WELL, HERE WE ARE AGAIN with another nauseating topical item in the “Christian” news (and all over social media too). I had not wanted to write about this because it is a subject that I find most distasteful — namely, violence. However, this is not just about any old kind of violence but specifically about “Christian” violence (an oxymoron, if ever there was one!). Violence carried out by a professing “Christian”, and widely applauded by people also professing to be “Christians”. Violence carried out not merely by “a professing Christian” but by a “professing Christian pastor”! Does that shock you? It should!

I am referring here to the now well-publicised beating-up of a 20-year-old young man in the street by a pastor in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA, which led to the pastor’s arrest. The pastor afterward alleged that the boy had threatened to rape his wife and do harm to other family members, although there is no corroborating proof of this. I might ask how it would be possible to hear the young man allegedly saying nasty things from the other side of that busy 4-lane highway and central reservation about his wife and others and from all the way over by the buses in the church car park. It would surely be impossible, as you can see in the well-publicised video of the incident which you will have to find on the internet as it will not allow me to place it here. (If you cannot find it and want to view it (distressing content) I can send it to you). You may be able to view the full incident here: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1025942807084899 . I don’t think you have to be on Facebook to view it.

One can see in the video that the pastor came across the street (a four-lane highway with central reservation) from the church car park (you can see one of the church buses way in the back of shot in the video) to confront the young man and as he got close up to him the young man, obviously feeling threatened (after the pastor shouted that he was going to break his neck, as I will show below), started defending himself while crying for help. At which point, the pastor began hitting the young man on the face and head, flipping him over onto his stomach on the ground and hitting him many times more. He twisted the young man’s neck and held his hair so that he could get better punches in to the face. Altogether he punched him 35 times in the face and head. Then the pastor got up, took a step away and, for good measure, he then kicked the young man in the head with a full leg-swing. I will reveal more about this incident in the text further below when dealing with the ridiculous justifications which people are using for this pastor’s behaviour. Here is an image of the pastor and his wife in their church in front of the stage:

Apparently, over many years there has been some kind of feud between the family of the young man and this pastor, who was subsequently arrested for battery. After being let out on bail the pastor led a church service in which he referred to the violent incident saying: “I fulfilled the scripture. I laid hands on the sick”, quoting Mark 16:18, at which the whole congregation roared with laughter and applauded. You can see a video of that here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTpAFAEBFH4 . Does that seem like an appropriate afterthought to an incident such as that?

By the way (and this may go some way to explaining the heart of this incident), this is a Oneness, Holiness, Apostolic Pentecostal Church of which this guy is the pastor. Here is the irony: Holiness Pentecostals teach a “second work of grace” (subsequent to salvation) that is said to instantaneously cleanse a believer of original sin and fills them with a perfect love for God and others. Are you feeling the irony here? Holiness Pentecostals also add what they call a “third work of grace”, the so-called “baptism of the Holy Spirit”, which is evidenced by speaking in the phony gibberish tongues that I have written much about. I guess getting all these alleged ‘works of grace’, ‘perfections’, and “baptisms” didn’t really do the trick and make this pastor into a right-thinking, biblically-minded disciple of Christ. And with his congregation applauding his actions so fulsomely, one would have to conclude the same thing about them too.

While that incident is shocking enough (and below I will explain why, with Scripture proofs), the most shocking element of all is the vast number of so-called “Christians” who are delighting in what took place. They just LOVE it! So many professing “Christians” are so easily hoodwinked. They will believe anything. And the bigger the lie the more they will believe it. The visible church is chock full of deluded nutcases and they are all making supportive comments to back up this bully pastor. Here is a typical example of one such comment:

“Pastor Spell also eliminated the immediate threat. ‘A true Shepherd stands for his Flock’. Hence, ‘Pastor Tony Spell Delivered The Word’ of ‘Laying Hands Upon The Sick’ via an epic & Biblical ‘FOLDED FIVE FINGER SERMON!’ Hence he made him ‘Lie Down In Green Pastures. God Bless Pastor Spell”.

