Michigan LDS Church Attack: What No One Will Say

What lead to the Latter-day Saint Church attack in Michigan? What rhetoric inspires such actions? How is this similar to Charlie Kirk?

 Raw Transcript

So, a shooting attack at an LDS church in Michigan.
Uh, at the time of this recording, there are four confirmed dead plus the shooter
and arson. Uh his name is Thomas Jacob Sanford, a 40-year-old former Marine who
was killed by law enforcement in the parking lot of the church. And uh just
want to talk about this a little bit. I think that there are several issues that come together here that need to be
discussed similar in a way to the Charlie Kirk assassination. Some things that need to be discussed about that.
And this is something that is in many ways a parallel to that because there are several ingredients that went into
this event that uh when this becomes baked so to speak uh it it's eerily
familiar to what we just saw a couple of weeks ago um but with a different take
and from a different side. Right. This episode is brought to you by the ultimate holy land. We are going to
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you. Okay, so the shooter, this is something that's very different, right? It appears that Thomas Jacob Sanford is
uh someone who comes from the right uh in terms of his politics. He is a um a
Christian. Uh he is uh probably mentally ill to
some degree. Uh there are reports of him having PTSD. I want to go over this a little bit
because I think this is important. It is still a parallel to what happened with Charlie Kirk. Um so you've got a a
What is the motivation here? What is the motivation for this shooting
and arson? I mean, this person wanted to kill everybody in that building. He had EDIs.
He had uh an igniter, perhaps gasoline, something where I and you saw the
pictures and the video of that church and it was just just completely engulfed in flames. He was shooting people in the
back, including little kids in the back.
And how do you get to this point? How do you get to this point? I think there's
two things that we need to look at here that are intersecting that ignite this
this event. Okay. Number one, I think he's unstable. He's an unstable person.
And in any group of people, and I'm talking about Christians here, there's going to be a fringe that are unstable.
You're going to have this in any group. With the Charlie Kirk assassination, what do you have? You have a group of of
very secularized identitybased individuals that are very unstable.
And and when you add take that instability from that group and you add
in rhetoric that is from preaching, what I would call the religion of academia in this
case, then you ignite something inside of these these people that are unstable.
That's usually where these things come from. Not always, but that's usually where this type of thing comes from. And
so on the left with Charlie Kirk, you've got all of this, you know, everything is
justified. Violence is justified as long as it's for the revolution
and as long as we're getting our agenda put across. And you can see this from the celebrations of those that that that
were celebrating Charlie Kirk's death and taking things even in the media and
and just just atrocious things, dehumanizing Charlie Kirk and putting in
a morality which is above murder, right? They're
they're putting this saying that murder doesn't matter. murder doesn't matter because there's a
higher morality here because Charlie Kirk is a homophobe, a trans phobe, he's
a Nazi, he's Hitler, he's all of these things that come from this rhetoric that
dehumanize him and others that have his political
uh uh thoughts, right, and and ideas and positions.
And this is where we end up. Well, so what happens here with Thomas Jacob San
uh Sanford and and the Mormons, right? It it's you have a a man that is
indoctrinated with a rhetoric a rhetoric that comes from from a
certain branch and denominations and non-denominations
of of Christianity that have a vitriolic approach to
Latter-day Saints and to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And I'm sorry, this needs to be talked
about. This needs to be brought up because in the same way that we talked
about the rhetoric of of the secular hard left and what they say and and and how they
ignite things, it's the same thing happening here and I'll cover that a little bit in in
this episode. We'll cover that. Now, typically as I go through things and I'm talking about especially evangelical
Christianity, but whether it's the Church of England or non-denominational Christians, the the Southern Baptists,
other other uh uh the Greek Orthodox, you know, others where I have had a little bit of uh um bridge building, so
to speak. I I know several individuals and and some of them have rather high influence in those organizations.
