There are angry protesters out there in the streets and all of a sudden they come barging into your sanctuary with their signs, with their voices raised right in the middle of Sunday service. What do you do? Let's talk about it. Coming up right now on the Clearbodation. You're listening to Clearview Today with Dr.
Abadan Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Ryan Hill. I'm John Galantis. Welcome to another great episode of the Clearview Today Show here in our studio with our host, Dr. Abadan Shah.
If you're watching for the very first time today, Dr. Shah is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor, and the host of today's show. Dr. Shah, welcome. It's good to be here.
Good to see you, my friend. Good to see you. Same here. Lots of things happening in the world. We've been talking a lot about current events because these things just keep happening.
Dr. Shah, this past Sunday, just a couple of days ago, a church in Minnesota was just having a normal service, just like always, when all of a sudden, protesters coming into the building with their signs, with their voices raised. Don Lemon is there for some reason, barging in, completely misidentifies the pastor, first and foremost, on live TV and confronts him in. In front of the, all of the, for America to see. Crazy.
Now, this is not like, hey, we're going to catch you in the parking lot after service. This is like during a worship service while people are gathered to worship God. This happens. Yeah, if Americans, whether you're Christians or not, but if you care about this nation, if you believe in the values this nation stands on, If you Believe in the history, the tradition behind what has made us who we are, you should be concerned. You should be really concerned.
as to what took place, Sunday morning. At St. Paul's, this church in St. Paul, Minnesota. City's church.
Yeah. Because very soon it's going to happen to your church. That's right. Or to a church in your town. Yeah.
You know, today it's that old, it's that old saying, today you, tomorrow me. That's right. And for us to stick our heads in the sand and say, well, you know, who knows? And things are going crazy in Minneapolis right now. It'll die down soon.
It's not going to die down. This is going to become more and more and more normal. That's right. Do you want to lay out, Dr. Shah, just some of the context as to why this happened?
Like, why were the protesters there in person? How did we get to this point? Because this feels like almost like a dream. Like, is this real? Is this America?
Is this actually happening?
Well, let's just back up for a moment and think about what's been happening in Minnesota. Minnesota has become a battleground when it comes to. um illegal immigrants. And uh ICE has really buckled down there and um and has been doing what they need to do to get uh to to sort of Roll back what the previous administration did with their open border policy. And so, because of that, a lot of people came in who did not need to be here.
Now, of course, there are people who are being deported who did not come in. Through Biden's you know failed policy But Unfortunately, that's what happens when you enforce the law, because you have completely disregarded the law, disregarded our borders, and brought in criminals. I mean, President Trump is not wrong when he said they unloaded people here from mental institutions and jails into our country just to destroy it. And the administration prior to this one, Trump administration, prior to the Trump administration, the Biden administration, not only was complacent with it, but they encouraged it. And it and so now ICE is doing his job.
And Minnesota has become the battleground. Ice was founded I believe sometime after September 11th. It was sort of a merging of two different. Entities. One, I think, was a criminal, I'm sorry, customs department.
Another one was immigration control. And they merged those two under the whole, I believe, Homeland Security initiative, trying to, not initiative, it's like a had to protect our nation, to make sure that we are all coordinated in our efforts to keep out the bad elements, to keep wrong people from coming and staying in America and causing terror.
So ICE is a federal department, which means they they have been um Um The responsibility to deal with people here illegally. That's their role. That's their job. People here illegally are here because of the previous administration and because of the Biden administration, like you just said, not just being aware of it, but encouraging it. Absolutely.
I hope people recognize that. I hope people recognize that there are people who are still in power and who were in power that are not friends of America. Right. Before someone blows up our inbox with the call of the day. Do you want to address all of the I hate, how do I even say all of the people who are saying, but ICE isn't just getting rid of, they're getting rid of American citizens.
They're getting rid of people who've overstayed visas. They're not deporting criminals. They're deporting citizens. Right. And well, by the way, you need to do a little bit of research.
Go online. Go to Google. Yep. Google is your best friend, right? Go to Google and research and see what Bill Clinton said about this.
Research and see what ICE did under. President Obama, they did similar things. Oh, yeah. President Obama hung a medal around Tom Homan's neck. Right.
Yeah. So let's. But we were all cool with it. Yeah. Everybody was cool with it.
They're not doing anything new. Right. Something radically shifted in a negative, in a terrible way when the Biden and his administration made this the norm. And for you to say anything against this was horrible. It means leftist.
