Stoning Stephen, again

Stoning of St. Stephen, by Paolo Uccello (1397-1475)
(Source: Wikimedia commons)

And Saul approved of their killing him--ACTS 8:1

(1/28/2026) According to the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament, the first Christian apostle to be killed for his faith was Stephen, "full of grace and power," who "did great wonders and signs among the people" (6:8). Summoned before the council of religious leaders, he has a vision of Jesus in heaven, sitting at the right hand of God, which infuriates them.

But they covered their ears, and with a loud shout all rushed together against him. Then they dragged him out of the city and began to stone him; and the witnesses laid their coats at the foot of a young man named Saul. While they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Then he knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, "Lord, do not hold this sin against him." When he had said this, he died. (7:57-60)

I'll leave to others whether Stephen's theology, quoted at length in chapter 7, was on point. As described in Acts, he is inspired and inspiring, and not the least bit shy about appearing in public. The religious leadership sees people like him as a threat to their power, however, and he is killed. Maybe he had a target on him all along, or maybe he just was in the wrong place when they'd had enough of this new preaching, but he was cut down.

Stoning was an official sentence, though the members of the religious court are described as being in a state of rage when they carry it out. But support for this action went beyond the immediately enraged. There was the group of people who threw the rocks, of course, but also a number of "witnesses" mentioned in verse 58. Among the witnesses was Saul, who kept track of the coats. These were they who saw Stephen as a threat, such a threat that he needed killing. Though they did not do the killing, who knows what distorted picture of Stephen they held in their minds that allowed them to justify it? Saul at least accepted some measure of responsibility, as he later recalled: "And while the blood of [Jesus's] witness Stephen was shed, I myself was standing by, approving and keeping the coats of those who killed him" (22:20). After some serious life changes (ch. 9), he became able to see the ministry of Stephen, as well as his own role in Stephen's death, from a different perspective.

Chicago storefront, November 2025

On Saturday, January 24, Minneapolis resident Alex Pretti was tackled, immobilized, and shot to death by multiple agents of the U.S. Border Patrol, during a demonstration against federal paramilitaries in that city. As enraged as those who stoned Stephen, the unnamed agent continued to fire bullets into Pretti's body well after life had left it.

The inexperienced and poorly trained, but heavily armed federal agents were in that situation because they were ordered to Minneapolis by President Donald Trump without any discernible rationale. At least there was no emergency that city and state officials thought required a surge of federal force. The best explanation is that Minnesota, following Washington, Oregon, the District of Columbia, California, and Illinois, is governed by the opposition party, whose success there is threatening to the President, who responded with a visible show of power. (Trump has also threatened Maine, Maryland, and Pennsylvania with similar intervention.)

The killing of Alex Pretti was defended by administration members Greg Bovino (US Border Patrol),  Stephen Miller (deputy chief of staff), Kristi Noem (Secretary of Health and Human Services), Kash Patel (Federal Bureau of Investigation), and the appalling Tricia McLaughlin (HHS spokesperson who I would personally not trust to tell me the time) with rationales that were clearly contradicted by bystanders' videos of the event. Pretti, a nurse whose colleagues and patients gave moving testimonies of his career in a caring profession, was smeared as a terrorist and potential mass murderer in almost exactly the same "domestic terrorism" language used to describe Renee Good, who died at the hands of ICE earlier this month (cf. Caputo and Gibson 2026), and in fact all those protesting these dangerous authoritarian stunts (Winter and Alvarez 2026). None of the administration's rhetoric is the slightest bit convincing, and yet there will be no independent investigation of the incident.

The Trump administration's smears and lies, however, are being swallowed by someone. The target audience is clearly not me or you, but a significant portion of the population, some of whom we know. They mystify me, but they clearly buy the idea that Minneapolis and Chicago are full of threatening people. When Trump called Chicago "a disaster" and "a killing field" in August, they know just what he meant, even if actual evidence is shaky to non-existent. So when ICE or Border Patrol or National Guard flood a city and create chaos in which innocent people die, when agents break into homes in the middle of the night (just like Saul according to Acts 8:4), when Kilmar Abrego Garcia is accidentally detained and then sent to a secret prison in El Salvador, when that Hmong guy was hauled out of his house in his underwear, they blame the people on the receiving end. They must have done something.

And before you know it, we're living under authoritarian government.

Like Saul, Trump's supporters "approve of" Border Patrol or ICE killing people, detaining them, indiscriminately putting them in chokeholds, sending them to shoddy prisons that amount to concentration camps (cf. Snyder 2026). To them, it makes sense that the government is collecting pictures and personal information about protestors (Winter and Alvarez 2026). I wish they would ask themselves why so many people see things differently than they do. 

Alex Pretti, by all accounts not connected with the Trump administration, was a man of unusual gentleness and kindness. Others have remarked, correctly, that he didn't need to be such a good person in order to have the right not to be shot in the street by the Border Patrol. Even undocumented people who are charged with violent crimes are entitled to due process. 

Some day, Donald Trump, with all his vanity and venality, will be gone from the American stage. Then the long process of healing and rebuilding our communities can happen. For all the pressing needs of the present moment, we need to be ready when that page, finally, turns. We don't have to agree on everything, but we can't have democracy and liberty unless we agree on their basic ground rules. Since, as Saul of Tarsus would come to write, "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God," we must have accountability for official actions, particularly when they involve use of deadly force.

SEE ALSO: Pete Saunders, "Why Minneapolis?" 25 January 2026