“the Bride of Christ has been unfaithful.”

Some conservative Christians have gone “the full Monty,” exposing themselves as they leave Jesus in the rearview mirror. Following Donald Trump, they repudiate Jesus as much as Peter, who when identified as a disciple of Jesus, loudly proclaimed, “I do not know that man.” Suppose Trump-following Christians hear the cock crow?   

Jonathan Lange, a Lutheran Pastor speaking for the Wyoming Pastor’s Network (WPN) denied the transformational power of Christ in his August 2, op-ed, “Executions teach the value of life.” Lange attempted to give religious creds to Trump’s decision to resume executions while avoiding any reference to Jesus’s teachings.

Reminds me of my favorite 20^th-century prophet, Rev. Clarence Jordan. He would have read Rev. Lange’s op-ed and considered it evidence that “the Bride of Christ has been unfaithful.”

Lange employed what theologians call eisegesis, an intentional process of scriptural interpretation starting with one’s own bias.

After the flood, Genesis 9 recounts God’s Noahic Covenant. “Never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” The rainbow symbolizes the covenant, a reminder of God’s grace.” It reminds Lange of God’s vengeance, as he tortures scripture to provide Trump religious cover to take human life.

Lange disregards Paul’s reasoning (Hebrews 8) that, in Christ, God abandoned Old Testament covenants in favor of the “new covenant” based on God’s grace. Paul quotes God from Jeremiah, “I will be merciful toward their iniquities and I will remember their sins no more.”

To support Trump’s decision to restart executions, the WPN spokesman circumvents God’s grace, shrugging off the Jesus part of the New Testament, with a Trump-serving reading of Paul’s letter to the church in Rome.

He situationally interprets Romans 13:4 to give divine authority to governments to “execute wrath on him who practices evil.” I say “situationally” because Lange probably didn’t interpret this verse the same when the government was the Obama administration.

Greek scholar David Bentley Hart says the better translation of Paul’s words recognizes the right of authorities to “exact justice” rather than to “execute wrath,” a translation that turns Lange’s opinion on its head.

Christian writer Marcus Borg suggested Paul’s advocacy for subordination to Roman authority may have been tainted by his Roman citizenship just as Lange’s views are tainted by devotion to Trump. Imagine Paul with a “Rome-Love it or Leave” sticker on his donkey’s hind end.

Regardless, Paul’s Letter to the Romans was likely written early in Nero’s Emperorship, before the 64 CE fire that destroyed much of Rome. Back then the Emperor was more tolerant of Christians. However, Nero had to blame someone for the fire. He pointed at Christians and used it as an excuse to dip them in oil and set them afire. Nero dressed Christians in “the hides of beasts” enticing vicious dogs to tear them apart. Hundreds were crucified, others set ablaze to “illuminate the night.”

Paul never meant the words Pastor Lange selected to apply to the post-fire Roman government much less authorities such as the Third Reich, North Korea, or governments like ours, who execute people without guaranteeing the death penalty will be applied only to those who are actually guilty and without regard for race.

A Wyoming Republican legislator, Jared Olsen, wrote in a New York Times op-ed that “conservatives don’t trust the government to get capital punishment right.” Why should Jesus followers?

In his zeal to follow Trump, Pastor Lange fails to acknowledge that at least 4% of those sentenced to death are innocent. The exoneration rate is half that number, meaning innocent people are executed. Contrary to Lange’s op-ed, wrongful executions do not “teach the value of human life.” They teach the value of abolishing the death penalty.

Rev. Lange overlooks racial bias in meting out the death penalty. From the decision to arrest and prosecute, through jury selection and verdicts, the skin color of an accused and/or the victim plays an outsized role in deciding whether to kill the defendant.

A “full-Monty” Trump backer might overlook those injustices. A disciple of Christ cannot.