On an early morning in what is believed to be the years 30-40 of the Common Era, Jesus Christ arrived to teach his disciples on a mountainous ridge that overlooked the city of Jerusalem, called the Mount of Olives. The place is named for the silvery green olive groves that once covered its slopes and is said to be the location where Jesus Christ would eventually ascend to Heaven. The Bible says that Jesus’s teachings were interrupted by a group of people who brought forward a woman who was caught in the act of prostitution. The group said "Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" The group asked for the permission of Jesus to throw stones at the lady until she died as a form of punishment.
As they continued questioning him, Jesus put his finger into the ground and began drawing in the dirt. Eventually, the Messiah straightened his back and spoke the infamous words, "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." Jesus then began to draw in the dirt again. A silence filled the area and one by one members of the group left. Then only Jesus Christ and the lady who had committed adultery remained. Jesus straightened his back to speak again. He told the lady that there was no one left to condemn her sins, as every member of the group that wanted to kill her had also committed sins in their lifetime. He then told her to leave him and live her life free of sin as a form of redemption. That morning on the mountaintop, Jesus chose not to allow the lady to die and pronounced death as a form of penalty to be immoral.
On a Tuesday afternoon, around 2,000 years later, Missouri Governor Mike Parsons was brought the same question as Jesus Christ once was. The Governor was asked by the Innocence Project and thousands of Americans to stop the killing of Marcellus Williams, who had been placed on death row in Missouri for the killing of Felicia Gayle, a former reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The victim, Felicia Gayle was found stabbed to death in her home in August of 1998. Her murderer left behind fingerprints, footprints, hair and a trace of DNA on the murder weapon; however, none of this forensic evidence matched the DNA of Marcellus Williams. According to the Innocence Project, the case against Marcellus Williams was based on two individuals, who were promised money and leniency for their own pending trials to testify against Williams. Additionally, the prosecution gained testimonies from Williams's cellmate and ex-girlfriend, who provided no real evidence against Williams, and both were known to fabricate testimonies.
After this prosecution, Williams sat in Missouri prison for years, and for years his conviction was questioned. The now fifty-five-year-old has avoided the death penalty many times due to a lack of evidence against him. In fact, former Governor of Missouri Eric Grietens halted the execution of Marcellus Williams and created a Board of Inquiry to investigate his innocence.
Once current Governor Mike Parsons took office, however, that Board was abruptly dissolved without ever creating a report or recommendation on the killing. Immediately after the board was dissolved, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey set an execution date for Marcellus Williams, despite the family of the victim asking that the state not execute Marcellus Williams and the prosecutor who once litigated against Williams moving to vacate his conviction. In order to ensure Williams's death, the Attorney General then got special permission from the Supreme Court of Missouri, for a writ of prohibition, which undermined the family of the victim’s resolution to avoid the death penalty for Williams. The date of Sept. 24 was then set for Marcellus Williams to be executed.
In the days leading up to the execution, thousands of Americans grouped together, alongside the Innocence Project, to ask the Governor of Missouri to grant clemency to Williams and prevent his death. Clemency was something only he could grant as Governor of the state. The group awaited his decision, just as the group did in Jerusalem thousands of years ago. Unlike Jesus, however, Governor Mike Parsons declined to halt the killing of Marcellus Williams and on September 24th Williams was killed by lethal injection in front of his son.
In 2022, Governor Parsons was scrutinized for saying that he would only appoint a state health director who shared his "Christian values." In 2017, Governor Parsons said he did not believe in the morality of being gay because of his "Christian beliefs." In the Governor’s final State of the State speech, he highlighted what he called a "fight for life" through his passing of one of the strictest abortion bans in the country. I disagree with the morality of all these takes. Nevertheless, Governor Parsons has made it clear that he uses, his view of, Christian values to guide his decision-making as Governor.
However, on that September afternoon in Missouri, Governor Parsons rejected the very words of Christ himself. The Governor believed he was justified in his decision to execute Marcellus Williams because he believed Williams was guilty. According to the Bible, it didn’t matter if Williams was guilty or not. Jesus Christ directly rejected the idea of death being used as a form of punishment for those who are guilty of committing sin. The sad truth is that Governor Mike Parsons since taking office has never granted clemency to the death penalty. There is no reason Governor Parsons should not have known this Christian belief, as sixty-nine faith leaders sent him a letter urging him not to let Marcellus Williams die.
Their letter requesting clemency for Marcellus said, "God/Allah looks upon us. He knows our faults, he knows our weaknesses, he knows our sins better than we know our own, from the smallest to the greatest. He knows the difficulties and harm. Marcellus has been accused of and has brought upon others. While He knows it, He looks on Marcellus, made in His image and likeness, and continues to love Marcellus despite his wrongs." These leaders, who were Christian, Muslim and Jewish, showcased a belief in redemption and that all life is sacred. Their letter displayed what real Christian values are.
Governor Parsons cannot pick and choose when to use Christian values. He can not support a right to life and also support state-sanctioned killing. He can not perch his belief system upon a Bible that he consistently has chosen not to follow.
Parsons’ use of fake Christian values is seemingly a pattern amongst Republican politicians. These Republicans use the Bible and Christianity as nothing more than a political prop to garner voters and excuse their immortality. It can be seen in politicians such as former President Donald Trump who stripped children from their parents and threw them in cages at the border, and who now has garnered 300,000 dollars from the selling of his own merchandised Bible. It can also be seen through people like Arizona Rep. Justin Heap who advanced a bill that would allow residents to legally kill undocumented immigrants, or through the dozens of Republicans who sat face to face with the parents of the young children killed in the Sandy Hook mass shooting and watched the parents shed tears over their dead children, just to decline to pass any legislation that would truly stop guns from harming children ever again.
How is it that these Christian Republicans can believe in a Gospel that states we are all made in God's image but support the entrapment of children, and the shooting of migrant and elementary school students? It is time that the Christian electorate considers if the actions of these politicians truly embody the life that Christ lived and the lessons he taught.
Ethan Khorana is a Trinity first-year. His pieces typically run on alternate Fridays.
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