These fringe movements have taken over the Democrat Party to such an extent. that to say anything negative about Illegal immigration is like the cardinal sin. How dare you? How dare you? When even Democrat presidents Where We're doing their job or trying to kick illegals out.
Other than the Biden administration. But now it's almost like, why? Why are you doing that? Why? These are not rapists and these are not murderers and these are not drug dealers.
Why are you doing that? Well, it's unfortunate. But when you go And start getting the bad guys out. There's collateral damage. You have people who may not be bad guys.
But they are not here legally, right? Right. So let's put the blame where the blame needs to be at the feet of the Democrat Party. 100%. You've also got protesters there who are peacefully protesting, but then you also have agitators.
You have people there who are not peacefully protesting. And so, of course, anytime, and we like to put the blame on ICE, but you take any law enforcement officer on the street, any law enforcement officer in the world, any country, and if I go out there and I start directly interfering because I don't think what they're doing is right, the situation is going to escalate. There's no universe in any country ever where I go in like involve myself with active law enforcement and de-escalate the situation. 100%. It never happens.
That's right. But we want to pretend that this is a solely American, solely ICE problem.
Well, the thing that latches people onto headlines often is the bleeding heart narrative: these people are trying to do what's right, they're trying to do good, and they're being assaulted by these officers, they're being taken down by these officers. And we, you know, we're kind of like co-op. Worst into compassion, I guess is the best way to put that. Shamed into compassion. Shamed into compassion is a better way to say that.
But we're not getting the whole story, so we're kind of making snap judgments, which is what the media is running on. And yes, I've seen those videos where it's like, he's a citizen, you're taking a citizen. Right. Well, we don't see. 10 minutes before that video is used, because 10 minutes prior to that, this citizen was attacking the ICE officer.
So the ICE officer rushed him along with several others and dropped him to the ground and handcuffed him and taking him. Oh, you're taking a citizen now?
Well, wait a minute, wait a minute. For different reasons. We're taking that citizen because a citizen was attacking law enforcement doing their job. Yes. Look, there are two different things happening.
But see, this is what. The leftist media has been doing for a long time, but they're really doing it where they're twisting the narrative just so they can. Tell us, look, this is what's happening. They're taking citizens. Yeah, that's not the whole context.
I'm a U.S. citizen and have been my entire life. If I go out there and start interfering with any act of law enforcement, they're going to arrest me. I deserve to be in hanging. Yeah, they're going to arrest me.
And if I'm standing on the side of the road and say, but he's a citizen, John's a citizen. They're taking a citizen. Also, and like, I understand giving people the benefit of the doubt and taking people at face value, but yelling he's a citizen over and over and over does not prove your citizenship. Like, I get it. Like, he may be.
He may be, and he may not be. Yeah, he might not be. Like, how do I know this person's a citizen? It's like, don't you hear him yelling? He's yelling.
He's a citizen. It's like, oh, gosh. Oh, and people have never lied. And I get it. I get it.
You want to give people the benefit of the doubt. Fine. But being a citizen does not mean you can go out there and unpeacefully protest. I think that's a great point, though, because it goes back to your point, Dr. Shaw, about collateral damage of people who have come into the country illegally.
It's unfortunate, but it goes back to people coming here illegally. There's splash damage. There's wide-reaching ramifications that go beyond just that. Person.
So, speaking of splash damage, do you want to tell us about this church in Minnesota? What happened? Yeah, City's church in St. Paul, Minnesota. They were just worshiping Sunday morning, and these protesters, agitators, walked in and started blowing the whistle.
You know how they sounds very much like Nazi Germany. Blowing the whistle, shouting, screaming, and calling out the pastor because one of the pastors or leaders is the active director or interim director, I don't know for sure, of ICE in that region. And so that's this is somehow they got. Information about this, so they showed up at this church Sunday morning. It was very planned.
Yeah. It was planned. It was not randomly. They were walking down the street and saying, Let's go into that church. Oh, yeah, yeah.
If you got Don Lemon there on camera, he didn't just walk by with his crew and see that. Like, this was an organized attack. And Don Lemon, you know, just know that he got kicked out of CNN. I mean, CNN is liberal, and CNN says we don't need Don Lemon anymore. The ratings are terrible.
He is done. He's a hack. He needs to go. That ought to tell you something. That should tell you something.
So they kicked him out.
So he has some YouTube-type things going on, which is not very popular. And so he is there. He and from what people have said. Based on the news reports, is that he was not just there to document. If you're there to document that, again, you were part of the planning.
