On night two of the 2020 Values Voter Summit, right-wing pastor Andrew Wommack of the Truth and Liberty Coalition criticized protesters against anti-Black racism, going so far as to call the practices of Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors “demonic.”
The Family Research Council, an anti-LGBTQ hate group, held the annual gathering for conservative evangelical Christians and their allies online this year, unable to meet in-person in Washington, D.C., as they usually do due to the coronavirus pandemic. While most topics focused on abortion and the need to appoint a Supreme Court justice who would take down Roe v. Wade, FRC President Tony Perkins invited a few guests to criticize Black Lives Matter, including Eric Metaxas who on Tuesday compared Black Lives Matter protesters to Nazis.
On Wednesday, Perkins asked Wommack what Christians should do to “stand up to the cultural forces” causing “the lawlessness, the looting, the disrespect for law and order.”
“When we see what’s happening on many streets in America, the lawlessness, the looting, the disrespect for law and order, and with the Truth and Liberty Coalition, you're calling on Christians to step out of the church and the power of God,” Tony Perkins said. “We never leave behind what we’re all about—we’re all about leading men and women to Christ—but we’ve got to stand up to the cultural forces. How do we do that?”
“Yes, it is a spiritual battle,” Wommack said. “I saw an interview with Patrisse Cullors, one of the ladies that is a co-founder of Black Lives Matter, and she was talking about how every time there is a Black person killed that they go offer honey and salt as offerings to their departed spirit and that she feels that these people living through her. And it’s demonic.”
“And so there are spiritual forces at work, but it's also how the other side—the reason that there are so many people sucked into this and are participating, and there are some people that I am sure that are actually sincere in their desire to see racial inequalities dealt with—but the reason that they’re sucked into this is because we haven't physically been involved in teaching the true history of this nation, our higher education has been taken over by the ungodly, and they have put forth a cancel culture in all of these things,” Wommack said. “So, see, there's physical things as well as spiritual things, and you have to do both. It’s not a one or the other situation.”
It’s unclear what interview Wommack claims to have seen, but it appears that Wommack may be referring to Cullors’ artwork. Cullors is a trained artist, and a line from her website reads, “In her repertoire of intimate theatrical and movement based performances, Cullors combines themes and creates disruption at the intersection of activism, ritual, and healing, while utilizing raw materials like honey, salt, and coconut milk.”
Wommack is not the first or only to make such an accusation against BLM. Anti-LGBTQ author and religious-right activist Michael Brown has accused BLM protesters of engaging in “witchcraft” when they call the names of people killed by police.
