September 29, 2025 • 11 mins
A tragic shooting at an LDS church in Michigan sparked a viral fight online — not just about violence, but about identity. Commenters claimed, “Mormons aren’t Christian.” Others insisted, “Christianity is under attack.”
This episode asks the harder question: why does grief get hijacked so quickly? Why do we rush to tribal labels instead of human loss? And what does it reveal when victims’ identities are rewritten before the blood even dries?
From the LDS debate to the larger pattern of narrative warfare, we follow how gaslighting and poetic truth bend reality — and how weaponized grief becomes a tool for politics, media, and control.
The framework is at Gaslight360.com, and the early access edition of Distorted is available now on Barnes & Noble and Amazon.
Stay sharp. Stay skeptical. #SpotTheGaslight
Read and reflect at Gaslight360.com/clarity
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
There's been a shooting at a church in
(00:01):
Michigan, smoke still hanging inthe air, families still waiting
to hear if their loved ones arealive.
And before the blood even dries,the comment section has decided,
Mormons aren't Christian.
That was the first viralresponse.
Not shock.
Not sorrow.
Not even anger at the shooter.
(00:22):
Just gatekeeping.
You don't count.
And that's the question.
Why does grief get hijacked sofast?
Why do we rush from tragedy totribal warfare as if sympathy
requires a membership card?
And who benefits when identity,race, religion, politics, gender
(00:42):
becomes the battlefield beforethe crime scene tape is even
cut?
Because this isn't just aboutone church, it's about a bigger
pattern, the way moments ofgrief get rewritten to fit
someone else's story.
Gaslighting tells us this wasn'treally an attack on
Christianity.
Poetic truth insists,Christianity is under attack.
(01:03):
Both miss the point.
Both shift the spotlight frompeople to politics.
So let's step back.
Let's follow the distortionmachine in real time, and let's
ask the uncomfortable question: when tragedy strikes, are we (01:14):
undefined
honoring the victims or justweaponizing their identities to
prop up our own side?
And today, we're going there.
This is Think First, where wedon't follow the script.
We question it.
(01:34):
Because in a world full ofpoetic truths and professional
gaslighting, someone's gotta saythe quiet part out loud.
Scroll through the reactionsafter Michigan and you see the
hijack in motion.
Trump says, Christianity isunder attack.
A soundbite simple enough torally, and instantly, the top
(01:56):
comment cuts the legs out fromunder it.
Mormons aren't Christian.
This is the move.
It doesn't matter if you're LDS,black, Jewish, Muslim, gay,
conservative, liberal.
Whenever tragedy hits, someone'sfirst instinct is to argue that
the victims don't really count.
It's not just religion.
(02:16):
Think about school shootings.
The first battle isn't grief,it's gun rights.
Think about when a policeofficer is killed in the line of
duty.
Almost immediately, you'll hear,well, that's the job they signed
up for.
Think about conflicts overseas.
Every rocket, every bomb isfollowed not just by grief but
by someone saying, they startedit, they deserved it, they're
(02:38):
not innocent.
That's how fast grief getsstolen.
With LDS members in Michigan, itplayed out through theology.
For others, it's politics.
For others still, it'snationality, race, or party.
But the tactic is the same.
Hijack the grief and reroot itthrough identity disputes.
And once you see it, it'simpossible to miss.
(03:02):
So what's actually happeninghere?
The pattern looks like this.
One, tragedy hits, raw,unfiltered grief.
Two, identity gets contested.
Are they really Christian?
Really American?
Really innocent?
Three.
Narrative gets weaponized.
The label becomes the lever.
(03:24):
Sympathy is rationed.
Outrage is redirected.
And here's the kicker.
The people fighting over thelabels aren't usually the
victims.
They're politicians, culturewarriors, comment section
gladiators.
They turn funerals intoplatforms.
They turn doctrine into weapons.
They turn grief into ascoreboard.
(03:45):
Why?
Because identity is power.
If you control the label, youcontrol the sympathy.
If you control the sympathy, youcontrol the outrage.
And if you control the outrage,you control the votes, the
money, the clicks.
The Michigan shooting is oneexample, but the machine shows
(04:05):
up everywhere.
When Muslims are attacked,critics will say, well, Islam
isn't really a religion ofpeace.
When immigrants die crossing aborder, the line becomes, well,
they shouldn't have comeillegally.
When political violence erupts,the spin is always.
It wasn't us, it was them.
(04:27):
In every case, the pattern isthe same.
Reframe the victim's identity sothe tragedy feels smaller,
cleaner, easier to weaponize.
That's not compassion, that'snarrative control, and it works
because it feels righteous inthe moment.
You're not just disagreeing,you're defending truth, or at
least that's how it feels.
But scratch the surface andyou'll see the incentives.
(04:49):
The politician benefits, themedia outlet benefits, the
tribal leader benefits, thevictim does not.
