An Attack on Christianity... by Christians

We must cease tolerating the normalization of attacks on members of the LDS faith, especially when they are grieving.

Yesterday, a man drove his truck through the front of a Latter-day Saint meetinghouse during sacrament meeting, opened fire on worshippers, and set the building on fire with gasoline. Police identified him as Thomas Jacob Sanford, a 40-year-old former Marine and Iraq War veteran. He died in an exchange of gunfire with officers. At least four worshippers were killed and eight were wounded, with officials warning totals could shift as investigators search the rubble. The FBI called it a targeted act of violence. The church burned to the ground while families fled for their lives.

Witnesses described a blast, doors blown in, and then gunfire. A Sunday School teacher told local TV she had “little primary children” in the building. You can hear the heartbreak in her voice even through the news package. This house of worship is gone. Lives are not coming back.

Within hours, national figures were posting. President Trump called it “yet another targeted attack on Christians.” Later, his press secretary referenced early briefings that Sanford “hated Mormons.” That framing showed up everywhere, sometimes without the part about it being an attack on the Christian faith. It was fast and convenient, and it avoided the part where the victims are Latter-day Saints.

The media reported on Sanford’s public politics. Photos show a Trump sign at his home and campaign apparel in older images. A city council candidate said Sanford ranted to him days earlier that Mormonism is “the antichrist.” Whatever else we learn about motive, targeting was not random. He picked a ward house on a Sunday and came prepared to murder Men, women, children, and babies.

There are claims that he tried to force a victim to choose Jesus or Joseph Smith before shooting them. What has been confirmed is grim enough. A former Marine executed a mass casualty event where he intentionally crashed through the front of the chapel, shot church attendees during their solemn worship, used gasoline to ignite the building with hundreds of people inside, and inflicted multiple gunshot wounds, including a young girl shot in the back.

Now, look at the climate in which this happened. Three weeks ago, Charlie Kirk was assassinated in Orem, Utah. The killing was monstrous. Some on the left celebrated it. That should have been universally condemned, and many of us said so. In the days after, a wave of right-wing influencers built whole content streams on vengeance, calling for blood.

When the Michigan murders hit, the first reflex from many of the same voices was to turn it into a generic attack on “Christianity” by the left. Then, almost immediately after images of large American flags rising from the shooter’s truck filled the feeds, longstanding anti-LDS talking points started flying. The pivot tells you something. Latter-day Saints are Christians when it is useful for a press release or official response, and heretics when it is time to feed the base. That choice is not just politically convenient. When those whispering in the President's ear agree with Doug Wilson, it's no surprise that the narrative shifts quickly. And like so many other attacks on members of the LDS faith, it will disappear from headlines faster than the latest school shooting.

You can see the doctrine pipeline clearly if you trace it. Pastor Doug Wilson in Moscow, Idaho, has said Latter-day Saints are “by definition not Christian,” called Mormonism a “false religion,” and treated the Trinity divide as a line that sets us outside the fold. He writes it plainly, and he repeats it. Wilson is not fringe. He has built a national Christian nationalist audience and placed policy allies in Idaho who push to “reshape the state” accordingly.

Follow the connections. Answers in Genesis runs the Ark Encounter in Kentucky. Their site is full of material arguing that Mormonism is a counterfeit of Christianity, urging evangelicals to “reach” Latter-day Saints with the real gospel, and selling resources that classify Mormonism with “other religions and cults.” Ark Encounter also plays host to Fight Laugh Feast, the Christian Nationalist conference brand tied to Wilson’s media orbit.

On Facebook, the alleged church shooter’s wife posted a photo of their family trip to the Ark Encounter in 2023. There is nothing wrong with visiting the Ark Encounter, nor does that imply any direct connection to the incident in Michigan. It does show the type of Christian ideological waters he swam in—an environment where Latter-day Saints are treated as targets for correction, not fellow Christians. An ecosystem where punching “Mormonism” plays well, raises money, and is normalized.

This idea that it's ok to dunk on Mormons happens here in Idaho as well. We have our own conflict entrepreneurs who know exactly how to farm engagement through rage-baiting content. Mark Fitzpatrick, owner of Old State Saloon and organizer of “Hetero Awesome Fest” (aka: “The Straight, White, Pride Festival”), drew attention by stoking grievances and then got caught on video as a racist comment at his event detonated his sponsorships.

He posted a string of hateful attacks aimed directly at members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints by saying, “Incoming balderdash: Christians who state Mormons aren’t Christian are “woke right”. BTW, Mormons aren’t Christian.” Then, when faithful members challenged him on X, he responded with, “No. It’s perfect timing when the president of the US refers to Mormons as Christians. It’s absurd. He should keep his mouth shut about things he knows not.” and “Update: Mormons now acting like transgenders: using foul, derogatory language and threatening our business, sending hope that we fail, etc. really showing their cards. So bad. Leave LDS today and learn about the true Jesus Christ, not Satans brother!”

After getting tens of thousands of views on his post, he then started playing the victim card, suggesting that. “Cowardly Mormons are spewing hate, then blocking so I can’t even respond. Pathetic. Glad all Mormons aren’t like that. But they do need the true Jesus!”

President Trump was right in his post; this was an attack on Christianity… by Christians.

If you are a Latter-day Saint, none of this will be new to you. This faith remembers. Missouri’s 1838 Extermination Order literally declared that your people must be driven from the state or exterminated. Seventeen were massacred at Haun’s Mill. A mob in Carthage Jail killed Joseph and Hyrum Smith. President Buchanan sent federal troops toward Utah Territory in 1857, and the region braced for war. In Idaho, the so-called test oath stripped Latter-day Saints of their right to run for office, and the Supreme Court upheld it in Davis v. Beason before the country moved away from that era’s religious tests.

