5 highlights from Trump's Religious Liberty Commission hearing

2. Jentezen Franklin: ‘We don’t have the luxury of disunity anymore’ 

While most of the beginning of the event focused on Kirk’s assassination, additional acts of violence directed at Christians in recent weeks were also mentioned. Pastor Jentezen Franklin of the Georgia-based multi-campus megachurch Free Chapel, who was also one of the panelists, discussed the recent mass shootings at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and a Mormon church in Michigan. 

As he reflected on the dangers that houses of worship face, Franklin remarked, “We don’t have the luxury of disunity anymore.”

“We are all needing to stand together as never before,” added Franklin, noting how his church had spent $1.2 million on security. “We had two men four weeks ago stand up in the middle of our service” and “began to scream out” and “threaten our congregation that death was coming, destruction was coming.”

Franklin added that “a fight broke out” where the men “had to be tasered” because they “resisted the officers.” He maintained that despite the threats posed to churches and people of faith nationwide, attendance at his services has continued to grow. 

“On the Sunday after Charlie Kirk’s assassination, just in the one campus, we had over 2,000 [more] people than we had the same time that Sunday a year ago,” Franklin recalled. “We had people in the overflow out in our chapel. We had people out in the amphitheater.”

Franklin concluded his opening remarks by asserting, “If ever we needed to stand together and stand up for what we believe and the faith, it’s time for pastors and preachers to do that.”