Here's the cost of all thisnarrative hijacking.
Victims are silenced twice,first by the violence, then by
the debate about whether theyeven qualify as victims.
Compassion gets rationed.
(05:10):
Instead of being human, itbecomes conditional.
You qualify if you check myboxes.
And grief gets divided.
Instead of pulling us together,tragedy becomes one more fault
line.
The deeper cost?
We lose the ability to see oneanother as people first.
A mother at a church in Michiganis no longer just a mother,
(05:30):
she's a Mormon.
And if that label is enough toerase her from Christian
compassion, then grief has beenweaponized.
And when grief gets weaponizedlong enough, people stop
trusting the whole system.
Why mourn openly if your painwill just be dissected?
Why speak up if your identitywill be used against you?
That's the cultural corrosion.
(05:52):
It's not just about religion,it's about the very act of
mourning together as a society.
So what's the alternative?
It's not complicated.
You draw the circle wider, notsmaller.
When tragedy hits, you don'tstart with the creed, the
passport, the partyregistration.
You start with the person.
(06:13):
That doesn't mean ignoringtheology, politics, or policy,
it means refusing to weaponizethem in the heat of grief.
There's an old army phrase: first reports are always wrong. (06:21):
undefined
You don't fight the battle onrumor, you wait, you breathe,
you gather facts.
The same principle should applyhere.
First grief is always raw.
It doesn't need spin, it needsspace.
But instead, we rush to themicrophone, to the comment
section, to the viral clip, andin doing so, we let distortion
(06:45):
win.
Drawing the circle wider doesn'tmean you have to agree on
doctrine or politics.
It means you refuse to let thosedisputes erase the humanity of
the people in front of you.
And that's the counterstory.
It's less flashy.
It doesn't trend as fast, butit's the only one that doesn't
burn us all in the long run.
(07:06):
But before we close, let's notskip the obvious.
This whole debate flared upbecause people said, Mormons
aren't Christian.
So, let's clear that up.
Members of the Church of JesusChrist of Latter-day Saints,
yes, that's the full name, putJesus Christ at the absolute
center of their faith.
They believe he is the Son ofGod, the Savior of the world,
(07:28):
the only way to redemption.
Every sacrament, every prayer,every hymn points back to him.
So, why do critics insistotherwise?
The main reason comes down tothe nature of the Godhead.
Most Christians believe in theTrinity, one God and three
persons of the same substance.
LDS doctrine teaches that theFather, the Son, and the Holy
(07:51):
Ghost are three distinct beings,united perfectly in purpose and
glory, but not one substance.
That's the sharpest dividingline, and for many evangelicals,
it's enough to say if you rejectthe historic creeds, you're not
Christian.
Sometimes critics also point toother differences, like extra
(08:13):
scripture beyond the Bible,modern prophets, or teachings
about eternal progression.
But those are side notes, itmostly comes back to one thing:
the Trinity.
And here's the distortion: disagreement on doctrine doesn't (08:23):
undefined
erase devotion to Christ.
By any plain definition,following Jesus as Lord and
Savior, Latter-day Saints areChristian.
Denying that isn't theology.
It's brand control, it'snarrative warfare, it's a way of
drawing the circle smaller, ofrationing compassion, of saying,
(08:46):
you don't count.
And when people say that after atragedy, it tells you more about
their need for control thanabout LDS belief.
This isn't just about the LDSchurch in Michigan, it's about
how narrative warfare hijacksgrief, how identity becomes the
weapon, and how the victimsdisappear in the process.
(09:09):
It's also about the distortionmachine I write about and
distorted.
The bullets are real, but thestory that follows gets cropped,
retouched, rewritten, and beforelong, the edited version feels
more real than the truth.
That's the danger ofgaslighting, that's the comfort
of poetic truth.
And that's why every tragedybecomes a mirror, not just of
(09:31):
what happened, but of how wetwisted after.
That's the danger ofgaslighting, that's the comfort
of poetic truth, and that's whyevery tragedy becomes a mirror,
not just of what happened, butof how we twist it after.
So, the next time a headlinehits, don't just look at the
facts, look at the frame,because stories don't just tell
(09:52):
us what happened, they tell uswhat to feel about it.
And if you're unsure aboutLatter-day Saints, just as with
any other religion, try a sourcecheck.
Ask a Latter-day Saint friendwhat Jesus Christ means in their
life.
Ask missionaries about their ownrelationship with him, not to
debate, but to understand.
Or if you'd rather read thantalk, skim the church's official
(10:15):
site, churchofjesuschrist.org,and weigh it against the hot
takes.
That's the point.
When it comes to faith oranything else, don't let labels
do your thinking for you.
Engage.
Ask, listen, and think first.
And remember, you don't need allthe answers, but you should
(10:36):
question the ones you're handed.
If you want tools to spot thesedistortions more clearly, the
full framework lives atgaslight360.com.