You're part of the planning, yeah. You did not just show up at this. Don Lemon was not just passing by and pulled over and showed up. And all the equipment was there ready to go. Hey, hey, Don.
Hey, come here. Come here. Look at this. No. Come on, people.
He's hooking his mic up and all this stuff. And he should be very, very, very ashamed of himself. For one, he's not a journalist. That's not what journalists do. Right.
Right. Right. You are an agitator. That's why CNN CNN. CNN is not my favorite news network.
CNN fired you. Ooh, that's bad. And you're a liberal leftist and they fired you. Oh. I feel sorry for you.
That's like the trash that the worst restaurant in the city throws out. Yeah, and anyways, and you go out there and you harass a pastor. And here's the thing: this is why they fired you. you thought that pastor was The ICE director. And he wasn't.
He got us there. He wasn't even there. He wasn't even there on your camera just being like, ah, uh. Yeah. Yeah.
So, so you should do your research, Don. Yeah. Mr. Journalist.
So, yeah. This sort of has, and this has rightfully so led to a bunch of backlash across churches all over America. People are putting out statements, pastors, the North American Mission Board president, people are putting out statements. It is a Southern Baptist church. Yes, of course.
This is an out-of-the-scene network of churches. And this pastor, he did a great job trying to been there, I believe, good 10, 15 years, if I'm not wrong. I may be wrong. Um 10 years probably at least. And um For them to do that.
It's very shameful. Yeah. But I think there's lots of churches all over the country. Probably a lot of them listening, like church members listening to this show right now going, well, the chances of that happening at my church are probably very slim.
So after this episode ends, I probably won't think about this issue anymore. What do you want to say to those people? I would say just know that having lived in a country that did not have Judeo-Christian values. I grew up in India, did not have Judeo-Christian values. Back in the 80s, I remember my dad.
telling us, you know, this this we can see uh the signs that one day India will will persecute Christians. It is coming. And these Hindu militant groups will rise, they're going to get stronger and stronger until they take the government. And then one day once once they are in charge, They will deal with the Muslims 'cause Muslims are minority in India. And and by the way, Mus Muslims in India usually don't cause any trouble.
That's I I would say that's the only part of the world where Muslims are just in their own world. Either they are super rich or super poor. That's where they are. In India. Yeah, the Muslims are either super rich or super poor.
Yeah. They don't do anything. But the next minority, which is much, much lower.
So if Muslims are close to 15, 20%. Christians are less than 1%. Wow. But keep in mind, when your population is 1.3 billion people. Right.
0.01 or 0.09% is still millions of Of Christians in the wow.
So. All that to say Now it's happened in India.
Now the persecution has come. And this time. Then 10 years from now, 20 years from now. People are going to take your children, your grandchildren in handcuffs out of the churches. Churches will be locked, they will be shut down, they will be burned.
So if Christians Today, January the 21st. 2026, don't step up and do something. and do something very decisive against these kind of people. and take actions against What happened? On Sunday, the Then it's a matter of time, but it will grow and grow and grow.
And Christians will regret it. Wow. It reminds me of the beginning of the book of Judges. We did a sermon series. You finished the book of Judges not too long ago, which was a fantastic series.
And in the beginning of the book of Judges, you're coming out of Joshua where Joshua leads the people into the promised land, except they don't quite follow God's commands to the letter. And they fail to drive the people out. And then, you know, there arises a generation that doesn't know the Lord and does what's right in their own eyes. And we are just a hop, skip, and a jump away if Christians don't take seriously what's happening in the world around us. I don't know if this is a conversation we can get through in the next 10 minutes.
So it may be another episode. But Dr. Shell, what do we do now?
So it's like Christians have to do something. Cool.
Okay, what do we do? And how do I prevent this, either prevent this from happening at my church, or how do I have a plan for what to do if this happens at my church?
So those are two different questions.
Okay.
So one question is, what, you know, the big picture, what do we do?
Well, we need to. Have more Christians run for office. We need to get educated about these issues. We need to stand up for. Our freedoms, our Judeo-Christian values that this nation was built upon.
And this nation can only exist if those values continue. If those values go away, this nation will collapse and collapse quickly in the hands of the enemy.
So we need to keep the big picture in mind. represent ourselves in the government. Stand up for our rights, you know, those kinds of things. But the second question is: what do we do now? And there's a great article that was put out just Monday, which was on the 19th, the day after all this heinous thing happened in St.
