They shot Alex Pretti ten times on a Minneapolis street Saturday morning.

He was 37. An ICU nurse at a VA hospital. He had his phone in his right hand, filming masked federal agents as they shoved a woman to the ground. When he moved between them to help her as any trained ICU nurse would do, they pepper-sprayed him in the face. He raised his empty left hand. They wrestled him down, pulled his legally licensed gun from his holster, and executed him. Ten shots while he lay there. Gina told me the videos show everything. (I cannot watch videos with horrific violence. I am a highly sensitive person who is also highly empathic.)

Trump posted pictures of the confiscated weapon. Stephen Miller said Pretti “tried to assassinate federal law enforcement.” They’re lying. Just like they lied about Renee Good, the other American citizen they murdered in Minneapolis two weeks ago.

This is what evangelical Christians voted for.

I spent thirty years inside that machine, so I know. I was there when the Southern Baptist Convention chose to affirm the Bible as their standard instead of the life of Jesus Christ. I watched them purge seminaries of anyone who questioned this shift. They moved away from the troubling teachings of Jesus about loving one another toward the harsher tribal values of conquest and dominion. They deified a book whose context is extreme violence, exclusion, masculine superiority, and “an eye for an eye.”

Here’s what I’ve learned the hard way: Christianity, Islam, Orthodox Judaism, and Catholicism spring from the same poisoned well. The common thread isn’t love. It’s male authoritarianism cloaked in divine mandate. The more conservative the sect, the more vicious the hatred. Throughout history, religion has given us the Crusades, the Inquisition, witch burnings, honor killings, genital mutilation, enslaving and hanging black people, and the systematic subjugation of women. The believers call it righteousness. The rest of us call it religious terrorism masquerading as God’s will.

The evangelical base that elected Trump didn’t betray their faith. They fulfilled it.

Billy Sunday preached that “zeal for war and zeal for the Gospel were much the same thing. Christianity and Patriotism are synonymous terms, and hell and traitors are synonymous.” Pope Pius XII turned his head to the horrific slaughter of Jewish people. Jerry Falwell told his television audience not to read anything but prescribed interpretations. Jim Bakker taught them to worship celebrity excess. Southern Baptist mega-church pastor Robert Jeffress says, Trump is ‘right on target in his policy.”

Trump is not an aberration. He’s the logical conclusion of everything they’ve been building toward for two centuries.

What breaks my heart isn’t just watching Alex Pretti bleed out on that street while his parents fight the government’s lies. What breaks my heart is recognizing the pattern that keeps repeating: people who believe they are God’s chosen people claiming the right to destroy everyone in their way.

Saturday’s execution. Last week’s Hamas attacks. The Crusades. The Inquisition. The witch trials. The enslavement. The KKK. It’s the same story with different masks. Authoritarian men use religion to justify violence against anyone who doesn’t submit.

I left evangelicalism because I couldn’t reconcile what I knew about love with what they were doing in love’s name. Watching from Barcelona as America has become a fascist nation, I finally understand: the cruelty was always the point. The violence was always the plan. They chose a book that commands “not a man, woman, or child be spared” over a teacher who said to love your enemies.

Alex Pretti’s parents issued a statement: “The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting. Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly ICE thugs. Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man.”

He was. And now he’s dead, killed by the masked army that evangelical Christians put in power because Trump promised to hurt the people they’ve been programmed to hate. Retribution is nothing new to religion.

My heart breaks. But I’m done pretending that religion—any religion—offers anything but more bodies in the street and more lies about why they deserved to die.

All we need is love. Not some made-up god’s twisted version. We need the real thing. Human. Unadulterated. Love. Free from centuries of programming that teaches us to fear and hate anyone different. (Need I point out that the man (John Lennon) who penned the words to that powerful song was assassinated in America’s streets by a white male?)

How many more innocent American citizens need to be executed in broad daylight before we admit that the emperor has no clothes and these religions have no love? Before we rise up and say enough.

---

Randy Elrod writes from Barcelona. He is the author of thirteen books, including “The Purging Room” and “My Confession.” After thirty years in evangelical ministry, he escaped to find his humanity.