I have seen this last sentiment quoting from Psalm 23:2 about putting the young man on the ground violently made into a meme such as this:

A large number said that they laughed while they watched the video of the beat-down while others said that “he is a great pastor doing the work of God” by flinging those punches. Many lauded the pastor as a hero and great protector. Here is another image celebrating the pastor as a successor to “Chuck Norris”:

Here is a ludicrous example of an image which has been produced by an admirer to demonstrate the pastor as a superhero:

It really is unbelievable the lengths to which people will go to make a hero on the back of such a tawdry incident. They do the same with Donald Trump, who only has to talk about destroying a whole civilisation and the “Trump as Superman memes appear”. I have to ask: Are so many professing “Christians” on crack? Are they so deluded about so much — even lionizing evil as if it was good? Hold on… didn’t the prophet Isaiah call out “Woe!” on such an attitude (Isaiah 5:20-21)?

I am now going to lay out a number of the ludicrous justifications which people are making on behalf of this pastor and I will respond to them.

Justification #1: “He was protecting his family from a dangerous potential rapist and murderer”.
That the kid threatened the pastor’s family with rape and murder is only hearsay. We have no proof of that as yet, only the pastor’s words, which I would not trust (for reasons that I will lay out further below). In any case, the kid’s family have apparently been in a feud with this pastor for years. The church claims that threats have been made many times, yet none of them have been carried out. It is all just ‘talk’. You say that “he was protecting his family”. So I have to ask, in what way did that beating protect his family? In no way whatsoever. The pastor had simply lost his temper and was revelling in it afterwards.

Far too many people respond to a situation like this without any real spiritual analysis. They superficially believe certain aspects without checking the facts. For example, they mindlessly parrot the notion that this pastor was somehow “protecting his family” without any kind of analysis about whether this was actually the case. Did he really protect his family by what he did? If so, then how? In fact, there is nothing that he did which in any way contributed to protecting his family. If anything, his actions brought his family into more danger. There is nothing chivalrous about what he did. Nothing. Nix. Nada.

If the kid had appeared in the pastor’s house some night threatening evil, then attacking the kid and flooring him by whatever means would indeed be protecting his family. But all he did was lay himself wide open to going to jail for eight years for battery. How does that protect his family? Furthermore, it will just make the young man’s family even more aggressive towards the pastor and his family. I wouldn’t be surprised if a lawsuit was on its way.

Justification #2: “The kid threw the first punch. It was self-defense on the part of the pastor”.
You are being highly selective in your choice of actions. If you listen to the video of the whole incident carefully, you can see the pastor deliberately crossing over a four-lane highway and central reservation to get to the young man. As he approaches the young man, you can actually hear the pastor shout at him: “I’ll break your neck”, and the young man shouts out: “Help me!” The young man clearly thought he was about to be attacked and so initially tried in vain to defend himself from that. He knew that pastor was coming for him and understandably did not want his neck broken!

Furthermore, in any genuine act of self-defence one has to use force which is appropriate to the initial act of aggression. Is hitting an inept young man in the face and head some 35 times and then kicking them in the head as an afterthought really an appropriate response? If you think that it is, then you are a dangerous person yourself who has no understanding of the term “self-defence”.

Interestingly, this is not the first physical attack from that church on the 20-year-old young man whose name is Toby Sherwin). A June 26th report in the Baton Rouge Advocate stated that the 20-year-old man who had been battered by the pastor reported to the police another incident of being battered nearly a year ago:

“[He] told detectives that while he was driving home on July 20, 2025, he passed the church and saw a dark truck in the parking lot. He said the truck pulled out and drove alongside him until he stopped in front of his home on Hooper Road, across the street from the church, according to arrest documents in the incident. Citing home surveillance footage from Sherwin’s home, [police] deputies said 38-year-old Vance Gossett got out of the passenger seat of the truck. He approached Sherwin’s vehicle and hit him several times through the open window before getting back into his truck, which left, a warrant for Gossett’s arrest said… Gossett was booked with simple battery, and his case remains pending”.