And you know, it's all about bridge building and it's wonderful and and the people are wonderful and there's a
certain edifying feeling and and Christlike feeling that you get that is similar to I believe Christ being with
the woman at the well, the Samaritan woman. And and and it's it's it's the
right thing to do. And typically when I'm talking about other other uh
Christian denominations and and Christianity more broadly, that's what I'm talking about. and I'm working with,
you know, bridge building and and speaking with pastors and bishops and fathers and and etc. Right?
Not in this case, right? I want to talk about something because beyond that, you also cannot put your head in the sand.
And and a lot of people that watch this show are conservative and and they feel a kinship with their
evangelical and other Christian denomination brothers and sisters politically and ideologically.
They think similarly. They watch the same media. They read the same articles. They have the same discussions.
But there is a group there, right? There is a group of individuals that if the
left wasn't there as an enemy to them,
then I I don't think that things would go so
smoothly, right? I I don't think that things would go so smoothly uh as they
they do. And and I wish this would change. It's got to change. And I
think that this example of of uh the shooting and and arson
uh in in Michigan has got has it can be a point of hey, can we change the
discussion here a little bit? Can we change this a little bit? Can you stop with a vitriolic approach,
the thumping of the Bible to to stealman your position and your
exclusive uh gatekeeping on salvation? We can have differences in our
denominations. We can have vast differences to some degree in our denominations and still
get along and still not be vitriolic against each other, still not be hateful
against each other. Now, as Latter-day Saints, we've gone through this since the very beginning with Joseph Smith. We
have been persecuted. We have had uh our lands taken. We have had them burned up,
barns and and farms burnt and stolen. We've had people murdered. We've had
women raped. We've had, you know, we've been expelled from town to town to town.
Almost came to a war in Utah with the American army.
We're we're somewhat used to this and we're we're somewhat resilient against these things, but we have to talk about
it a little bit more. We have this this is not acceptable.
This isn't right. For those of you that are being this vitriolic toward toward Latter-day
Saints, it's not right. You can have theological differences.
You can believe that we're not saved. Fine. That's okay. But to go out and start
calling people demonic and part of a cult
and satanic and uh uh you know, you're all going to
hell and that these are the focuses of an identity to as Latter-day Saints for
for others. That's a problem. And regurgitating lie after lie after
lie is a problem. We don't do that to you.
Do you see us going out and and and preaching on at the pulpit against other
denominations? We don't do that. We have a difference in belief, too.
But I I want to go over a few of these examples because this rhetoric,
this indoctrination, it's indoctrination to to especially to fringe members of
that group that may not be stable is is a problem. And that's what this is what
results Michigan is what is a result of that indoctrination and vitriolic hatred
and rhetoric. Whenever you dehumanize others, and that's where a lot of this
rhetoric goes, then you are giving license to people to be violent. Again,
theological differences. Fine. Let's talk about it. Let's debate. You don't have to believe what we believe. But I
just want to go through this a little bit. What are the motives of this man in this attack? And again, the FBI is
saying that this was a targeted attack. And
essentially it's terrorism in that sense, right? Because it's against a specific group. It is a hate crime, so
to speak. And uh I just want to go to a couple of clips here to talk about this. The first one here is from Fox News and
Caroline Levit talking about uh her assessment of things and and and giving
her outward look from the White House of of the events. Let's listen to this.
grow. White House press secretary Caroline Levit joins us now to react from the White House. Caroline, we all
watched this in horror yesterday. Is there anything brief with they can bring this story
forward to find out what the motive might have been? Well, first of all, I want to express our sincere condolences to the victims
and their families and all of the members of this church who were gathering on a Sunday in the United
States of America to worship Jesus Christ. and a crazed gunman rap.
Okay. Wow. Okay. So, why can't you just take that approach? Why are some people so afraid to talk about the fact that
Latter-day Saints worship Jesus Christ? Yes. You believe it's a different Jesus, so to speak. It's a different nature.
God is a different nature. We believe that. We have a different belief on those things. But you know, here is a
very Christian woman who is willing to say they were gathering together at
their church worshiping Jesus Christ. Why can't that be a predominant view of
a certain group of Christians? Instead of basically your primary
reaction being these aren't Christians, it's dehumanizing.
