Thirty-nine radicals stormed a church in Minnesota while children were worshipping inside.
Now Franklin Graham walked into that same city on Easter Sunday with a television camera and a message for every American watching.
He picked Minneapolis because he wants you to see what the left did there – and what God does next.
Cities Church St. Paul: What the Mob Did During Sunday Service
Cities Church in St. Paul was mid-service on January 18 when 40 left-wing agitators walked through the doors.
They chanted "ICE out," pushed into the main aisle, and surrounded the front rows where families were sitting with their kids.
Children screamed.
The federal indictment later described what happened as a "coordinated takeover-style attack" involving "acts of oppression, intimidation, threats, interference, and physical obstruction."
Former CNN host Don Lemon was there livestreaming it.
Attorney General Pam Bondi did not look away.
By February, DOJ had indicted all 39 participants on two counts – conspiracy against religious freedom and interfering with the exercise of religious rights at a house of worship.
Bondi put it plain: "YOU CANNOT ATTACK A HOUSE OF WORSHIP. If you do so, you cannot hide from us – we will find you, arrest you, and prosecute you."
Franklin Graham Easter 2026: Why He Picked a City Still Reeling
Franklin Graham doesn't pick comfortable settings.
Last Easter, he stood in Southern California amid the wreckage of the Palisades fires. Jerusalem during the Israel-Hamas war the year before that, and Ukraine before that.
He picks the places where darkness is loudest and plants himself there with a camera and a Bible.
This is a city where ICE enforcement triggered mob violence in the streets, where two Americans died during the chaos, and where a gang of political operatives decided a Sunday worship service was a legitimate target.
Dr. Alveda King – niece of Martin Luther King Jr. – told Fox News Digital what she thought of it.
"I was taught to protest prayerfully and non-violently," she said. "I was absolutely shocked and disturbed to see a worship service disturbed with hostility. That is not the way to get God's attention."
Graham didn't mince words about why he chose Minneapolis.
"It's hard to understand the depth to which our country has fallen," he said. "The hatred, the violence, the crime – it's rampant. It seems like the whole world is in conflict. In this time of division, many are wondering, where can we find truth?"
His message, airing Easter Sunday on Fox News, is titled exactly that.
The FACE Act and 1384 Attacks: The Left Has Been Coming for Your Church
The Family Research Council documented 1,384 hostile acts against American churches between 2018 and 2024.
That's an eight-fold increase over the prior five years.
It accelerated after the Dobbs leak in 2022, when a group called Jane's Revenge firebombed pregnancy centers and stormed churches across the country.
Radicals hit Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church in Houston that same summer.
They physically blocked Mass at Old St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York.
Cities Church in January 2026 was the loudest episode yet in a years-long campaign to make conservative Christians feel like targets in their own sanctuaries.
Nobody paid a price for any of it under Biden.
Biden's DOJ used the FACE Act – the same law now being applied to the Cities Church mob – to prosecute peaceful pro-life protesters sitting quietly outside abortion clinics.
Twenty-three of them went to prison.
Trump pardoned them on January 23, 2025.
Walz Watched and Trump Acted and Graham Showed Up
Tim Walz was governor when Minneapolis became a war zone.
Jacob Frey was mayor when the mob violence hit the streets.
Keith Ellison was attorney general when 39 radicals stormed a church – and his office argued the FACE Act didn't apply to houses of worship.
None of them protected that congregation.
Pam Bondi did.
Trump's DOJ hunted those 39 defendants across multiple states – New York, North Dakota, and beyond – and is still not done.
While Walz and Frey let the city burn and Ellison ran cover for the mob, the federal government came in and did the job they refused to do.
Graham walked through the front door of their chosen battlefield on the holiest Sunday of the Christian calendar with one answer to the question his own title asks.
"Jesus told His disciples, 'I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father except through Me,'" he said. "This is what Easter's all about – our hope is in a risen Savior."
Walz and Frey own what Minneapolis became.
Trump and Graham own what it becomes next.
Sources:
- Jasmine Baehr, "Why Franklin Graham chose Minneapolis for an Easter message about truth in a divided America," Fox News, April 3, 2026.
- "Pastors warn of 'chilling effect' after anti-ICE agitators storm Minnesota church service," Fox News, January 21, 2026.
- "DOJ charges 30 more in connection with the storming of the Minnesota church," American Tribune, March 2, 2026.
- "Feds Arrest Three in St. Paul Church Invasion, As Disturbing New Details Emerge," Standing for Freedom Center, January 27, 2026.
- Tyler O'Neil, "'Crosses a Basic Moral Line': 7 church invasions before Don Lemon," The Daily Signal / World Net Daily, February 10, 2026.
- "Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias," The White House, February 6, 2025.
- "Franklin Graham: An Easter message of hope from Minneapolis," Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, April 2, 2026.