For your information, Vance Gossett is a member of that Louisiana pastor’s church. So the pastor is the second one from that church to batter the 20-year-old young man and be charged with it by the police. There is definitely something strange going on here.

Justification #3: “David put a stone into Goliath’s skull. That’s what that kid needed. I thought the pastor was very restrained”.
The fact that you could compare this wayward incident to what David did to Goliath shows that your understanding of Scriptural context is extremely poor. David was chosen by God to deal with the giant from the Philistines who massively outnumbered the children of Israel. The 20-year-old youth who the pastor beat up was hardly a Goliath character! The fact that you could make this comparison from the Old Testament, and infer that a stone should have been put in the young man’s skull, is truly scary.

Justification #4: “But we can all have a lapse of our good intentions and mess up. I don’t think he should be condemned because of one little slip-up”.
One little slip-up? You could only possibly refer to this as a “slip-up” if the pastor repented afterwards. But he didn’t. In fact, as I showed above, he made a public joke out of it in his church using a ‘play on words’ from Scripture about laying hands on the sick (Mark 16:18). This is a man who thinks it’s funny to behave like that in public. This is a pastor who thinks it’s funny for a pastor to behave like that in public. You need to give your head an almighty wobble if you cannot see some inherent violence in this pastor’s behaviour.

Justification #5: “The pastor was protecting his flock as he should”.
In what way was the pastor protecting his flock? It seems to me that he simply lost his temper, regardless of what the kid was saying to him. There was no protection of the flock involved. If the guy had appeared in the church with a weapon, then a take-down would be highly appropriate. But not when you cross a four-lane highway and central reservation to get to a big-mouth kid who should have been ignored in the first place. So many people seem to have no idea whatsoever what it means to be a disciple of Christ bearing a good witness to the world, especially so for a pastor.

Justification #6: “If having to choose between believing a pastor, a man of God, and a local lowlife, I would choose the pastor every time”.
Unfortunately, being a pastor is not itself a foolproof substantiation of someone’s word. On the contrary, I have known plenty of pastors who were liars and hypocrites (and who I would definitely call “lowlifes”) and who would not know Truth even if they tripped over it in broad daylight. It is yet another sign of the gathering apostasy.

Justification #7: “The church complained to the police many times but they never did anything about it. Sometimes you have to take the law into your own hands. The pastor was acting as God’s instrument of justice”.
You are acting on rumours there. The statement of the Local Chief of Police said:

“Allegations that the Central Police Department has failed to investigate complaints lodged by Pastor or Mrs. Spell are untrue. Our records reflect only 5 incidents involving Pastor or Mrs. Spell in the past 4 years, and only one of those involved a complaint against their neighbors”.

Furthermore, taking the law into your own hands cannot possibly be justified in this incident. Such would be vigilantism which, if enacted at will by all and sundry, would create chaos in society. There is rarely any cause to take the law into your own hands. The pastor should have stayed on the church’s side of the highway and gone about his business in a mature and spiritual manner rather than acting out of his flesh so irresponsibly.

Justification #8: “Jesus threw the tables over in the temple and made whips to deal with people who were not acting right. At least the pastor used his fists instead of whips to deal with a hoodlum. All power to him!”
You are comparing two wholly different situations. Jesus was cleansing the temple — the heart of the Old Covenant. As God manifested in the flesh, that was His prerogative. Cleansing the temple was a Divinely prophetic act of judgement, not some kind of display of anger mismanagement. I find it extraordinary that you would use this example of the righteous cleansing of the temple to excuse a pastor who cannot control his rage. Self-control is a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:23), which is certainly not being demonstrated in this terrible incident. You using that example of the temple-cleansing borders on blasphemy. Shame on you.