Paul, Minnesota. It's an article that is found on the Gospel Coalition website. Gospel Coalition is this. Um website or you know um organization Built around reformed doctrine and um. they put out an article titled By Joe Carter is titled The Facts.
You know, Frequently Asked Questions. Right. The facts What should churches do when protest enters the sanctuary?
So type in your search bar. The facts: What should churches do when protest enters the sanctuary on gospelcoalition.org? It's an article by Joe Carter. And This person and whoever else helped him. Did a phenomenal job in putting this together.
So I encourage you to go get it. Go. Yeah. Go on the internet, download this, give it to your pastor. Your pastor may already have seen it, but give it to your church leaders and say, hey.
I heard this on a radio show on Clearview today. Please, can we go read this article and so that we can be better prepared? One of the things they talk about in that article that a lot of people are just unaware of is that a church is not public property. That's right. I mean, it's not.
You have the right as an American citizen to peacefully protest on public property. That does not include a church. A church is private property. And so the property owners can, and this is all covered in the article, but they can set the rules on what is allowed and what is not allowed. And so if that's in writing somewhere, I mean, yeah, absolutely.
These people have broken the law. Yeah, well, it even says that even though the public is encouraged to use it in a variety of ways, it's protected as private property status. It doesn't lose its status as a private piece of property. Yeah, being open, being generally speaking, open to the public does not make something a public form. That's a Supreme Court decision.
Right. So, I mean, they're like when they say, when people are saying in these tweets that they're investigating this and going to prosecute to the full extent of the law, these are criminals who have essentially broken and entering, broken, broke, broken and entered? Broken, breaking in it. They broke into the church, is what I'm trying to say. I don't know how you say that in past tense, but they went in when they won't post to.
Yeah. I mean, this Joe Carter in this article. Talks about the Supreme Court case, Lloyd Corporation versus Tanner. This is 1972, that private property doesn't become a public forum merely by being open to the public. That's right.
So just because your church allows people to come does not mean when people come, they can do or say. whatever they want to do. Is not allowed. That's right. Just like a restaurant is open to the public.
Absolutely. A movie theater is open to the public. They can ask you to leave and they can make you leave. Yeah, absolutely. Same thing applies.
In the church setting. That's right. And so there's a great article. It talks about some of these court cases that have set the precedent as to. How we can handle this.
So don't buy the lie that since we are a church, we have to let everybody in. No, you can tell some people, you gotta go. We as a church have done that. Yes. Our church, at times, when we knew somebody was a threat, or somebody was just waiting for the opportunity to disrupt the service.
We have safety teams, and they said, Hey, hey, I'm sorry, you cannot be here. Great, great point there. And maybe you want to elaborate on that. Should the pastor or the staff ever directly get involved with agitators? No, no, you shouldn't.
The article says that too, but we knew that before that. Yeah, we've had our own safety team for years and years now. And we don't get involved, but we have. People in the church. And it's not just listen, I don't know, let's just talk.
It's not just about I carry a gun. That's not what we're talking about here.
Now, you may or you may not. That's between you and your congregation and your leadership, whatever. This is about people who are level-headed. This is about people who are Kind. But these are also people who are discerning Firm?
And They will not back down.
So they're very gentle, very kind, at the same time. When they mean, I'm sorry, sir, you have to leave, they're not fooling around here. Right. Yeah, that's not a suggestion. Right.
Or, sorry, you cannot come in here. We have, and again, there's also a misunderstanding that you need to have people who have previous military or law enforcement experience. That definitely helps. Don't get me wrong. In fact, we have them, and many other churches do as well.
Great, praise the Lord. But no, you can have average everyday people. But they are they they they are um aware of um the situation. They are A calm? They are kind.
At the same time, they are very firm. They mean it because if they don't do their job, Then somebody is going to get hurt. That's right. It may be an elderly person, it may be a female, it may be a child, it may be the leader of the congregation. I mean, I mean, have you seen that in the past year or two?
You know, pastors, I mean, like we saw on the video, the man pulled a gun on the pastor while he's preaching. And you're like, oh my goodness. Yeah. Yeah. So.
That's what is needed. That's right. That's right. We've heard it put it with this illustration: the pastor is meant to be the shepherd. I mean, that's what that word means.
And the shepherd cares for the flock, but you also have the sheepdogs that are there that aren't a part of it. I mean, they are a part of the flock in the sense of that they're members of the congregation, but they're also tasked with a different role of stepping up and protecting. Yeah, there are people who lead worship. Yeah. Right.
