This is not exactly the kind of behavior that wins hearts and minds.
Nevertheless, barred by a police presence from entering Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, after their grotesque January 18 storming of a worship service over the pastor’s alleged affiliation with ICE, agitators continue to harass parishioners from outside the building as they come and go.
One regular attendee, Caleb Phillips, 21, told Fox News that for the second straight Sunday, agitators shouted insults and heckled parishioners as they arrived for the service and as they left.
Phillips considers their “hatred” a “spiritual battle” against the church, according to Fox. He noted, “It says in scripture that our battle is not against flesh and blood, but is against the spirit, the evil spiritual forces of the world. And I think that this is a situation where that is very much true.”
As Phillips and his girlfriend, who is Asian, left the Church the Sunday after the mob incursion, he said that anti-ICE agitators “hurled racial attacks” at her and accused her of “hanging out with Nazis.”
He compared leaving the warmth of the service and being confronted by these zealots to “stepping into an ice bath.”
“Just the safety and the peace and the joy that we were feeling in the church, in our worship of Jesus Christ, going out and seeing people who are spewing hatred towards us, it made me feel sad for them,” he explained.
Phillips told Fox they offered to pray with some of the least aggressive agitators.
We went up to them, and we said, ‘Hey, can we pray with you?’ And they said, ‘Yes’ … So, we laid our hands on their shoulders, and we prayed with them. We prayed for the peace of the Twin Cities. We prayed peace and blessings for them, because scripture says, ‘Bless those who curse you.’ And they were literally cursing at us. And we decided to bless them because that’s what scripture says.
As they walked away, a demonstrator “with a megaphone began berating them and singled out his girlfriend.”
She starts yelling at my girlfriend and insulting her on the basis of her race. She says, ‘You’re Asian, why are you hanging out with Nazis’ … basically calling her a race traitor in a way and saying that they’re going to come for her next.I will admit, I felt a lot of anger in that moment, just with the fact that we had tried to put a blessing on them, and at least one of them still was spewing hatred towards us. And that was another moment where I kind of had to pull myself back and remind myself, this is a spiritual battle. What is happening right now it’s not about that woman who is shouting those terrible things at my wonderful, lovely girlfriend. It is about something deeper.We’re not going to hate anyone. We’re going to love these cities, we’re going to love the people of our church, and we’re going to love those who hate us and pray for those who persecute us.
Asked by Fox about the ICE-affiliated pastor, Phillips replied, “We’re not going to shun our brother in Christ because his line of work isn’t popular right now.”
One reader rightly pointed out, “If someone can be arrested for praying outside of an abortion clinic, then these animals can be arrested for ‘protesting’ outside of a church.”
This episode underscores the Grand Canyon-sized hypocrisy of the Left: those claiming moral urgency resorted to intimidation, racial abuse, and harassment of worshippers engaged in peaceful religious practice. Far from advancing justice or persuasion, their conduct revealed a movement willing to trample basic decency and tolerance in pursuit of ideological conformity. Whatever one’s views on immigration policy or ICE, targeting parishioners as they pray, sing, and leave church does not elevate the debate — it degrades it. And it raises a troubling question about why such behavior is tolerated at all.
[Featured image via YouTube]
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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