Justification #9: “I can understand this pastor wanting revenge. It was a long-standing feud, he was sick of the offensive remarks, and he wanted to see an end to it. Vengeance is best served cold and, boy, did he coldly take down that scumbag”.
There are so many revenge movies made these days and they make big bucks because there is a revenge virus inside so many people. It seems that everyone now thinks it is okay to take revenge in any way on anyone they think has done them wrong. One could understand that in the case of the people of the world, but this should not be expected of the people of God. They call it “justice” and think they are acting on behalf of God. But such vengeance is not the way for a disciple of Christ. What on earth do you think that Jesus would say to that? “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me” (Matthew 5:11). That is the right attitude. And Jesus was quick to point all this out:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you not to resist an evil person. If someone slaps you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also; if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well; and if someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles” (Matthew 5:38-41).

Obviously Jesus is not commending us to be doormats allowing evil people to kill us or our families at will. We have a right to defend ourselves when absolutely necessary, even if only with words, as Jesus Himself did when He was slapped by one of the officers standing near him, and He said, “If I said something wrong, testify as to what was wrong. But if I spoke correctly, why did you strike Me?” (John 18:22-23). Those were reasonable questions. But Jesus main purpose in the Matthew 5 quote above is to overrule the Pharisaic practice of using the law, “Eye for eye and tooth for tooth”, as an opportunity to wreak personal vengeance. We must not rush to mete out like for like to those who have wronged us. This must especially be so for those with an office in the church, such as pastors, elders and deacons. And what about the apostles? What do they say on all this? Here is a collection of appropriate Scriptures from them:

“Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Carefully consider what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible on your part, live at peace with everyone. Do not avenge yourselves, beloved, but leave room for God’s wrath. For it is written: ‘Vengeance is Mine; I will repay, says the Lord’. On the contrary, ‘If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him a drink. For in so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head’. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:17-21).

That surely is self-explanatory with regard to the tawdry incident in Baton Rouge. There is more: “Make sure that no one repays evil for evil. Always pursue what is good for one another and for all people” (1 Thessalonians 5:15). “Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing” (1 Peter 3:9). As Peter says about Jesus: “When they heaped abuse on Him, He did not retaliate; when He suffered, He made no threats, but entrusted Himself to Him who judges justly” (1 Peter 2:23). Above all, Paul clearly says:

“To this very hour we are hungry and thirsty, we are poorly clothed, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. We work hard with our own hands. When we are vilified, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer gently. Up to this moment we have become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world” (1 Corinthians 4:10-13).

That is to be our response to any persecution from those under the control of the satanic world-system who may lambast us with horrible words or nasty actions. Our personal witness in our comportment is infinitely more important than any petty grievances.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The truth is that the mass approval of this pastor beating up this young man is part of a much wider approval of violence and associated disobedience to Scripture which has become endemic amongst so many professing Christians. It is that kind of lawlessness which, for example, made them so supportive of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. During that war campaign, because of my stance on it, rightly decrying it as illegal, based on serious lies, and morally unjustifiable, I received far more nasty responses from “Christians” rather than unbelievers. It is that kind of lawlessness of professing “Christians” which, for example, makes them support Israel in its genocidal activities, and accounts for their approval of the recent incursions into Iran, and the whole ‘gung-ho’ MAGA culture.

So many Christians are aggressive and seem to condone violence so long as it is being perpetrated by their own ‘side’, though they don’t see themselves as at all aggressive but “zealous for the Lord”. Ignorance and zeal are a heinous mixture which are most attractive to cults and cultlike people. There is a vast dearth of deep wisdom and true spirituality in the “Christian” scene. It has all become so superficial — people just going through the motions, but consoling themselves that they are very pious. Looking and sounding pious in church on a Sunday, having put on a suit with your Bible ostentatiously tucked under your arm is not at all what true spirituality is about. That is just social mimicry. True spirituality means “clothing yourself with Christ” (Galatians 5:27) rather than putting on a suit. I see nothing Christlike about that pastor who almost everyone is hero-worshipping. For Jesus and the Apostles would never have behaved in such a manner. Never. Under no circumstances.

