Last Sunday, we watched yet another sequel to the American horror show.
An evil man rammed his truck into a Mormon church in Grand Blanc, Mich., opened fire on the people inside and lit the church on fire. By the time the embers cooled and the bodies were counted, we learned that four people were killed and eight were injured — another terrible day in a series of terrible days in a nation that can feel as if it’s coming apart.
We also knew what would happen next. Before there was a chance to mourn the dead, partisans online worked to find out the identity of the gunman and his ideology. After all, the combatants in the culture war have a voracious need for political ammunition. It’s important to constantly prove that “they” are evil, and “they” want you dead.
There was even an insidious new twist in the post-shooting debate. A number of Christian fundamentalists online chose that day of grief — the same day that many Mormons learned that the president of the church, Russell Nelson, had died — to proclaim that the Mormon Church, officially known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, wasn’t truly Christian.
Welcome to America in the year 2025, where every evil act is an opportunity to score political points, and all too many Christians demonstrate profound cruelty in Jesus’ name.
But then, something remarkable happened — something entirely unexpected.
A member of the L.D.S. Church, Dave Butler, started an online fund-raising campaign … for the family of the shooter. He was killed at the scene and had left behind a wife and young child.
As Sonia Rao, my newsroom colleague reported, the money rolled in. It took only two hours to raise $7,000. By the 12-hour mark, the total reached $100,000. By Friday, more than $300,000 had been raised, much of it donated by Latter-day Saints.
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