2019 Religious Riots

A Oneness Pentecostal street preacher attracts an angry mob in Northern California

## Details

### Place

Continental United States, later worldwide

## Major Events

### Notable incidents

Metallica DemonstrationSt. Louis March Against Religious Oppression

2019 Demonstration against Oneness Pentecostalism

2019 Mosque Demonstration

## Motive and Outcome

### Motive

Defense against a perceived "threat" against religious freedom and free thought

## Casualties and Injuries

### Injuries

Approx. 25

> "*You don't preach Christianity! You are nothing like Jesus Christ! You don't preach love! YOU PREACH HATE!*"
> ― Mathilda McCullum, an Evergreen student, booing a street preacher
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> "*LET FREEDOM RING!!!!!!*"
> ― Douglas Harris
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The **2019 Religious Riots**refer to a series of riots and angry demonstrations made against street preachers prosletyzing on various college campuses and other public institutions that occurred in late spring of 2019 and ended in late summer of 2019.

## Course of events

### Evergreen Institute Demonstration

Sometime in February of 2019, a street preacher began to preach on the grounds of Evergreen Institute. Though the Holy Spirit of God in Him enabled the man to win people over, a majority of the student body responded angrily, perceiving the street preacher as a threat against their Constitutional right to "freedom of religion" and one's right to think for yourself. The street preaching soon came to a head when several Evergreen Institute students organized a mass protest against the street preaching, condemning the street preacher as a threat against the Constitutional right to freedom of religion. Students even complained to campus police about the man, but they did nothing.
Still, the street preaching persisted, and on March 5th, Evergreen Institute students resorted to heckling and booing street preachers that preached to the institute.
Still, the street preaching persisted and the students, fed up with the prosletyzing, angrily pelted the street preachers with food scraps and snowballs (during snowy weather). But their efforts seemed to be in vain: he still came back. At one point, he condemned Evergreen students Geraldine Marx as the "Satanic spawn of Atheism" and LGBTQ+ student Mathilda McCullum as a "moral abomination before God."
This incensed students Doug Harris and Mathilda McCullum, who banded together and a couple of other fellow angry students decided to "go on the offensive", organizing a huge protest against the preachers.
When the preachers persisted, McCullum and her fellow students resorted to verbal slander and condemnation, which soon attracted students all over the Evergreen Institute, many of whom joined the demonstration. Protesters began chanting slogans like, "Let Freedom Ring" and "Death to Religious Dogma!" One student even chanted, "Hail Satan," just to troll the street preachers. This soon escalated into a riot when the students began angrily throwing melted snow at the street preacher in an attempt to drive him away.

### Metallica Concert Demonstration

One day, Evergreen Institute student soon learned that Metallica would be playing a concert in Downtown St. Louis, and that the street preachers may be preaching there as well. As some of the students wanted to attend the concert, it was decided that some of the students would attend the concert, while others launch a protest against the street preachers. Sure enough, the street preachers were on the concert grounds, preaching against heavy metal and denouncing it as "Satanic music." This was the last straw for students Doug Harris and Mathilda McCullum: Harris, McCullum, and a couple of other fellow angry students launched a massive demonstration and publicly shamed the street preachers as they preached to the masses. When the preacher persisted, McCullum and her fellow students resorted to verbal slander and condemnation, which soon attracted other concertgoers who were also perturbed and angry that the preachers were ruining the show for everyone. Eventually, this escalated into physical violence when one student began physically assaulting the street preacher out of annoyance, at one point managing to destroy one of the signs carried by one of the preachers. From there, the demonstration became a massive brawl-millions of people swarmed the preachers and physically assaulted them, cursing their "fundamentalist" agenda, and at one point someone used a blowtorch to set the signposts regarding Christian doctrine of the Last Judgment on fire while another participant angrily shredded a banner proclaiming the wrath of God while shouting, "LONG LIVE FREEDOM!"