You had the Charlie Kirk assassination, right, where where where people started talking about, "Yeah, but yeah, but
you know, it it's, you know, he believed this, he believed this, he believed this." And so many of these same
individuals that are attacking the church, our church,
are are now doing the exact same thing. They're paritting those individuals. And if not
uh uh celebrating the event, they're they're they're at least they're
downplaying they they it's like they have to downplay the fact that we worship Jesus
Christ, right? They don't want to put that out there for some reason. To me, it's
almost like you're insecure. Why Why be so insecure about that?
Why repeat vitriolic, you know, taglines and bumper sticker
phrases? Uh, it's it's so tiring. And when you see people repeat these,
you know, they've heard it over and over and over and over again. And as we get
into this story a little bit more here, I think you're going to see that this this
this has an effect on him, right? This has an effect on him. Let's keep going with this. jammed his truck into the
church and started firing at these innocent Americans. And our hearts break. The president was very quick.
They said, you know, some people are saying this isn't even a church. Church was first used as a term in the book of
Acts and and this is a Christian biblical term and they can't even call this a church.
What did the FBI director tell you about the shooter? What do we know? What we know at this point in time is
that he was a member of this Michigan community. um that he is a veteran of
our United States Armed Forces. He serves in the United States Marine Corps in Iraq. Uh his family is cooperating
with the FBI and so they are currently trying to dig in and get to the bottom of why he committed this just this
heinous act of violence. It's unfathomable and as the president rightfully put in his truth social
yesterday, this appears to be yet another targeted attack on Christians. Did this suspect leave any indication
that he was trying to target people of faith more than the obvious of him doing it uh to a church on a Sunday?
Well, from what I understand based on my conversations with the FBI director, all they know right now is this was an
individual who hated people of the Mormon faith and they are trying to understand more.
Okay. You know, it's that's that's seems to be the case. I'm going to show some additional clips here that kind of
support this corroborate that idea that he basically hated Mormons and um beyond
just hate. I mean, he dehumanized Latter-day Saints completely
and believed that he needed to intervene, right? Because of the rhetoric. Uh you
know, that's the thing about the the day the the times we live in with social media. I mean, you can surround yourself
constantly with negative things from people talking and and pushing out this
hateful rhetoric. Constantly. You create a little silo and and there you sit in
the middle of it of of anti- Mormonism, right? Anti- Mormonism. I'm going to
spend all my time hating. I'm gonna spend all my time in a negative approach
to a group of people that I believe are the Antichrist.
And and even though Oh, by the way, they're they're they're they're not out there being violent. They're not out
there uh um you know causing problems typically. They're they're good people.
They're family people. They're god-fearing people. But man, are they Antichrist,
right? Man, do we need to hate them. Listen to this councilman who was uh in
Michigan running for city council and he came across the shooter about a week ago.
You talked to the person who did this horrible thing in Gremling Township.
I did last week. It was Mon Wednesday or Thursday. I'm running for city council and I'm canvasing and I just I had an
address on my map that I went to and I came across a gentleman. He was very friendly and he had interacted
positively with me and we got out of the vehicle. to talk and after a short while it the
conversation went to the Church of Latter-day Saints Mormonism and he just made the position multiple times that
that Mormons are the Antichrist and he okay so again right so this guy he's out
there in a political you know whatever they're canvasing I don't know if he's coming by his house or how he's
interacting with them or where he's interacting with them but the guy has to bring up all of a sudden that Mormons
are the antichrist in this scenario Now, you'll hear a little bit later here that this Chris John's here who is running
for city council. He's got a cousin that played for BYU. He's got friends that live in Utah that are Latter-day Saints.
So, he's like, "How do I handle this? What do I do?" But again, the question is, where does the shooter get this
information? Who is feeding him the fuel to to fulment this type of hatred?
