‘I Think We’re in a War’: Texas Pastors Gather for Training on Islamification Threat

A group with special operations and intelligence skills and filmmaker Chris Burgard teamed up on Saturday to teach pastors in East Texas about how to respond to the rise of Islam in the Lone Star State. 

The Allied Special Intelligence Group is an organization that uses its knowledge of special operations military skills, counterintelligence and human intelligence to educate and train citizens on how to “legally and lawfully, delay, disrupt, dismantle, and remove Communists/Marxists and Terrorists networks from our communities in order to restore and protect our Constitutional Republic.” 

Two of the group’s operatives, John Bennett, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and former Oklahoma state representative, and Matt Shea, who served as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army and is a conservative lawyer, pastor, and politician who served in the Washington House of Representatives from 2009 to 2021, took up the task of educating the Texas pastors about the threat of Islamification. 

Bennett and Shea, both of whom have previously been deployed in the Middle East, were there at the invitation of Pine Baptist Church Pastor Ben Warrick. Warrick told the Daily Signal that he organized the training at his church because he wanted others in his community to be informed. 

“Although we don’t have any mosques in Pittsburg or in Camp County, we have some in Mount Pleasant, that’s really close,” Warrick said. “And honestly, Dallas-Fort Worth, Plano, that area, that’s not far.” 

“I want to be prepared,” Warrick told the Daily Signal. 

“I think we’re in a war. It’s a battleground and I would like to be the tip of the spear and be able to do that strategically, but I’m more of a blunt force, so I’ve got some learning to do,” Warrick added. 

The training began with a showing of Burgard’s film “Remember the Alamo: Don’t Sharia My Texas.” 

The film argues that there is a coordinated effort to introduce Sharia law into American society, with Texas serving as the primary target. The film was used to introduce the pastors to what Islam is and why it is a threat to the state and country. 

Bennett and Shea’s presentation claimed that Islamists seek the destruction of Western civilization and that Sharia law is incompatible with the U.S. Constitution, including the First, Second, Fourth, Eighth, 13th and 14th Amendments. 

The pair said the threat is especially palpable in Texas because their research claims to have identified at least 314 mosques operating in Texas. 

Bennett and Shea drew attention to a 1991 memorandum by the Muslim Brotherhood that uses the term “civilization jihad” to describe a strategy for advancing Islamist goals in the West. 

The memorandum says this jihad has political, social, and religious dimensions and aims to infiltrate civic groups and other institutions like law enforcement. 

Bennett and Shea said the church is the main target of Islamists. 

“I think it’s really important to understand that the church has been the main target forever. It’s been the main target for 100 years for the communist movement, the last 50 for the Islamic movement,” Shea told the Daily Signal in an interview after the event. “The church is what conserves the values that have made this country great, and that’s why they want to attack it.” 

Shea said the way they attack the church is to “undermine the Word of God, denigrate the supernatural aspect of Christianity, and then convince people that it was morally right to stay out of politics and not be involved in the political sphere.” 

“They all say they deserve First Amendment rights, but what they follow is antithetical to our U.S. Constitution,” Bennett told the Daily Signal. “It literally violates our own Constitution.” 

“A lot of Americans are confused. They think, ‘well the First Amendment is the freedom of religion,’ which it is, but they don’t understand what it really means,” Bennett continued. “If you go all the way back to our founding documents, George Mason, who is one of our founding fathers, argued and said as they were crafting the First Amendment, we need freedom of religion, but he was only talking about the Christian religion, the different sects of Christian religion.” 

During the presentation, Bennett pulled examples from key pre-Revolution documents, including excerpts from the Articles of Confederation of the United Colonies, the Mayflower Compact, and statements made by former elected officials in the 1600s. 

He also referenced George Washington’s general orders at Valley Forge from 1778. 

“While we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion,” Washington wrote. “To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian.” 

“One of the biggest questions I get all the time is, is Islam a religion,” Bennett told the Daily Signal in an interview following the presentation. “Islam itself says that it’s not a religion, it’s a complete way of life—social, military, political.” 

This totalizing aspect of Islam, according to Bennett and Shea, is what has formed the “Red-Green Axis,” a term used by some political commentators to describe what they characterize as an alliance between communist or far-left groups, represented by “red,” and Islamist groups, represented by “green.” They claim this axis is opposed to national sovereignty and individual freedoms. 

According to Shea, there are multiple radical groups operating within the Red-Green Axis, including the John Brown Gun Club, Antifa, Unity of Fields, Sunrise Movement, No Kings, and the Democratic Socialists of America. 

The John Brown Gun Club, Antifa, Unity of Fields, Sunrise Movement, No Kings, and the Democratic Socialists of America did not respond to a request for comment by publication time. 

Retired Army Lt. Col. and former Republican candidate for Texas governor Pete “Doc” Chambers attended the East Texas event. 

Chambers said the Islamic and Sharia problem is a “caliphate problem.” 

“We have a system that’s coming into Texas, coming into the United States, that is trying to take over the governance of the United States,” Chambers said. 

Chambers said he attended the event because he wants to know how to stop Islamism from taking over the state and the country. 

“The main thing is that we need to see our leaders lead, and the lesser magistrates, our local level magistrates, follow,” Chambers said. “But if our magistrates, and if our upper level leaders don’t do it, it’s up to us.” 

Chambers, who said he has worked in the intelligence field in Texas, said there are about 400 mosques in Texas, which he referred to as “lily pads.” He said most people view them as “benign.” 

“I’ve spent a lot of time downrange. I know what those places were, and those were forward operating bases for a lot of bad stuff, just to keep it simple,” Chambers explained. 

Chambers reiterated that Texas is the number one enemy to the Islamic caliphate. 

“A caliphate means to take over the world, but they’re doing it in Texas, and Texas is the number one enemy to them; the number one target for the caliphate,” Chambers said. “Because if you take down Texas, the rest of the country goes.”