Dr Ben Carson (pictured above on Sunday at the second presidential debate) recently said that gay marriage would bring 'mass killings'

Dr. Ben Carson suggested that America is on the precipice of violent unrest thanks to the legalization of gay marriage.

The former neurosurgeon and failed presidential candidate was a speaker at the Pensmore National Symposium on Religious Liberty on October 7, at the College of the Ozarks.

At the conference, the Seventh-day Adventist Christian told conservatives to fight against an 'ever-growing government' for their faith, according to the News-Leader.

He suggested that 'there will be mass killings once again' and that 'the peace that we experience now will be only a memory'.

'This is the nation that stands between peace and utter chaos,' he said.

When asked what he thought was causing this descent, Carson responded: 'The whole gay marriage issue'.

Carson made the controversial remarks at the Pensmore National Symposium on Religious Liberty on October 7, at the College of the Ozarks (pictured at the symposium above)

He explained: 'Why must they change it? I believe the reason is, if you can change the word of God in one area, then you can change it in every area. It's the camel's nose under the tent, and it will just be an avalanche of one thing after the other.

'We won't have anything that we can use as our reference point because we will have thrown out God's word. It'll be every man for himself, every man deciding for himself what is right and what is wrong, and that can't possibly lead to a good place.'

Carson ran in the Republican presidential primary, but lost the party's nomination to Donald Trump. He is now supporting Trump in the 2016 presidential race.