Again, I have a friend in Utah who is involved with the LDS church. I sent him a voice message saying, "I had a
conversation with a person who had very sharp views." And then he went into his background, how he was a Marine. He had
served overseas. And again, I'm going to paraphrase because I'm just going from memory, but he to start new had moved
out to Utah to shovel to plow snow. He then had began a relationship with a
woman who was in the LDS church and then in not so we that the conversation changed to tattoos, which
he had a lot of, and how he had to have all his tattoos removed in order to be, you know, for certain religious
ceremonies. And it was just a piece where I was very careful how I answered because it's one of those things where I
did not know what response was going to be acceptable to him. My cousin played football at BYU. I have friends who so I
have a history with the with BYU in the Mormon church. You don't know what you're going to say
that could potentially cause a reaction. So I kept my views to myself and just it
was more of a case of just views that were shared. And again, I mean, I what I just walked away from was a person was
very animated in a mention that for lack of a better heard that Mormons were the Antichrist. Okay.
Okay. There you have it again. Okay. So, you know, another corroboration there of of
from from this guy saying that they he thought that they were the antichrist. Where is he getting this? Right. That is
a term, that is a phrase. Um, who's saying this? And and and well, you know,
it's all over the place, right? I mean, you have major
pastors, Christian pastors that bring this type of rhetoric up. For an
example, today, right now, Mark Driscoll, Pastor Mark Driscoll is on the
Charlie Kirk show, and he handles this a little bit differently than Charlie does, right? Charlie is going to go out
and say how much he loves the Mormons, how how I mean, I know several people that uh work for Charlie. I know someone
maybe I know a few people actually that work for Charlie closely that are Latter-day Saints. They have a great
relationship or had a great relationship. But this pastor is,
you know, a representative of of several other groups of Christians that have
this need to to verbally persecute, to verbally
annihilate, to verbally demonize Latter-day Saints. And and I'm
I'm tired of it. This is not what you have to do, Mark. You don't have to do
this. It doesn't do anything for you. It doesn't strengthen your identity. It
doesn't make you more Christlike. You're not defending the kingdom.
You're just being hateful. Here's an example of what he's saying just after the Charlie Kirk assassination. Of
course, the assassin was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Had completely, it looks like,
left the church, was against the church, pushed against the church. But this is
what he has to add in there. 22-year-old man grows up in a very affluent, nice,
beautiful suburb by all accounts in a loving home. He has brothers. His father was in law
enforcement. His mom and dad were registered Republicans. All of this is demonic.
That's right. Come on. When you can't find a physical cause, look for a spiritual cause. When you
hate someone that has never met you or said or done anything particularly
focused on you to the degree that you will murder them. Okay, I want to just
say something here, right? Okay, this is the same thing that applies directly to the shooter uh in Michigan
at at the latter at the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It's the same thing. Listen to what he's saying here,
right? When when when you hate someone so much and you don't know them at all, right, to this point, then then then
there's something spiritually wrong, right? The question is why? Why? Why? And I
would say demon demon demon. Okay. Now, now he's going to take this
opportunity to insert the church. Our world doesn't understand the unseen
realm. Our world doesn't understand the spiritual. The DSM, the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders, mentions the human soul zero times.
It doesn't believe in God, doesn't believe in demons. It doesn't believe in all of this stuff. Mark,
by faith, we understand. What we discover as the information rolls out is
that at some point in recent years, this young man got radicalized. That is correct. He got radicalized, right? He's
indoctrinated into the religion of academia, into identity politics. And with that that rhetoric and that
religion, that religion, he becomes hateful,
right? It's a religion of hate. It's a religion of identity.
It's a religion of othering groups until you to the point of dehumanizing them.
Right? Let's keep going. So, they're tracing his online footprint. Where did he get radicalized?
And they say, "We can't find a cause." Well, maybe colleges are radicalizing
people in murderous leftist ideology. That's an interesting absolutely question to pose.
Are are colleges, some classes and professors doing the same thing as jihadists?
Here we're radicalizing an entire generation path here, Mark.
In addition, this man was a Mormon growing up.
It was his youth pastor along with his father who encouraged him to turn himself in.
Mormonism is a demonic cult. There you go. Now, look at what he's doing. Look at the hypocrisy here.
Look at the hypocrisy that this pastor is bringing to his audience.
