The pastor of a Lutheran church in western Pennsylvania has drawn criticism for saying he had hoped the Notre Dame fire in Paris was set by Muslims in order to justify the eradication of Muslims from France.

Pastor Carl Johnson of St. John’s Lutheran Church in Kittanning told his congregants during an Easter Sunday service that he was publicly confessing a sin he thought would be instructive: that fighting “evil with evil” is the wrong approach.

During his sermon, Johnson described what occurred to him while watching Notre Dame engulfed in flames.

“As it was burning, I immediately suspected who? The terrorists who had tried in 2016 to blow it up. There have been attempts before because it is the symbol of Christianity in France,” Johnson said. “I immediately made that conclusion, but that’s not the bad part that I’m confessing. I was hoping it was Muslim terrorism so that, hopefully, there would be a violent purge of Muslims from France. I wanted that because France is lost.”

Johnson then spoke ominously about the growing number of Muslims in France. About 9% of the country’s population is Muslim, though Johnson said if the religious minority continues to have children at rates higher than white French residents, the country could become predominantly Muslim.

“It’s only going to take a generation, maybe two, before France is Muslim, and there’s no stopping it. There’s just no stopping it,” Johnson said. “And I thought, oh, this could be it. We will fight evil with evil. We will fight fire with fire.”

Johnson then told church-goers that there was a “problem” with his dark wish, which is that “evil can only beget evil.”

“So it is that I need Jesus,” he said.

During the sermon, he made no further remarks clarifying his opinion of Muslims.

‘Words have consequences’

“It’s extremely irresponsible,” said Abbas Barzegar, director of research and advocacy at the Washington-based Council on American Islamic Relations. “It plays upon certain anti-Muslim tropes and conspiracy theories. And it plays upon anti-immigration feelings.”

Johnson said his “tough” thought was meant to be a teachable moment, but Barzegar said the lesson for some might have been the opposite of what the pastor said he intended.

“To float this outrageous set of ideas and then barely taper them off is either extremely short-sighted to the point of culpable negligence, or it was a sinister, bigoted move,” he said. “Leaders like this need to do some self-reflection because words have consequences.”

Johnson’s full sermon had been posted by the church to YouTube, but the clip was taken offline after an inquiry by Keystone Crossroads.

The audio, though, is preserved below.