The “othering” never really stops. Students and fans have chanted “F the Mormons” at games in Arizona, USC, Oregon, Stanford, and Colorado over the past few years. Administrators apologize after the clip goes viral. Then everyone moves on, because slurs against Latter-day Saints are a safe laugh for too many people in sports and media. That permissiveness bleeds into everything else.

Now layer politics on top. Christian nationalism tells good churchgoing people that the problem with America is simple. They suggest that, as a nation, we have stopped enforcing the right theology with civil law. If we codified legislation to fix that, the country would finally be safe and moral. Doug Wilson’s circle often talks about a Christian republic with voting restricted by creed. Joel Webbon, a pastor aligned with Wilson, has argued that only Christians should have the right to vote. Idaho operatives tied to Wilson’s project push bills and model ordinances that reflect the same push for a theocratic-led government.

Here is why that matters: when your church, the media, and your social media feed teach day after day that Latter-day Saints are not Christians, when your influencers talk about enemies who corrupt the nation, when your pastors say vengeance is righteous and must be seen on television, you create a permission structure for broken people. Most people will never act on it. Some will. That is how radicalization works. The online content is grooming people to see faiths outside their version of Christianity as an existential threat.

We don’t yet know all that the Michigan killer read in his feed, but a clearer picture is forming. He openly engaged in behavior aimed at framing an enemy (the left), and, like so many who willingly follow narratives aimed at painting an enemy to blame for what’s wrong in the world, it’s not much of a leap to conclude that some mental break coinciding with ideological narrative injections radicalized him to the point he plotted to murder children attending church.

At a time when so many are looking for someone to hold accountable for Charlie Kirk’s assassination, and conservative podcasters spinning conspiracy theories aimed at their perceived enemies (Jews, Leftists, Antifa, and Mormons), the threat of violence towards any of these groups is elevated. We don’t know if Kirk’s assassination triggered Stanford’s murderous rampage; the timing, however, is hard to ignore.

A Christian Pastor is blaming Charlie Kirk’s assassination on Mormons.

If you loved Charlie Kirk, you should be the first to insist on consistent standards. When progressives cheered his murder, conservatives called it depraved. It was. So is using a day of Mormon grief to dunk on their faith as heretical.

Part of the reason this resonates with many Latter-day Saints is that they admired Kirk. He had LDS staffers and strong LDS audiences. Utah has been central to Angel Studios, a company founded by Latter-day Saint brothers that helped distribute The Chosen and other Christian content. Whatever your view of those projects, Latter-day Saints and evangelicals often overlapped in media, organizing, and causes. Treating Latter-day Saints as an enemy the moment it is useful is a betrayal of your own coalition.

There is another layer that people forget. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a long record of friendship with Jewish communities and support for Israel. Leaders have openly expressed this for generations, from Orson Hyde’s early dedication in the Holy Land to public statements and relationships in our own time. That posture is not universal in the Christian nationalist world, where hostility to Jews and Israel is common content. If you claim to want a Christian moral center for the nation, start by noticing who has been steady friends to the Jewish people and who has been trafficking in resentment.

This is another trigger point for Christian Nationalists who regularly attack the Jewish people and Israel. Groypers and Ayran Nations supporters like Idaho’s Dave Reilly produce regular content attacking other Christians, including members of the LDS faith, especially when they support his sworn enemy.

So, where does that leave Christian Republicans who are tired of being gaslit and manipulated by those seeking to grow their base by dunking on Mormons? Start by telling the truth about what happened in Grand Blanc. A man targeted a Latter-day Saint congregation. He rammed the doors, opened fire, and set a fire as families tried to escape. Insist on accuracy. Be respectful of fellow humans who deserve dignity and respect, regardless of their faith in Christianity or other denominations.

Then draw a clean boundary around Christian nationalism and the personalities who drive it. You can be a conservative Christian and reject an ideology that wants the state to police doctrine and the ballot to be filtered by creed. You can teach your kids the New Testament, not a politics of revenge. You can hold your favorite talking heads to the same standard you demanded from the left two weeks ago. When they bait grief for clicks, unfollow them. When they call fellow believers counterfeit, push back. Get aggressive with your civility and call out bad behavior with facts, evidence, and accountability. The engagement farming incentives change when the tribe stops paying for cruelty.

Latter-day Saints know what it feels like to be hunted. The history is not ancient to them. The slurs are not niche to them. The meetinghouse in Grand Blanc is still smoking. Treat this the way you wanted the world to treat the assassination in Orem. Consistent ethics. No double standard. No gleeful cruelty at someone else’s sacred expense.

If someone follows Christ, calls him Savior, and orders their life by his teachings, perhaps we should all start by seeing a neighbor first. Theology debates can happen without denying each other’s humanity.

What cannot be tolerated is the industry of othering. That industry is killing people.

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About the Author

Gregory Graf is the creator of Political Potatoes. He and his wife, Andrea, moved to Idaho in 2013 from Utah and are raising their five children in the beautiful Gem State.

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Disclaimer
The following is intended to convey an opinion on newsworthy events of public concern regarding public figures and/or public officials in exercising their official duties. No implications or inferences—beyond those explicitly stated in the preceding— are intended to be conveyed or endorsed by the Author. Wherever available, hyperlinks have been provided to allow readers to directly access any underlying assertions of fact upon which this opinion is based. Aggressive civility is not politeness at all costs. It is a strategy to dismantle dishonest tactics with truth and discipline. It makes conflict productive rather than destructive. And it offers a path out of the cycle of vitriol that has left our politics broken.