I'm going to other the Latter-day Saints. I am going to put identity politics into place and with a
theological backbone and I'm going to dehumanize the Latter-day Saints to the
point of assigning culpability, demonic culpability to the assassin of
Charlie Kirk because he is a Latter-day Saint even though he just went over the
fact that he came came from a loving home from you know for him certainly a a
conservative home would be an important thing and and a loving home,
right? He's got to still go here, doesn't he? He's got to throw this hypocrisy out there for everyone to see,
blatant as can be. On the top of Mormon buildings, I won't
call them churches, there is um an angel named Moroni. And
you won't see that in our Bible because this is a demon. That's right. And the Bible says in Galatians that
even if we or an angel from heaven, that being a demon, preach another gospel,
let there be a curse. That's how Mormonism came into existence. Yeah. How did other things come into
existence? Right? How where did Gabriel show up? Did Gabriel show up to to Zachcharias? Did he show up to Mary? Did
he show up to Joseph? How many times have angels shown up in the Old and New
Testament, Mark? Come on, pastor. How many times? How many times? But you can
see what he's doing here. We are a demonic cult. Listen to that. We are a
demonic cult. He is othering an identity, throwing a a a a a pernitious
identity that will be repeated over and over again by those that are listening to him and regurgitated over and over
and over again. You are demonic. Your church is demonic.
A demon preached a counterfeit gospel and now is in a position of authority
over building. So as you drive by them, you are seeing demonic dominion. Demonic dominion. Furthermore, what I'm
trying to show you here is that this is very similar. He he's bringing up the
hypocrisy is is palpable here and it is
uh uh the the the rhetoric that he is providing here is the same thing that he's bringing up about the universities
and the religion of academia and the hateful indoctrination that that happens in those places
and and and and for him this is okay right the means are justified by the ends because the end is salv salvation
and that's your religion. And so if that's the case, then you can do anything you want to other people. Never
mind the example of Jesus Christ. Never mind Jesus sitting with the sinners. Never mind Jesus working with the
Samaritans. Never mind Jesus with the woman at the well. No, we are going to
position this so that we safeguard our own identity as Christians because we're
apparently not confident in that and we're insecure with it. And we are going
to therefore anybody outside of that circle in our definition, we're going to literally demonize literally demonize
them. This is the man that is on the Charlie Kirk show today. What happens here? Whether you are a Christian pastor
or you are a a religion of academia identif identitarian
in in the gospel of the woke, right? Is that you are creating a new morality a a
an uncristlike mor morality where where you are saying that we can
hate other groups. What happened to love your enemies Mark? What happened to love your enemies? In other words, I mean,
let's let's apply that the way it should be applied. It could be my complete enemy. It could be, you know, those that
are killing Jesus while he's on the cross. God, please forgive them. Father, please forgive them, for they know not
what they do. It it is it you could be saying, "Well, these are people that have a difference with me. How am I
going to treat them? What am I going to do with this?" Their rhetoric is exactly
the same thing that they cry against on the left.
right with with the demonizing of people like Charlie Kirk. He is demonizing
literally Latter-day Saints and people like this shooter who are on the fringe mentally, who are unstable
pick up on these things and this rhetoric. Why are you doing this, Mark? Why are you doing this? Is this what the fruits
are that you see of Latter-day Saints that they're demonic? or is there something else happening
here that you're insecure about? And this happens all over the United
States. This happens all over the West. Why?
Why is this happening? Why are you adopting an uncchristian-like morality?
Lastly, I want to talk about something else that that this whole scenario brings up, and that is carrying.
Uh when I say carry, I mean concealed carry at churches. Now, the early reports are that one of
the counselors in the Bishop Rick in Michigan returned fire against the shooter.
