsible for any error committed by the thousands of officers in his agency — much less the officers from other agencies who shot Pretti.

Third, McIver’s comments expressed a gospel of works, not a gospel of grace. She asked Lyons if he thought he was going to hell for crimes of which she alleged he was guilty. But the truth is that every person deserves to go to hell for our sins. Whether or not we go to hell is determined not by the magnitude of our sins but by God’s free gift of grace in Jesus Christ. “Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God” (Romans 5:9).

Fourth, setting aside the biblical issues, McIver’s statements improperly mixed governmental and spiritual affairs. McIver asked Lyons about the state of his soul. These are appropriate questions for a pastor in the pulpit, but not for a congresswoman in a committee hearing. On the contrary, the Constitution stipulates that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States” (Article VI).

A House committee is no religious inquisition. While Scripture recognizes government’s authority to judge in temporal matters, it denies government’s authority over men’s souls (Acts 4:19). As Andrew Walker argues in “Liberty for All,” the whole rationale for religious freedom is that government is not competent to judge men’s souls.

This is not to argue for a rigid “wall of separation between church and state,” which is usually interpreted to mean the utter banishment of religious opinions from the public square. Nor does it deny that Christians can — perhaps even should — become government officials. The point is simply that since the church and the state have different spheres of authority, no official can exercise the role or authority of both at the same time.

Weaponizing Religion

Yet McIver weaponized religion to serve her political end. If Rep. McIver really wants to lay out a Scriptural case against the Trump administration’s enforcement of immigration law, then she should challenge House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to a town hall debate, and the two of them could lay aside their official powers, pull out their best biblical arguments, and set them forth as private citizens.

Instead, McIver brought religious arguments into the seat of government itself. She tried to justify this move by arguing that conservatives often mention God, too. But there is a difference between infusing public legislation with moral significance, as one argument out of many, and turning a legislative committee into a religious tribunal, for the purpose of viral personal attacks against a government official.

Coarsening Civic Language

It’s possible to view McIver’s decision as part of a trend towards the coarsening of America’s civic dialogue. Chairman Garbarino pointed out that her norm-breaking questions violated “established standards of decorum” and the traditions of our committee.“

But McIver’s personal attack is not the only form this coarsening takes. Recent years have also seen politicians of both parties employ increasingly crude language in public discourse — almost breaking polite norms on purpose to establish a political identity. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) and former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene have infamously sparred in bouts of name-calling during official hearings.

Recently, both California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) and President Donald Trump used R-rated language to make political points. "Go f*** yourself,” Newsom told Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill ® when Murrill sued a California-based prescriber of abortion pills. “California will never help you criminalize healthcare.” (Murrill responded, “Bless your heart,” a term nearly as harsh when spoken by a southern lady.) Meanwhile, President Trump flipped off a heckler and responded “f*** you” when the heckler raised his past relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

Trump, in particular, has made crude language a staple of his political brand. In a November 2024 analysis, The New York Times found that “Mr. Trump has used words that would have once gotten a kid’s mouth washed out with soap at least 140 times in public this year. Counting tamer four-letter words like ‘damn’ and ‘hell,’ he has cursed in public at least 1,787 times in 2024.”

The reference to kids’ mouths is not spurious. Conservatives often warn that the law acts as a teacher, shaping people’s perception of what is right and wrong. In the same vein, public officials act as role models, shaping what young people view as acceptable behavior for leaders, or even just in public. When the American public square grows crude and indecent, it teaches young Americans to become crude and indecent too.

Scripture teaches us to expect that worldly people speak in worldly ways. “They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness. … They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful …” (Romans 1:29-30). Even believers must beware, for “the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell” (James 3:6).

Christians are called to a higher standard. “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice,” instructs Paul. In fact, “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear” (Ephesians 4:29, 31).

What Paul means is so much more than “don’t use curse words.” He counsels Christians to adopt a whole new mode of speaking, one that loves those made in God’s image and loves God most of all. When “no corrupting talk” issues from our mouths, we don’t curse, we don’t make slanderous accusations, we don’t weaponize religion, we don’t build ourselves up at others’ expense, and we don’t speak evil of one another.

Christians don’t expect that non-Christians will necessarily meet this high standard of speech without the life-transforming power of the Holy Spirit. But neither should Christians lower the standard for acceptable speech. Worldly politicians may use coarse language, but Christians should be clear that this is neither acceptable civic discourse nor a model for the next generation.

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand. This piece was originally published here.