### Second Evergreen Demonstration

> "*These guys...they're wolves in sheep's clothing. No wonder people are offended!*"
> ― Edward Maglio commenting on the Second Evergreen Demonstration
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The Second Evergreen Demonstration occurred during "Food Truck Friday", a day when various restaurants drove their vehicles to Evergreen Institute and sold their items to interested students. Unlike the first demonstration, the preachers didn't appear near the Student Center but on the fields outside the Recreational Center's parking lot, where Food Truck Friday was being held. During one of the numerous rounds of "street preaching", one of the preachers called Turkish international student Ilgin Arman a "filthy harlot" who "was going to Hell for worshipping vanity". Angered by this, Douglas Harris punched the sign he was holding in half while Mathilda McCullum assaulted the man with scathing words before throwing a cream pie she'd been eating at him. Later, Mason Davidson and Harper Michaels began verbally condemning the street preachers, with Mason in particular calling the man a "Blasphemer of Jesus Christ and the Heavenly Father" while Harper Michaels repeatedly chanted, "Hail Satan" to troll the preacher. At one point, Kyle grabbed a bullhorn and shouted "Jesus was a Socialist!", followed by slogans and various Bible verses that (in his mind) supported his argument that Jesus was a Socialist. The incident was filmed by Edward Maglio, who commented that the preachers were "wolves in sheep's clothing." The angry students then turned violent, with one student particularly shouting, "Get the f\*#@ off our campus!" at a street preacher while another student wearing an anti-religious shirt took a selfie with her friend.

### The beginning of a revolution

The incidents soon attracted worldwide attention via the Internet, with thousands of students live-streaming the event on Facebook and uploading video footage of the incident on YouTube. One particular YouTube video, shot by Maglio, went viral, with Edward's footage, titled "The War Begins Here...." attracting millions of views seemingly overnight. Edward himself even became a poster child for the "Freethought Revolution".

### Third Evergreen Institute Demonstration

On the morning of September 24, 2019, it was decided that a massive protest was needed to counter what the street preachers were doing, whcih was deemed by the students as hateful. At about 11:25 AM that day, hundreds of students walked out of their classes in solidarity for Geraldine and Mathilda, the slandered students. As the preaching continued, the students chanted pro-freedom slogans and at one point, even slandered the street preachers as "Hateful agents of society." The street preachers attempted to refute the students by arguing that the "true hate" would be not warning people about the wrath of God and the reality of eternal punishment in Hell. However, their arguments were drowned out by angry slogans of "Long live freedom!"; "Hail Satan"; and even "Death to religion!" At one point, Sezen Ulas ranted through a megaphone about how the street preachers "distorted the message of Christianity" by "cherry-picking God."
The incident was videotaped by Edward Maglio and later posted on YouTube. The video went viral virtually overnight.

### October, 2019 Rally

On October 25, 2019, there was yet another massive demonstration against the street preachers. This time, the demonstration was the brainchild of Mason Davidson, who, despite being a Christian himself, was convinced that the strreet preachers were being "Pharisees" causing people to stumble by using interpretations of Biblical theology that seemed to be at odds with other people's understanding of Christian theology and that the street preachers were "forcing one's own interpretation of a Biblical principle" on other people. To that end, Mason and several other students organized a "love rally", serving to counter the preachers' perceived "religious hatred" with genuine love towards other people. Eventually, as the rally went on, Douglas Harris switched on a portable speaker and began playing "Go to Hell for Heaven's Sake" by Bring Me the Horizon, leading the throng of students in an angry musical demonstration against the perceived "hatred" from the street preachers.
Like the previous incident, Edward Maglio recorded the event on camera, and it also went viral.

### Nationwide spread

Due to Edward's footage from both incidents going viral, millions of people across the nation spoke of the video. Edward's footage was even broadcast live on various news stations. In addition to re-igniting the controversial debate between the right to protest and hate speech, Edward's video footage of the Metallica Concert Demonstration sparked a new debate as to whether street preaching was in itself a violation of the Separation of Church and State as declared in the US Constitution. The nationwide community as a whole was divided: some in the international community applauded the actions of the participants of the demonstration as "warriors of free thought", while others denounced the demonstration as an infringement on freedom of religion and a showcase of bigotry and hate speech. Edward himself eventually spoke publicly regarding allegations that Edward was promoting "hatred against Christianity", claiming that it was not his intention for the demonstration to become a riot and that he was merely showcasing to the world the people's right to freedom of expression. He also insisted that he had no part in assaulting the street preachers (which the video footage clearly shows; Edward did not physically assault anybody at any point during the demonstration), though he readily admitted that he participated in the verbal shaming of the street preachers during an interview with Fox News.
Edward's viral footage also inspired other students and various other people to hold similar protests against street preachers: one student at the University of California Berkley posted on YouTube a video of a similar demonstration against Oneness Pentecostal preachers preaching against a heavy metal concert. Another student recorded himself angrily cursing and ranting against the Westboro Baptist Church, while another young man recorded an incident involving an angry mob vandalizing the Westboro Baptist Church building itself.

## Trivia

* These incidents are considered the "gateway" to the Age of Unrest in America.