The people who help. In the children's church. And then there are people who are. Asked to serve in this capacity. That's right.
And when you're on staff, like especially if you're a pastor and you've got the word of God completely on your mind and you're locked into that, especially if you're on like pastoral staff or whatever. when that happens and it completely throws you off your element, you're either going to freeze. Or you're going to react extremely hostily. And that's what the agitators want. That's why they're called agitators.
The protesters who come in like this want to provoke you so that you will hit them, so that you will shout at them, and they can get it on camera. And now your name and your face is smeared all over the news. That's why I love Dr. Shah's advice: you have to be prepared ahead of time with a group of level-headed, capable, competent men who are trained on what to do in this situation. Absolutely.
Absolutely. And they can use reasonable force. Again, this is like the last resort. Most of the time, it's simply like, I'm sorry. I know.
I wish I could let you stay here, but this is something very important. Yeah. Let's step outside and talk. And then when you step outside and say, you know, sorry, I'm sorry. I mean, oh, I totally understand what you're saying, but you know, not right now.
We cannot have this discussion taking place because there are other people. And I know you respect that too. We need people who can talk like that. That's right. That's right.
This is not about, well, you do that.
Well, let me show you something. I mean, that's not going to help anything. No. No. This is not Going to de-escalate because that's what you want.
You want to de-escalate the situation.
Now, in this situation, As city's church those agitators came in in I wouldn't say large numbers, but it was it was a large enough that it was not that easy to just talk to one person. Like, if it was just one person walking in causing disruption, it'd be like, okay, let's have two, three people talk to him. But when you have. 30 or 40 show up, and they're blowing whistles in people's faces, having bullshit. Scaring little children.
Come on, man. Yeah. I have a word for you. You need to get... You're an idiot, but you need to get saved.
Yeah. That's true. You do need to get saved. I mean, come on. Yeah.
You try to scare a child. And I know they can always reverse that and say, well, you're doing the same thing when your ICE agents go and scare children. I hear you. I get it. You will definitely have that argument.
But I'm not buying it. Right. Yeah. These aren't, these aren't, this is a church. This is a place of worship.
Right. And, you know, it's a crime. You know, what you've done when you disrupt a public. Worship service. It's a crime.
Speaking of crime, is there ever a point where? Individuals who are either on the safety team or passers should call the police. Oh, 100%. In every one of those situations. I mean, now, if it's just something very simple, like this person has a.
Very you know, low threat level is just they just need to be said, Hey, you need to go on somewhere else. And it's it can be handled very easily. And yeah, of course, you can just like someone, like someone we've had people, uh, like if they disagree with something the pastor says, they raise their hand like they want to talk. Yeah, I had one who can do that one time. No, you don't call the cops on.
Yeah, I don't think you need to call the cops. It's just like. Ma'am, this is not the time or place for that. But I really had a question because I I know what he said and I just was adding to it. This one lady did that one time, raised her hand right in the middle of the service.
And I remember one of our ushers saw that, and he's like, Ma'am, can you step outside for a second and we can talk to you? No, but he said something, and I have a testimony. Yeah. I understand that, but she. Because she wasn't going to put her hand down.
No, no, she was going to be up. She stood up. She stood up, too.
So we were like, in the middle of communion. Yep. That's right. I remember that. She stood up.
It was not just like a hand raised, like a child. Yeah, she stood up and started talking. Put your hand down. And I think I even did that. I was like, later on, but she stood up.
I was like, oh boy, it's going to go crazy. No, we didn't call the cops on her. Why waste their time? That's right. But then there are situations where you need to, one person engaging.
The bad guy. or the disruptor And the other person calling 911 and saying, Hey, we need somebody here. And that's part of having a plan. And that's what I really appreciate about this conversation: that's what churches need: a plan, a plan that is put in place and then executed upon. That's right.
It doesn't just happen by a spur of the moment, shoot from the hip kind of thing. It's God works in the planning, He works in the preparation. And, you know, prayerfully through this conversation, we hope that you who are listening, whether you are a lay person or whether you're on church staff, that you'll have a plan in place. And ultimately, that, like Dr. Shah said, that you will encourage people to run for office, people who will carry out biblical values, people who represent those conservative biblical values, and who will protect religious freedom in the days and weeks ahead.
That's right. Guys, make sure you join us next time, same time, same station. We're going to be diving into another great topic here on the Clearview Today show. Thanks again to our sponsors for making today's episode possible. And don't forget that you can support us by subscribing to the show on iTunes, Spotify, Pray.com, TBN.
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