The same kind of mentality and lack of spirituality which rejoiced to put Trump in office and which applauds all his lunacy is the same kind of mentality and lack of spirituality which supports the actions of this pastor. This incident has perfectly highlighted the dearth of true spirituality in the “Christian” scene. I think that increasingly few professing “Christians” know what to be a disciple of Christ — i.e., a representative of Christ, an ambassador for Christ — really means. Riddle me this: In what ways do this pastor’s words, actions, and behaviour represent the words, actions, and behaviour of Jesus the Christ? If you think that you can provide credible answers to that question, then I believe that you have no clue what being a disciple of Christ truly means.

The Apostle Paul was plagued by false apostles, false teachers, and slanderers. In fact, this is quite likely what he was referring to with his “thorn in the flesh”, given to him by God to prevent him from being conceited (2 Corinthians 12:7). So did Paul give those troublemakers a good thrashing and then quote Scripture to justify it? No. Instead he wrote:

“Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take [the thorn] away from me. But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness’. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest on me. That is why, for the sake of Christ, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:8-10).

That is the attitude of the genuine disciple of Christ, and it is the polar opposite of the attitude displayed by this pastor in the street outside his church. This is why I say that “there is a vast dearth of deep wisdom and true spirituality in the ‘Christian’ scene”. With great trepidation, I have increasingly come to so starkly understand what Jesus meant when He said, “Narrow is the gate and afflicted is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matthew 7:14). I so much want to be part of that “few” and pray that I am; and I know that means being called to a more deeply spiritual way of life than doling out physical blows to those who are an inconvenience to us. Our only weapons of warfare are not of the flesh (2 Corinthians 10:4) — and therefore most certainly do not involve our fists — but they are of the Spirit. A truly Spirit-filled man does not use his fists on the face of a faithless unbeliever. Instead, he falls back on wisdom rooted in a desire for the saving of that man’s soul. Wisdom and spiritual depth are the missing elements in the greater part of the visible church.

Uncontrolled rage is not a sign of strength or protectiveness, or manliness, or warriorism. That so many professing “Christians” think that it is shows that they have no understanding whatsoever about what it means to be a disciple of Christ. In fact, uncontrolled rage is a sign which reveals what the power is at the centre of one’s life. For one is only either ruled by the Spirit or controlled by Satan; and uncontrolled rage is a without a doubt a sign of the latter. This is not to mention the fact that uncontrolled rage by a professing “Christian” in public (especially a professing “Christian” pastor!) is an appalling witness to the unique spiritual calling of a disciple of Christ.

Frankly, I would not go anywhere near the church over which that battering pastor has office. Not only because that church is part of a sect which engages in false teachings but because its pastor is an intemperate bully who falsely uses Scripture almost blasphemously to justify his aggressive actions. A pastor who responds with physical violence and then has the temerity to joke about it at his next worship service in the church (falsely quoting Scripture too) has forfeited the moral credibility necessary for pastoral leadership.

If you agree with what that pastor did and think that he was justified in behaving like that, and you would applaud his use of Scripture to justify it, then you do not know what spirit you are of and you do not have the same God or same Christ as I do. I would therefore counsel you to repent of such destructive deception.

May God alone guide us in the way we conduct ourselves, both in private and, above all, in public.

.

.

.

© Copyright, Alan Morrison, 2026
[The copyright on my works is merely to protect them from any wanton plagiarism which could result in undesirable changes (as has actually happened!). Readers are free to reproduce my work, so long as it is in the same format and with the exact same content and its origin is acknowledged]

.