A Seattle pastor says his city has made it clear that Christians are not welcome after two worship and prayer events were violently disrupted by woke counter-protestors, with the pastor describing in detail the way that individuals who he said were affiliated with antifa descended on Christians and endangered their lives.
For context, in an appearance on “The Ingraham Angle” on May 28, 2025, Pastor Russell Johnson of Pursuit NW in Seattle recounted how a group of violent counter-protestors showed up and “swarmed” an event organized to defend traditional marriage and a pro-life stance, leading to multiple arrests. Describing the chaotic scene, Pastor Johnson said that “Antifa was out in force” and went into detail about the mayhem left behind by a woke mob.
Explaining the situation to Laura Ingraham, Pastor Johnson described the incident as “crazy,” saying, “It started with a worship event at Cal Anderson park,” adding that that event, which was organized in partnership with the Christian organization Mayday USA, “has, of course, been labeled by the media as some sort of anti-LGBT type rally, and it wasn’t.” Pastor Johnson then clarified, “That event offered free haircuts to kids, free bike giveaways, free groceries for the community, free prayer for people who were in need of it.”
Next, Pastor Johnson described that when the worship portion of the event started, it was “swarmed by hundreds of antifa militants,” adding that while press accounts said that the counter-protestors were throwing water balloons, they were actually “throwing water balloons filled with urine at Christians who stood in the park and were assaulted for the high crime of worshiping Jesus in a public space.”
Continuing, the Seattle pastor explained that after the event at Cal Anderson Park, Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell “followed it up with a press statement blaming the church for the violence and saying that we are advocating values that are antithetical to Seattle’s values.” He later added, “Antifa is made up of petulant children who are grievance mongers who decide to perpetuate violence against people that they disagree with, and of course, in a place like Seattle, they are coddled and supported by people like Mayor Bruce Harrell.”
Moving on, Pastor Johnson explained that he organized a second event, bringing Christians together at City Hall to call for Mayor Harrell’s resignation. However, the pastor told Ingraham that “similar things happened” to the events at Cal Anderson Park, adding, “Antifa was out in force. They bloodied and beat up good church people who stood in line to try to get into a rally and sing hymns and worship songs and pray for the direction of the city.”
Next, the pastor said that after the protest at City Hall, “The mayor put out a second statement, even worse than the first, and said, ‘Well, the reason you’re rallying at City Hall is because you are opposed to the idea that I am biracial.” Pastor Johnson described Mayor Harrell as “so out of touch with, I think, a wide swath of his constituents,” dismissing the mayor’s comments and saying, “I think Mayor Bruce Harrell terminated his political career by making those statements.”
Furthermore, when Ingraham asked Pastor Johnson if Christians were “welcome in Seattle” and free to publicly express “traditionally held” Christian beliefs, the pastor replied, “No, clearly not. And in fact, the mayor put that in his statement. He said, in the future, he is going to deny religious groups the ability to pull permits to hold similar worship-themed events in public spaces.”
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Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video