Today, September 11, 2026, twenty-five years after the attacks that permanently changed the lives of American Muslims, protesters showed up outside a mosque in Plano, Texas.
Among them was a Christian pastor named Richard Penkoski with a loudspeaker.
Now, you might imagine a pastor standing outside a mosque would have something to say about Jesus. Maybe he would talk about loving your enemies. Maybe forgiveness. Maybe the Sermon on the Mount. Maybe he would try to explain why he believes Muslims should become Christians.
Nope.
Instead, he stood there yelling sexually graphic insults about the Prophet Muhammad.
In one reel from the protest, the pastor called Muhammad a “pervert,” described Aisha as a child who had been “molested,” mocked revelation by repeatedly saying, “Oop, Allah told me,” and then launched into an increasingly bizarre sexual story claiming Muhammad allowed men to “inseminate him” because he supposedly believed their semen would give him strength.
He eventually announced through the loudspeaker that Muhammad had the sexual strength of thirty men because, according to the pastor, Muhammad had been “plowed all night by a bunch” of men.
Outside a mosque.On September 11.
With a loudspeaker.
And presumably somewhere in this man’s mind, this is Christian evangelism.
That is the part I cannot get past.Seriously, what is the purpose of driving to Plano, standing outside a mosque in the Texas heat, hauling out amplification equipment, and screaming graphic sexual insults about a man Muslims consider the Messenger of God?Who exactly is supposed to hear this and think, You know what? I need to learn more about Jesus.
Because this isn’t evangelism in any meaningful sense. Nobody drives through Plano heat with a loudspeaker, stands outside a mosque, calls Muhammad a pervert, invents grotesque sexual stories, and reasonably expects a Muslim listening to think, Tell me more about Jesus.
Whatever he believes his purpose is, what the behavior actually accomplishes is pretty clear: humiliation, provocation, and performance for his own side. The Muslims are almost beside the point. They’re the stage prop.
The sexual obscenity is especially revealing. He isn’t explaining Christianity. He isn’t talking about Jesus’ teachings. He isn’t inviting anyone to read the Gospels. He’s trying to make Muhammad disgusting in the imagination of his audience. Once you get to “Muhammad was plowed all night by a bunch of men,” you have left apologetics, theology, history, and evangelism somewhere several exits back.
Who Is This Actually For?
It looks much more like content for supporters who want to watch a preacher “stand up to Islam.” The mosque gives him an enemy, the loudspeaker gives him theater, offended Muslims give him potential reaction footage, and the whole thing can later be packaged as evidence that he was courageously “preaching the Gospel.”
Meanwhile, think about the absurdity of the method. Muslims already revere Jesus as the Messiah, honor Mary, and regard Jesus as one of God's great messengers. If somebody genuinely wanted to begin a Christian-Muslim conversation about Jesus, there are a hundred intelligent places to start.
Instead he went with “your prophet got plowed by a bunch of men.”
That tells me far more about the preacher than it tells me about Islam.
And there is another irony here. He presumably wants Muslims to associate Jesus with Christianity. So he stands outside their mosque spewing sexual vulgarity and accusations through an amplifier while carrying Jesus’ name with him.
If I were standing inside that mosque wondering what Christianity produces in people, this man would be doing Christianity no favors whatsoever.
The Muslims he is screaming at may forget most of his historical claims five minutes later. What they may remember is that a Christian pastor showed up at their place of worship on September 11, in the Texas heat, specifically to insult the man they love as the Messenger of God.
Then Christians wonder why nobody came outside asking to be baptized.
If Conversion Is the Goal, the Method Makes No Sense
And this is where I keep coming back to the psychology of the whole performance.
I cannot know what is inside this pastor’s head. Maybe he genuinely believes he is evangelizing. Human beings are remarkably good at baptizing their own motives.
But if conversion is really the goal, the method makes absolutely no sense.
You do not persuade people by publicly degrading someone they deeply revere. You do not open a conversation by trying to humiliate the people you claim you want to reach. You certainly do not introduce people to Jesus by screaming sexual obscenities about Muhammad through a loudspeaker outside their mosque.
So what purpose does it serve?
One possibility is that the Muslims were never really the audience.
The real audience may be the people watching the reel afterward. The supporters who want to see somebody “stand up to Islam.” The Christians who interpret aggression as courage and cruelty as uncompromising faith.
Another possibility is provocation. If you insult people viciously enough, eventually somebody may become angry. Then the camera starts rolling. Suddenly the story is no longer about the preacher screaming sexual obscenities outside a mosque. It becomes a clip of an angry Muslim reacting to a Christian preacher.
And now the performance has produced its own evidence.
See? Look how dangerous these people are.
There is also something psychologically intoxicating about having an enemy. An enemy gives you certainty. An enemy makes you righteous. An enemy allows you to stop examining yourself because all the evil worth discussing is conveniently standing across the street.
When Hate Gets a Religious Vocabulary
Religion can make that even easier because hatred acquires a theological vocabulary.
Hatred becomes “boldness.”Contempt becomes “speaking truth.”
Harassment becomes “evangelism.”
Provocation becomes “standing for Christ.”
And the person doing it never has to confront the obvious question: Does anything about the way I am treating these people resemble the Jesus I claim I am trying to introduce them to?
At some point I have trouble finding another word for what I watched today.
Maybe this pastor sincerely believes he loves Muslims.
But whatever he calls it internally, standing outside their mosque on September 11 and screaming obscene sexual insults about their Prophet through a loudspeaker does not look like love.
It looks like hate wearing a Christian name tag.
