Founding pastor of Cities Church warns of growing hostility

A pastor who helped plant Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, urged Christians to continue proclaiming the Gospel amid what he discerns as an escalating cultural hostility in the United States, leaving “Christ or chaos” as the only two options.

The Rev. Joe Rigney, who lived in Minnesota for 18 years and now serves as associate pastor at the Douglas Wilson-led Christ Church (CREC) in Moscow, Idaho, said during a Wednesday interview on “The Tucker Carlson Show” that the recent protest at Cities Church is symptomatic of a spiritual sickness in American society that he claims is abetted by some in the government.

Carlson’s interview with Rigney begins at roughly the 1:10:00 mark in the video below:

Armed enforcers of the Great Replacement swarm ICE officers in Minneapolis. A report from the scene. pic.twitter.com/SPaOYSR7Rh

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A mob of left-wing protesters, accompanied by former CNN host Don Lemon, stormed Cities Church last Sunday during the sermon to protest one of its pastors, who also serves as the acting director of the ICE St. Paul field office.

They called on the pastor, David Easterwood, to resign amid ICE’s crackdown on illegal immigration in Minnesota’s capital region, and shouted slogans in the faces of the churchgoers, forcing the service to end.

The disruption prompted condemnation from some government officials, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, who announced on Thursday the arrest of three individuals involved in the disruption and their charges under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act of 1994.

Rigney, who served at Cities Church until 2023, said there is “escalating violence on the Left of normal Christian people, and I just want to underscore that piece of it.” He noted that Cities Church is not populated by political activists.

“This is not a political church. These are normal, Bible-believing Evangelicals,” he said, noting that their mission is worshiping Jesus, loving one another and seeking the good of the Twin Cities.

“And instead, this political chaos intrudes in the middle of a worship service and disrupted,” Rigney continued, adding that he agreed with the Rev. Jonathan Parnell, lead pastor of Cities Church, who denounced the church storming as “shameful” when it was occurring.

Carlson said Jesus Himself has long been a target of revolutionaries in the past, and suggested the recent storming of the church was a direct attack against Him.

Rigney went on to observe “a deep sickness in our culture” that he claimed some in government authority are encouraging, and that only Jesus can fix.

“They’re terrorizing normal, law-abiding citizens, and then they’re encouraging the lawless and the lawbreakers,” he said of government officials who refuse to punish evildoers. “And because of that, it’s bubbling up. It’s bubbling over, and it’s tragic. It really is tragic. And the only way out is for people to turn from their sins and to turn back to Christ. That’s the only hope this nation has. That’s the only hope for any of us.”

Rigney sees parallels between the trajectory of Christianity in the U.S. in recent decades and the early church, which saw escalating hostility from authorities against church leaders in Jerusalem that eventually broke out into a general persecution after the stoning of Stephen in the book of Acts.

“When you think about the last 20 years and the escalating collisions we’ve seen in our country — about, say, sex, sexuality, and people being harassed just because they won’t make a cake or because they won’t do flowers for a gay wedding — and you see that kind of escalating collision as Christians just try to live faithful lives,” Rigney said,

“The lawlessness spreads, and now it doesn’t matter if you’re a leader or not. It doesn’t matter if you’re prominent or not. You could just be what normal people going to church on a Sunday in an American town, and now you’re going to be harassed and intimidated,” he continued, but exhorted Christians to keep preaching the Gospel, just like the early church.

Rigney later concluded by stating the choice before individuals and the U.S. is “Christ or chaos,” and warned the country will continue to descend into violence, lawlessness and scapegoating if it chooses the latter.

Choosing Christ is often difficult, the pastor noted, because it requires admitting the biggest problem sinners face is themselves.

“If they can’t admit that, then they’re going to start blaming everybody, and eventually they get enough people sharing their grievance, that they’re going to go take it out. And we saw that on Sunday. And so, the only hope is: own it, acknowledge ‘I’m the problem, and God still loves me.’ He sent Jesus to die for my sins, for goodness sake, and so He’s welcoming me back.”

“If you’re the prodigal, running away from God, you can come home. He left the light on. He’s got a really nice robe. He’ll give you the ring, he’ll kill the fatted cat, he’ll throw a big party, because He loves you. So you can just come back. You don’t have to keep running,” he said.

If the nation increasingly returns to Christ, Rigney said, it will not solve all of its political problems, but “we’d have a foundation to build on.”

“It’s Christ or it’s chaos. There is no third option, there isn’t one. That’s all you got,” he added.

Rigney, who is also a fellow of theology at Wilson’s New Saint Andrews College, previously served as president of John Piper’s Bethlehem College & Seminary in Minneapolis before he stepped down in 2023 over what the school claimed were divergent views between him and other seminary leaders over the role Christianity should play in shaping society and government. 

Rigney also played a role in planting Christ Church DC, a church plant by the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC) near Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.

The church, which faces loud and disruptive protesters weekly outside their meeting space, claimed after the federal arrest of Cities Church protester William Kelly on Thursday that Kelly had also been spotted vulgarly harassing their worshipers.

The church issued an X post thanking law enforcement for Kelly’s arrest.

“To those who have visited or attend Christ Church DC this man is familiar. For months he has been treating our worshipers to his limited and repetitive vocabulary. We celebrate the civil magistrate executing their duty to protect our right to worship by arresting William Kelly,” the church said.