{"id":11507,"date":"2026-05-02T03:13:49","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T21:43:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/is-cole-tomas-allen-a-religious-zealot\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T03:13:49","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T21:43:49","slug":"is-cole-tomas-allen-a-religious-zealot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/is-cole-tomas-allen-a-religious-zealot\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Cole Tomas Allen a religious zealot?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div itemprop=\"articleBody\">\n<p><iframe title=\"Everlit Audio Player\" src=\"https:\/\/everlit.audio\/embeds\/artl_xPk5YCv5BDK?client=wp&amp;client_version=3.1.5\" width=\"100%\" height=\"136px\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>(RNS) \u2014 Shortly after Cole Tomas Allen was identified as the armed man who sought to break into the White House Correspondents\u2019 dinner, President Trump <a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/administration\/5849741-trump-white-house-dinner-shooting\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">declared<\/a> on Fox News, \u201cHe had a lot of hatred in his heart for quite a while. And he just, I don\u2019t know. He just, it was a religious thing. It was strongly anti, anti-Christian.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s from the guy who <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=YV7ET0L6WCU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">said<\/a> at Charlie Kirk\u2019s memorial service, \u201cI hate my opponents and I don\u2019t want the best for them.\u201d Be that as it may, the so-called <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/04\/26\/us-news\/read-whcd-gunman-cole-allens-full-anti-trump-manifesto\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">manifesto<\/a> Allen sent out 10 minutes before the disruption makes clear that he considers himself a Christian, feels compelled to justify his behavior in Christian terms and has some background in Christian theology to do so.<\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<hr\/>\n<p>The guts of the manifesto are five \u201cobjections\u201d to the kind of political violence Allen was about to attempt \u2014 objections that Allen goes on to provide \u201crebuttals\u201d to, in a format that harks back to the scholastic technique famously employed by Thomas Aquinas in his \u201cSumma Theologiae.\u201d The first objection reads: \u201cAs a Christian, you should turn the other cheek.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The biblical reference here is to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Matthew%205%3A39&amp;version=KJV\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Matthew 5:39<\/a>: \u201c<span id=\"en-KJV-23274\" class=\"text Matt-5-39\">But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.\u201d Allen\u2019s \u201crebuttal\u201d is:<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Turning the other cheek is for when you yourself are oppressed. I\u2019m not the person raped in a detention camp. I\u2019m not the fisherman executed without trial. I\u2019m not a schoolkid blown up or a child starved or a teenage girl abused by the many criminals in this administration. Turning the other cheek when *someone else* is oppressed is not Christian behavior; it is complicity in the oppressor\u2019s crimes.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>This tracks \u2014 up to a point \u2014 St. Augustine\u2019s important \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newadvent.org\/fathers\/1102047.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Letter to Publicola<\/a>,\u201d which justifies killing in self-defense so long as it is in defense of others and claims that Matthew 5:39 does not \u201cmake us neglect the duty of restraining men from sin.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Allen\u2019s fifth objection is also biblical, from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Matthew%2022%3A21&amp;version=KJV\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Matthew 22:21:<\/a> \u201cYield unto Caesar what is Caesar\u2019s.\u201d Allen\u2019s \u201crebuttal\u201d \u2014 that as long as U.S. officials \u201cdo not follow the law, no one is required to yield them anything so unlawfully ordered\u201d \u2014 is in line with a tradition of Christian argumentation against New Testament injunctions to obey the government that dates back to the Middle Ages.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Before the sign-off from \u201cCole \u2026 \u2018Friendly Federal Assassin\u2019 Allen,\u201d the manifesto offers thanks to a range of people, beginning with \u201cmy family, both personal and church, for your love over these 31 years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>All this is consistent with what we know of Allen\u2019s religious <a href=\"https:\/\/religionnews.com\/2026\/04\/27\/the-christian-dna-of-suspected-white-house-correspondents-shooter\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">past<\/a> \u2014 his upbringing in a theologically conservative Protestant church, his leadership of the Christian fellowship at Caltech during his years in college. What it doesn\u2019t prove is that his apparent violent intentions resulted from religious zealotry.<\/p>\n<p>The term \u201czealot\u201d derives from the name given by the Jewish historian Josephus to the Jewish fighters who sought to expel the Romans from the Holy Land in the first century. Since then, extremists who resort to violence in the name of God for what they consider a righteous cause are to be found in all three Abrahamic religions. In recent times, Islam has had its suicide bombers, Judaism its West Bank settlers and Christianity its killers of <span style=\"color: #333333;\"><span>doctors who provide abortions<\/span><\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>The most famous religious zealot in American history was the abolitionist John Brown, who fought against proslavery forces in Kansas and was hanged after attempting to start a slave revolt by seizing the federal armory in Harper\u2019s Ferry, Virginia, in 1859. He was celebrated and vilified during his lifetime and continues to receive mixed reviews to this day.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMr. Brown, who sent you here?\u201d a congressman from Ohio asked him after his capture at Harper\u2019s Ferry. \u201cNo man sent me here,\u201d Brown replied. \u201cIt was my own prompting and that of my Maker, or that of the Devil \u2014 whichever you please to ascribe it to.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Abraham Lincoln called Brown an \u201centhusiast\u201d who \u201cbroods over the oppression of a people till he fancies himself commissioned by Heaven to liberate them.\u201d It remains to be seen to whom Cole Allen ascribes his commission.<\/p>\n<p><!-- CONTENT END 1 -->\n        <\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/religionnews.com\/2026\/05\/01\/is-cole-tomas-allen-a-religious-zealot\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(RNS) \u2014 Shortly after Cole Tomas Allen was identified as the armed man who sought to break into the White House Correspondents\u2019 dinner, President Trump declared on Fox News, \u201cHe had a lot of hatred in his heart for quite a while. And he just, I don\u2019t know. He just, it was a religious thing. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11508,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}