The president of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination apparently had nothing to say about the murder of a 37-year-old ICU nurse in Minneapolis last Saturday. But Clint Pressley had quite a lot to say a week earlier when a group of protesters entered a Southern Baptist church in St. Paul to protest an elder in that church working for ICE.
Pressley, pastor of Hickory Grove Baptist Church in Charlotte, N.C. — where ICE and Border Patrol agents last fall also staged a harsh immigrant roundup — said nothing on social media about the death of nurse Alex Pretti Jan. 24. Pretti’s execution by an unnamed federal agent on a city street has enraged the nation and religious leaders from the center and left.
But among the Religious Right, Pretti’s death has been met with either silence or assertions someone else was to blame for the violence.
SBC President Clint Pressley (BP photo)
On his X account, Pressley shows no fewer than 13 posts related to the nonviolent protest at Cities Church in St. Paul Sunday, Jan. 18. That same X account shows zero posts about the death of Pretti in Minneapolis the next Saturday.
Baptist New Global searched the internet for any other public comments the SBC president might have made about Pretti’s death and the massive protests that erupted afterward and found nothing.
Baptist Press, the SBC’s official news service, posted two articles about the Cities Church protest but nothing about Pretti’s death and the national clergy response to it.
Other Southern Baptist figures, however, made their voices heard loudly — generally blaming Pretti for carrying his licensed weapon which is never unholstered and echoing Republican talking points that protesters shouldn’t bring guns to peaceful protests.
Others pounced on such statements online, pointing out that conservatives and evangelicals lionized Kyle Rittenhouse when in 2020 he carried multiple weapons to a protest against police violence and ended up shooting three people, two fatally.
Al Mohler (Baptist Press)
The SBC’s unofficial theologian, Al Mohler, addressed the Minneapolis situation on his podcast “The Briefing” on Monday and claimed the facts of what happened remain hard to untangle. But Christians, he said, “either operate with respect for the rule of law or we do not.”
The rule of law in this case, he explained, is to support federal ICE and Customs and Border Patrol agents who are suffering under “intentional confusion brought about by very well-organized leftist activists.”
SBC firebrand William Wolfe, head of the Center for Baptist Leadership, wrote on X, “It’s pretty amazing how the Bible literally instructs you on how NOT to get shot by federal law enforcement officials performing legitimate deportation operations.”
He referenced Romans 13:2-5, which begins: “Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.”
Denny Burk
Southern Seminary professor Denny Burk urged not jumping to conclusions, even as multiple videos of Pretti’s death made clear what had happened.
“Due process. Facts. Evidence. That is what we need right now,” he said. “Not assertions of guilt or innocence based on who you’ve already prejudged to be the good guys and the bad guys.”
Former SBC President Jack Graham, one of the nation’s foremost religious defenders of President Donald Trump, said nothing on social media about Pretti’s death except to commend far-right commentator Allie Beth Stuckey — who was raised in his church — for her comments on X.
“On Instagram, it’s 2020 all over again. Women, including many, many Christian women, are being completely duped by the anti-ICE propaganda,” Stuckey wrote. “Believed the ‘ICE arrested a lone 5-year-old’ completely. It’s demoralizing. I am working HARD in my DMs and posts and on my show trying to combat this nonsense and appeal to these women. However, I felt like I was the only white evangelical woman questioning BLM in 2020, and I don’t feel as alone now. There are more of us 5 years later, and I am grateful for that.”
Allie Beth Stuckey
Stuckey posted that Jan. 22, two days before Pretti’s death. Graham retweeted it Jan. 25, the day after Pretti’s death.
But Stuckey wasn’t through with the subject. On Monday, Jan. 26, she kept going. While she wishes Renee Good and Alex Pretti were still alive — “They were people made in God’s image whose lives had value, and their deaths are tragic” — she’s still “unclear about the true story surrounding Pretti’s killing.”
By Monday, the story around Pretti’s death was well documented by vast numbers of sources, most with video and eyewitness support.
Instead, Stuckey turned to the conservative talking point of blaming Democrats: “The chaos that led to their deaths is in large part due to local law enforcement refusing keep the public from impeding ICE and local politicians stoking the flames by calling ICE ‘Gestapo.’”
Stuckey, who famously has called Christians to reject empathy as sinful, said ICE and Border Patrol agents “by and large do a good, compassionate job that is very difficult.” And she focused on another Trump talking point: “ICE’s job is necessary and good. Removing illegal aliens, including those who have committed heinous crimes against American children, should be able to be done without conflict. This is normal business that has been conducted in similar ways under both R and D administrations. The chaos is not caused by Trump. It is caused by those who hate Trump.”
Later on Monday, she posted again: “I’m watching all types of individuals and influencers speak out against ICE who haven’t had anything to say about politics or culture since 2020. Many of these are people who identify as Christians, and even conservatives. And I just want to know: Why do you only speak out against perceived injustices when Trump is in office? Why is your public outrage exclusively dictated by Democrats?”
Elsewhere on the Religious Right, social media commentary largely fell along the lines of saying Pretti would not have been killed had he not brought his legally registered handgun with him.
Evangelical pastor Joel Webbon: “The Bible literally provides a guide for how to NOT get shot by ICE.”
Actor Kevin Sorbo: “It’s surprisingly easy to not get shot by ICE.”
Evangelical worship troubadour Sean Feucht: “How to not get shot by ICE: 1) Do not resist arrest. 2) Also, do not resist arrest while touching a loaded firearm.”
Turning Point USA speaker and anti-trans activist Riley Gaines: “It’s so easy to not get shot by ICE.”
Meanwhile, others who were silent about Pretti’s death included Franklin Graham and Robert Jeffress — both allies and defenders of the Trump administration.