By Louise Mathews
If you open a dictionary to look up the term, “useful idiots,” you will probably see a picture of a mob taking over a Baptist church during Sunday worship, crying, “Hands up! Don’t shoot!”
Many of their hands were holding cell phones as they made videos of themselves interfering with people who just wanted to praise their Savior. Instead, worshipers at Cities Church in St. Paul may have been hoping none of the mob was going to shoot them. Podcaster and erstwhile journalist, Don Lemon, who was along for the ride and who documented what he erroneously called the exercise of free speech, noted that children in the congregation were very frightened.
Attacks on the people of God are not new. I am old enough to remember when evil racists blew up my peers Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley (say their names) in the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., in 1963. The maniac who killed nine people at a Mother Emanuel prayer meeting in 2015 still sits on death row. A deranged transitioning man killed two children and wounded 14 at Annunciation Church in the neighborly city of Minneapolis last August. In December 2025, a mob of protestors threatened violence at a synagogue in Los Angeles. These are just a few.
A discussion between two rabbis, Daniel Schobuch and Pesach Wolicki, on YouTube, lists many more attacks on Christians and Jews by a coalition of Marxists and Islamists. Rabbi Wolicki offers an explanation for attacking houses of worship that is far deeper than my original thought that the rude mob in St. Paul acted like they had been brought up in a barn.
He asks why deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and the theocracy in Iran were aligned, stating that many Iranians were embedded with Maduro’s Marxist regime. He equates the massacre in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 with the weekly martyrdoms occurring in Nigeria.
Rabbi Wolicki, a resident of Jerusalem where people pay attention to history and politics as a matter of survival, notes that both extreme Islam and the Marxist radical left hate the West and its foundation, the Bible. Islamists and the radical left demand that people surrender to the authority of a very few people in power. They are top-down, power-driven political systems hostile to bottom-up Western principles that the people choose who will govern them.
He quotes Deuteronomy, in which the Lord tells Israel that it may have a king if it chooses that form of governance (Deut. 17:14-15). The rabbi notes that in Islam, Allah expects total obedience and surrender. Any deviation results in punishment. The God of the Jews and Christians, while just, is the God of love and mercy.
Both rabbis agree that Jews and Christians are more alike than they are different. As Rabbi Wolicki states, “We both believe the Messiah is coming – Christians for the second time, and Jews for the first.” They believe that our differences do not matter to followers of Marx and Mohammed, who do not distinguish between religions in their hatred.
Perhaps most concerning is Rabbi Wolicki’s assertion that Islam, which has never rescinded its original intent to take over the world politically, is using the mechanism of democracy to do just that. He asserts his belief that Islam is not just a religion. It is also a political system. He calls for American Christians, most of whom I believe have a minuscule understanding of history, to sit up and note where Muslims are running for office, and in some cases, being elected. He warns that Americans must look hard at candidates’ values and loyalties to discern if they wish to fundamentally change America.
Zohran Mamdani, a living example of the rabbi’s theory that Islam and the far left are joined together, and Rep. Ilhan Omar may just be the most visible examples in the United States. Look at what is happening in the United Kingdom, though, to see what can ensue if elections of theocrats and Marxists begin to dominate in populous areas such as New York City and Minneapolis.
This week, a meme stated, “Satan’s strategy is simple: make sin look normal and make righteousness look weird.” Certainly, the selfie-taking mob in Cities Church thought they were doing righteous work suitable for broadcast on X or Instagram. They have listened to leaders who convinced them that their right to proclaim the gospel of chaos outweighs the Gospel of Jesus.
As their like-minded compatriots, including the Chicago Teachers Union loudly support them, we can expect more violations of religious liberty. However, many more people are appalled at the church invasion, which is a hopeful sign. So is a recent report that Bible sales are surging and church attendance among Gen Z young adults is increasing.
In Act III Scene 4 of King Lear, Shakespeare wrote, “The prince of darkness is a gentleman.” Not only are the devil’s minions not gentlemen (or ladies) and a threat to our hereafter, they are also a growing menace to the American way of life.
Louise Mathews retired from a career in community colleges and before that, theater. A 13-year come-here in Beaufort, she has been a dingbatter in North Carolina and an upstater from New York.
