A church based in Puyallup, Washington was reported to receive terrorist threats after inviting conservative activist Charlie Kirk over.
The Christian Headlines said that Motion Church Senior Pastor Roger Archer announced last Friday through a video posted in their YouTube Channel that the church received "threatening declarations" after announcing that Kirk will be coming over for an event entitled, "An Afternoon With Charlie Kirk," on May 2.
"Upon hearing that Mr. Kirk was coming to our church, radical terrorist mobs like the ones that rallied on Capitol Hill in Seattle, they sprung into action. They sprung with threatening declarations," Archer revealed in the video.
"They vowed to not only burn our properties to the ground, but also brought threats of physical violence against our church leadership, our neighbors, their properties, and basically wreak havoc in our community, this precious community that we love. Therefore, it is for the safety of my precious city and our precious church people that I have heartbreakingly cancelled our event with Mr. Kirk," he stressed.
"Our deepest apologies go out to Mr. Kirk and his organization. He deserves much better from our state leadership, but, unfortunately, this is where we are. I will not put soft targets in harm's way," he added. "I will not subject our community to destruction. And since our governor will not protect us, we must take this course of action."
As of writing, Archer's more than three-minute video entitled "An Important Message" was viewed 11K times since it was uploaded on Friday. In the video, the pastor emphasized that his church stood "for the purpose of loving God and loving people" over the 23 years it was established and identified their programs in helping and loving their community.
In addition, Archer explained that Kirk, whom he described as an "ardent patriot," was invited to help their church "to help them give guidance on how to reclaim our state." The threats of violence then went against what their church was established for and led to his decision to cancel the event.
Although the pastor did not give specifics on who the threats came from, KTTH Radio Host Jason Rantz tweeted that the threat came from "Antifa radicals."
"DEVELOPING: Antifa radicals from Seattle threatened to burn a church & harm staff after learning @charliekirk11 was coming to speak in Puyallup, Wash. The event was cancelled under the threat of violence," Rantz announced.
The Christian Headlines cited a tweet from the Indivisible Puyallup that praised "local activists" for putting "enough pressure on Motion Church to cancel the Charlie Kirk event." The Indivisible Puyallup claim to protect "our nations values and principles through grassroots political action to resist Trump."
Kirk is identified with former President Donald Trump because he supported him in 2016 and even spoke in the Republican National Convention held in that same year.
The Washington Times reported that local Puyallup Police Department did provide assistance to Motion Church as per Archer's video announcement but since the church had multiple locations "they have limited resources to completely shut down a terrorist threat."
The Times also quoted the pastor in saying that state level leadership has an "apparent lack of interest" in protecting "decent taxpaying citizens" as they have experienced in the past, such that "terrorist mobs know that there is no consequence for their lawlessness" and had "nothing to fear."
