Yesterday, a gunman killed four people of my faith and injured 8 others.
Today, I am sad.
I am sad because my wife asked if we should sit near the front of the chapel rather than where we usually sit at the back to be further away from a potential gunman. I am sad that when I walked into the church building this morning to teach a scripture class to high schoolers, I wondered if I should lock the door behind us. I am sad that I’ve considered buying and bringing a gun to church even though that’s specifically against church policy, so that I can feel some degree of agency if something like this were to happen again. I am sad because I know people whose family members were in that congregation and/or regularly attend that church building. I am sad because there’s basically nothing I can do to prevent this from happening again or happening at my church building. I am sad because I don’t know who hates me because of my deeply held beliefs.
I almost want to title this Why Do You Hate Me? because that’s been the question on my mind today. It’s still too early to say for sure, but White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has said the FBI thinks the attack yesterday was targeted because the attacker hated members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And that makes me sad because the thing is, I don’t think he’s alone.
Since I graduated high school, there have been a steady stream of anti-Latter-day Saint pieces of media that make us out to be anything from idiots to just downright evil. And about half of Americans don’t actually know a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. So they’re learning about us from things like American Primeval (which spent over a month on Netflix’s top 10 list), The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, Heretic, and Under the Banner of Heaven, among others.
Similarly, outright falsehoods and urban legends abound on social media. According to that same survey I linked to above, only 34% of Americans know that we don’t still practice polygamy (we haven’t since the 1800s). I would guess upwards of 75% of Millennials and Zoomers actually think Latter-day Saints are stupid enough to think that the urban legend of “soaking” is real. It’s not. I promise it’s not (though it was featured in the very popular (and fictional) tv show Jury Duty).
So I get why somebody could think we’re idiots. But I still don’t understand why someone would hate us enough to attack a place of worship where families with children were in attendance. The shows, movies, and other media cited above probably aren’t the reason. There almost certainly isn’t a good reason. And that makes me sad.
Related to this is a sadness at the human condition; that something like this had to happen to my people for me to feel this deep sadness. Attacks on Jews, Catholics, Gays, and other groups happen on the regular and they make me feel sad and/or angry, but not to this degree. Of course, this is natural and normal, but it’s still a weird thing to recognize within oneself.
I don’t know what else to say, but I needed to say this. Because, while I know that most people don’t hate me or my people, when Charlie Kirk was killed and I saw people celebrating, I wondered how many people hated me because I’m right of center. How many people would celebrate my death because I believe things they think are dangerous. Now I wonder how many more hate me because I’m a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There’s no reason to hate me, nothing I believe is dangerous to you or yours.
I don’t think conversations about guns are productive, so I hope you’ll forgive me for skipping that. But rather, I hope you’ll join me in praying our political and cultural leaders can tone down the temperature; that we can stop speaking ill of one another, regardless of beliefs; and for the victims and their families as well as the family and loved ones of the attacker. I hope you’ll join me in finding new people to love and forgive. I hope you’ll join me in finding ways to be a good neighbor. Changing this rising tide of violence likely isn’t going to come from the top down. It needs to start with you and me.