“Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called children of God,” famously says Matthew 5:9. Perhaps not saying it, however, is Pastor Steve Caudle of Greater Second Missionary Baptist Church in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
After all, “No one likes violence, but sometimes violence is necessary,” he told a congregation Sunday, indulging anti-Trump-administration rhetoric. And such talk has, not surprisingly, sparked a flurry of criticism. For example, commentator Todd Starnes accused the pastor of “using his pulpit to raise up an insurrectionist army.” Starnes later elaborated, writing Tuesday:
“When Elon Musk forces his way into the U.S. Treasury and threatens to steal your personal information and your Social Security check, there is a possibility of violence [Caudle continued]. Sometimes the devil will act so ugly that you have no other choice but to get violent and fight.”
Caudle also serves on the area’s regional planning commission.
Dr. Caudle is not the only pastor to use his pulpit to bully President Trump or his policies. A number of pastors have been intentionally misrepresenting the president’s comments on mass deportation.
That’s because many of these denominations get hundreds of millions of our tax dollars to care for the illegals. And many of the so-called evangelical never-Trump leaders were actually getting checks from the Biden administration to be never-Trump.
Of course, Caudle certainly could have ideological motivations as well. Many black churches are notably left-wing, which is why a certain phenomenon is reversed with black Americans. That is, among the general population, regular churchgoers are far more likely than people who never attend services to support Republicans. Among black Americans, however, church influence is associated with greater Democratic support.
Raise Holy Hell?
Of course, contrary to Caudle’s claims, no one is trying to steal Americans’ Social Security checks. Rather, the administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), headed by entrepreneur Elon Musk, is attempting to eliminate governmental waste, corruption, and theft. If successful, this endeavor could conceivably improve Social Security’s long-term prospects.
Not surprisingly, however, the pastor seemed to know he was wading into hot water. As The Christian Post reports on the sermon, which was titled “The Violent Kingdom”:
When Caudle anticipated the objection of some of his congregation to the threat of violence as not a very “Christian thing to do,” he pointed to what he argued was a biblical mandate from Jesus Himself.
“Why not talk this way? Because Jesus did,” he said, citing Matthew 11:12: “From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been subject to violence, and the violent lay claim to it.”
“The kingdom of God is a war zone,” Caudle continued. “It is a battlefield. … It is a place where the forces of Hell clash against the angelic host of Heaven in a violent spiritual warfare, and we are included in the battle. The violence of this warfare affects every part of our existence; it affects our bodies, it affects our minds, it affects our peace.
“The stress, the chaos and the pressure produced by the violence can be so intense we find ourselves on the verge of collapse, but although we feel that sometimes we are about to break, our charge is to hold fast because Jesus is our battle axe and he will fight our battles.”
Theological Rectitude
Some will score Caudle for allegedly inciting violence. Yet others may say he’s primarily referencing a spiritual battle. Then again, the more astute may point out that this explanation sounds like Islamists’ defense of “jihad.” While much violence is committed in jihad’s name, these apologists claim that it, too, merely references a spiritual struggle.
This said, good theologians are not Amish and have, in fact, rightly established something called “Just War Doctrine.” Four criteria must be met for a war to be just, however, and what Caudle fancies he’s facing wouldn’t qualify.
Unjust War Doctrine
What does qualify is the so-called Left — as almost uniquely violent. (I illustrated this in 2020’s “Violence Inc.: A Leftist Enterprise.”) And Exhibit A would probably be the 600-plus 2020 Antifa/BLM riots designed to drive President Trump from office. This leftist violence is nothing new, either. In fact, it began immediately with the Left’s French Revolution birth in 1789 and has continued ever since. Just consider the following short list of incidents from the past 15 years:
- In 2012, leftist Floyd Corkins attacked Family Research Council (FRC) offices in Washington, D.C., and shot a security guard — after the hard-left Southern Poverty Law Center tarred the FRC as a “hate group.”
- In 2017, a Bernie Sanders supporter opened fire on Republicans at a congressional baseball practice, wounding House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, among others.
- In 2019, a shooter with far-left passions killed nine people in Dayton, Ohio.
- In 2019, an Antifa-associated individual attempted to firebomb a government facility in Tacoma, Washington.
- In 2019, an Antifa supporter attacked an ICE facility in Tacoma, Washington, in an attack that could have killed “hundreds.”
- In 2020, an Antifa activist murdered a conservative demonstrator in Portland, Oregon.
- In 2020, the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) takeover of a Seattle neighborhood saw violent episodes, including shootings, during an occupation by left-wing agitators.
And More….
The list continues, too:
- In 2021, a man with black supremacist views plowed through a Christmas parade, killing six and injuring more than 60 in Waukesha, Wisconsin.
- In 2022, a shooting incident by a black supremacist injured 29 people on the NYC subway.
- In 2022, left-wing activist Quintez Brown attempted to assassinate Louisville, Kentucky, Mayor Craig Greenberg.
- There’ve been multiple incidents of Antifa violence in Berkeley, California, since 2017.
- Ex-Democratic official Robert Telles killed a journalist in 2022 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
- In 2023, during demonstrations against a new police training facility in Atlanta, Georgia, left-wing protesters committed violence, including setting a police vehicle on fire.
Moreover, while the antique media love talking about January 6, they forget the May 2020 riots near the White House. Numerous Secret Service agents were injured, and President Trump had to be rushed to a protective bunker.
So is violence the leftist default? A BLM sympathizer named Michelle Taylor perhaps implied as much. “Violence is the only way, of course,” she wrote in an August 2020 tweet — as long-hot-summer riots raged. (Taylor was at the time, mind you, a frequent university guest lecturer.)
The reality is that just as different religions’ adherents can have disparate moral compasses, leftists and rightists are cut from different philosophical stones. Wallowing in relativism, which boils down to moral nihilism, leftists are low-virtue people. To them, “silence is violence,” as they’ve said — and violence can be, well, expedient.
