FIRST ON FOX: Caleb Phillips, a 21-year-old regular attendee of Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, said that leftist agitators have continued to harass and heckle congregants going to services the last two Sundays following their disruption of a service on Jan. 18.
He said that he sees the “hatred” being spewed on him and other congregants as a form of “spiritual battle” against the church.
“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,” Phillips said in an interview with Fox News Digital.
A recent college graduate, Phillips said he has been attending Cities Church since October and that he felt drawn to it because of its “biblically-based” theology and leadership.
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But on Jan. 18, while attending a service with his girlfriend, dozens of anti-ICE agitators streamed into the church sanctuary, screaming chants and bringing the service to a grinding halt.
Phillips described the invasion as a “traumatic scenario” that immediately caused many of the children across the church to begin crying out of fear and confusion. He said the protesters accused congregants of harboring a pastor who is associated with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, saying they “should be ashamed as a church” and that they are “not real Christians.”
“I was shocked,” he said. “It was just such a sudden and just loud [noise], kind of like as if a firework had gone off.”
“Children should not see something like that or experience something like it,” he added.
Rather than being intimidated, he said that Cities Church congregants reconvened to finish their service that same evening. Further, services the past two Sundays have been “packed” with faithful, he said. At the same time, Phillips said there has been a continued presence of protesters heckling and harassing congregants outside the sanctuary.
With the help of the police, the agitators have not entered the church again.
The Sunday after the church invasion, Phillips shared that anti-ICE agitators hurled racial attacks at his girlfriend, who is Asian, and accused her of “hanging out with Nazis” as they exited a service.
He described walking out of the church to face the protesters as 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 said.
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Phillips said he felt called to respond the same way he had during the church invasion, when many of the young church members faced down the agitators in the sanctuary by singing, praying or reading scripture. He and his girlfriend offered to pray with some of the protesters who were not being as aggressive.
“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.”
After that, while they were walking away, Phillips said a protester 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,” he continued. “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.”
Regarding the pastor who is associated with ICE, Phillips said, “We’re not going to shun our brother in Christ because his line of work isn’t popular right now.”
“We’re not going to hate anyone,” he said. “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.”
