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.
The messages attached to the gifts were extraordinary. One donor wrote: “We are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We are Christians. As Christians and followers of Christ, we ‘mourn with those that mourn, comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and stand as witnesses of God.’ We’re praying for you and your family.”
Another person wrote: “We are heartbroken as we think of what you are going through. You are loved and precious, just as much as any other family. We hope that you will have everything you need, both now and in the years to come.”
It would be understandable for members of the church to look at the suspect’s wife with suspicion, to wait for more facts before they showered the suspect’s family with love and support. After all, it’s only human to ask questions. Did she know anything? Could she have stopped him?
But no. In true imitation of Christ, who — according to Christian theology — died for us while we were still sinners, Latter-day Saints did not wait to pour out their love. They just gave it, unconditionally, to a family they did not know.
We live in a time of national hopelessness and despair. Last week, The Times and Siena University released a poll showing that almost two-thirds of voters now believe that we’re too politically divided to solve the nation’s problems. The same poll showed that concerns about political polarization are now the second-highest concern of American voters, behind the economy but ahead of health care, crime, inequality and foreign policy.
If you combine those who were concerned about polarization with those who said their main concern was the state of American democracy, then worries about the state of our political union become the top concern of American voters.
I see this in real life. When I speak on college campuses or in churches, or when I simply talk politics with friends, I constantly hear different variations of the same questions: Can we get through this? What’s the plan? And perhaps the most poignant question of all — is there hope?
There are, in fact, plans — lots of plans — to restore our nation’s unity and purpose. Whether it’s restoring our country’s capacity to build big things, or amending the Constitution to rein in imperial presidents, or simply doing something about those infernal phones that cause so many children (and adults) to isolate themselves in anxiety and depression, many of our nation’s best and brightest minds are brimming with good ideas.
When I share my own ideas, I get the same response time and again: We can’t do it. People hate each other too much. We are too divided. We can’t compromise.
But hope isn’t a plan — it’s something else, something far more powerful.
When I speak to audiences that are in despair, I like to close with one of my favorite quotes in all of literature. It comes from J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Return of the King,” the final volume of his “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.
Sam and Frodo are alone in Mordor, the land of Sauron. Their quest to destroy the One Ring is failing. Surrounded by evil, isolated in deep darkness, all hope seems to be slipping away. But then Sam looks up in the sky.
“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains,” Tolkien wrote, “Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty forever beyond its reach.”
There is profound truth in those words. It reflects the fundamental nature of hope. It’s rooted in eternal truth — as the Book of John says, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” — but it’s also unexpected. It can arise in the most unlikely of circumstances in the most terrible of times.
America has witnessed two remarkable acts of forgiveness in the last month. Erika Kirk forgave the man who killed her husband. Latter-day Saints loved the family of the man who massacred their brothers and sisters. A nation that produces such acts of such love is a nation that still has life. It’s a nation that still has hope.
On Tuesday, Kelsey Piper, a staff writer at The Argument, responded to the Latter-day Saints church’s act of love with a beautiful and true statement. “If America is going to make it,” Piper wrote, “it will be because people choose forgiving things they should never have had to forgive over hurting people they have every right to be angry with.”
That is the essence of grace. Last Sunday, the shadow came for the men, women and children of a church in Michigan. But there is still light and high beauty, and last week the light that flooded America came from people of faith who were determined to demonstrate the character of the Savior they love.
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David French is an Opinion columnist, writing about law, culture, religion and armed conflict. He is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and a former constitutional litigator. His most recent book is “Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation.” You can follow him on Threads (@davidfrenchjag).
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