And I think that he is the one that is in perhaps in critical condition. I I I
don't have that confirmed. Maybe you guys know that. But those reports have
died down quite a bit because I think that the media doesn't want to put that out there. They never do. They always
lower, right, the the the impact of being armed against perpetrators and
murderers and and thieves and and rapists, etc. They always lower the the
information and and and try to sweep it under the rug. But thank goodness he was
there. If the if those reports are true, if the early reports are true, and he was returning fire, and we don't know
this, maybe some of the people there that were that were there would know this and have a much better idea of
this, but did he save lives? Did he slow the gunman down from being
able to put off, you know, put off explosives or or to shoot more against
others? Did he save lives? Did he save a lot of lives? My understanding is he was
an offduty cop of some sort. And in the manual for for the church, those
individuals are allowed to carry at church, right? I I I remember in in one of my
previous wards I was in, we had a DEA agent that was at church and he carried
every every Sunday. And I remember once he he leaned over once and his jacket opened up and there you could see his
pistol after church, after sacrament. And one of the older women came up to him just frantic. What are you doing
here? Why are you bringing that? Do you understand how that affects my spirituality? I'm coming here to worship
and you're bringing a gun. And again, these are people that don't understand guns. They just don't understand it.
They've had no familiarity with them. And and to them, it's all evil, right?
It's like money. Money itself is evil. It's not how you use it. It's not if you're greedy. It's money itself is
evil. or guns are evil no matter what. Right? And I used to think to myself,
thank goodness that guy's here. I am glad he's here. I knew him and and I'm glad he's there. I've got I've got
people in my stake right now. We had state conference yesterday. And of course, we're on higher alert from not
just the Charlie Kirk issue, but of course what happened earlier that morning, just a couple hours before our
state conference. And there are cops that are off duty that are in our stake that are carrying.
And I'm glad they are. I'm very glad they are. Now, in the manual, you have
the approval of offduty cops being, you know, carrying at church. All right.
Thank goodness. Now, there are several wards that do not have offduty cops that are going to be
attending the ward. And so, there's no protection in that case. Are we moving toward a point where that is going to be
needed? That is something a lot of guys think about. A lot of guys think about that. And
right now, the manual says, "No, we don't. We do not permit carrying on
church property unless you are a cop." And maybe that's the right approach. I I
don't know. I haven't, you know, maybe this has really been thought out quite a bit. I hope it's not just some kind of
neness culture that that is informing that policy.
And there's questions about this. For example, what if you uh do carry or what if you
you know what if you have guns and you keep you keep a gun in your truck, you keep a gun in your glove compartment and
you're in the parking lot of the church. So, you're technically on church property. Is that okay? Or do you
need to get rid of your gun in your car before you go to church to technically follow the manual?
And what do you do in this case? You know what? What if you were what if this
happened? What if this was coordinated? What you know, what if you had had a coordination of of these attacks on on
uh churches for Latter-day Saints in two or three spots. I'm not going to say
what I'm going to do about it, but what would you do about it? Right? I I don't
So, anyway, I I don't know where that goes. say, you know, I sustain and support the brethren, and I think that they've got this informed uh uh
knowledge of of all of these things. I'm sure this has come up before. Uh but hopefully this isn't something
that happens again anytime soon.
And because that's that's an interesting policy to to look at because you certainly are
able to do that in most in many states. you know, concealed carry is completely permittable. Anyway, just thought, just
a thought here. I think that's a policy and something that you would at least look at here in this type of an event.
If there were others that were carrying at church when this happened in
Michigan, would they have saved more lives? It's a good question.
Those are my thoughts on this. It It's absolutely tragic. It is horrible. I my my prayers go out to
the family members of of those that were killed. Um I it sounds to me from most
reports like they think that there are more victims that are still missing and they're still clearing out that large I
think it was a stake center and there may be more right there may be more uh
bodies that are found and it is it's a horrible thing. I hope that
we can look at these things. I hope that those that put this type of rhetoric out there against Latter-day Saints can
rethink this. Please rethink this. We are your brothers and
sisters. We really are. And and we have our differences.
But we are not demonic and we're not a cult. And we worship Jesus Christ.
And and can't you find a place where where you support us in that while
still holding on to your own beliefs? That seems like it's an important thing
to to to gain and it's a skill to gain and it's a a teaching that ought to be
spread around. Thanks for listening.