Shocking video shows church’s mock rifle execution in front of kids. Pastor blames it on Satan.

"What the actual f**k," said one commenter on TikTok.

A pastor in Kentucky is defending a skit he staged at the Mt. Olivet Baptist Church in Lexington, which featured teen boys armed with assault rifles “shooting” another parishioner to cheers from children and their parents.

He’s blaming the controversy on Satan.

Related

Pete Hegseth’s pastor describes his terrifying Christian nationalist dream for the U.S.

Never Miss a Beat

Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today

“What the actual f**k,” said one commenter on TikTok, where the clip has gone viral.

The occasion was Vacation Bible School at Mt. Olivet, a regular summer feature of Baptist and other Christian denominations, particularly in the U.S. South.

The clip shows young men with realistic-looking assault weapons, dressed in green fatigues like Army troops, approaching steps leading to the church’s altar, where another young man dressed in black is splayed. Then the teens start “shooting.”

Young children in the chapel scream with delight.

Encouraging the kids is Mt. Olivet Pastor Dewayne Walker, who explained in a later post to Facebook that the boy on the steps represented “sin” and the “Devil.”

Walker leads a chorus of children and parents shouting, “Take him out! Blow him up! Take him out! Blow him up!”

Exactly what the children thought was happening is impossible to say, other than it was what they were witnessing: teenagers wielding assault rifles and repeatedly “shooting” a victim writhing on the altar steps.

The boys then drag their victim out a side door, where they will presumably “blow him up.”

Who shot the video and posted it remains a mystery.

In his video statement after the clip went viral, Walker called the controversy a “firestorm,” and admitted that he was, “quite frankly, befuddled.”  

“We make church a fun place, a happy place. A place where we hate sin, but we love the sinner. A place where we exalt Jesus, and we hate the Devil,” he said., “I think you’d be in agreement that we shouldn’t love the Devil. I think we’re all in agreement that there’s such a thing as spiritual warfare.”

The pastor explained that the church has “had this ‘evil against good’ in our vacation Bible school the last several years. We’ve had the Commandos for Christ that have the Gospel Gun. It’s the answer for the Devil: the gospel and the word of God. It’s the answer. The clip you saw was simply killing the Devil.”

“If you had been here, you’d have saw the ‘building up’ to that point. That boy, they had it coming to him all week long. They’ve been sowing mischief, and we’d be having a good time, and that’s what the Devil does, friend. He’s trying to infiltrate our homes. He’s trying to infiltrate our government. He’s trying to infiltrate everything. He’s a bad customer,” he explained.

“And how this thing has gotten blown up to the point now,” he continued. “People have called me and said, ‘Preacher, they’re saying this is killing people that don’t believe like us.’ All I can say is, ‘Where did that come from?’

“It’s a character called the Devil,” he said.

Subscribe to the  LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.