And if you want to go deeper,the early access edition of my
new book, Distorted, isavailable now on Barnes and
Noble and Amazon.
When grief wears a label, itisn't grief anymore.
(10:58):
It's ammunition.
Until next time, stay skeptical,stay curious, and always think
first.
There's been a shooting at a church in
(00:01):
Michigan, smoke still hanging inthe air, families still waiting
to hear if their loved ones arealive.
And before the blood even dries,the comment section has decided,
Mormons aren't Christian.
That was the first viralresponse.
Not shock.
Not sorrow.
Not even anger at the shooter.
(00:22):
Just gatekeeping.
You don't count.
And that's the question.
Why does grief get hijacked sofast?
Why do we rush from tragedy totribal warfare as if sympathy
requires a membership card?
And who benefits when identity,race, religion, politics, gender
(00:42):
becomes the battlefield beforethe crime scene tape is even
cut?
Because this isn't just aboutone church, it's about a bigger
pattern, the way moments ofgrief get rewritten to fit
someone else's story.
Gaslighting tells us this wasn'treally an attack on
Christianity.
Poetic truth insists,Christianity is under attack.
(01:03):
Both miss the point.
Both shift the spotlight frompeople to politics.
So let's step back.
Let's follow the distortionmachine in real time, and let's
ask the uncomfortable question: when tragedy strikes, are we (01:14):
undefined
honoring the victims or justweaponizing their identities to
prop up our own side?
And today, we're going there.
This is Think First, where wedon't follow the script.
We question it.
(01:34):
Because in a world full ofpoetic truths and professional
gaslighting, someone's gotta saythe quiet part out loud.
Scroll through the reactionsafter Michigan and you see the
hijack in motion.
Trump says, Christianity isunder attack.
A soundbite simple enough torally, and instantly, the top
(01:56):
comment cuts the legs out fromunder it.
Mormons aren't Christian.
This is the move.
It doesn't matter if you're LDS,black, Jewish, Muslim, gay,
conservative, liberal.
Whenever tragedy hits, someone'sfirst instinct is to argue that
the victims don't really count.
It's not just religion.
(02:16):
Think about school shootings.
The first battle isn't grief,it's gun rights.
Think about when a policeofficer is killed in the line of
duty.
Almost immediately, you'll hear,well, that's the job they signed
up for.
Think about conflicts overseas.
Every rocket, every bomb isfollowed not just by grief but
by someone saying, they startedit, they deserved it, they're
(02:38):
not innocent.
That's how fast grief getsstolen.
With LDS members in Michigan, itplayed out through theology.
For others, it's politics.
For others still, it'snationality, race, or party.
But the tactic is the same.
Hijack the grief and reroot itthrough identity disputes.
And once you see it, it'simpossible to miss.
(03:02):
So what's actually happeninghere?
The pattern looks like this.
One, tragedy hits, raw,unfiltered grief.
Two, identity gets contested.
Are they really Christian?
Really American?
Really innocent?
Three.
Narrative gets weaponized.
The label becomes the lever.
(03:24):
Sympathy is rationed.
Outrage is redirected.
And here's the kicker.
The people fighting over thelabels aren't usually the
victims.
They're politicians, culturewarriors, comment section
gladiators.
They turn funerals intoplatforms.
They turn doctrine into weapons.
They turn grief into ascoreboard.
(03:45):
Why?
Because identity is power.
If you control the label, youcontrol the sympathy.
If you control the sympathy, youcontrol the outrage.
And if you control the outrage,you control the votes, the
money, the clicks.
The Michigan shooting is oneexample, but the machine shows
(04:05):
up everywhere.
When Muslims are attacked,critics will say, well, Islam
isn't really a religion ofpeace.
When immigrants die crossing aborder, the line becomes, well,
they shouldn't have comeillegally.
When political violence erupts,the spin is always.
It wasn't us, it was them.
(04:27):
In every case, the pattern isthe same.
Reframe the victim's identity sothe tragedy feels smaller,
cleaner, easier to weaponize.
That's not compassion, that'snarrative control, and it works
because it feels righteous inthe moment.
You're not just disagreeing,you're defending truth, or at
least that's how it feels.
But scratch the surface andyou'll see the incentives.
(04:49):
The politician benefits, themedia outlet benefits, the
tribal leader benefits, thevictim does not.
Here's the cost of all thisnarrative hijacking.
Victims are silenced twice,first by the violence, then by
the debate about whether theyeven qualify as victims.
Compassion gets rationed.
(05:10):
Instead of being human, itbecomes conditional.
You qualify if you check myboxes.
And grief gets divided.
Instead of pulling us together,tragedy becomes one more fault
line.
The deeper cost?
We lose the ability to see oneanother as people first.
A mother at a church in Michiganis no longer just a mother,
(05:30):
she's a Mormon.
And if that label is enough toerase her from Christian
compassion, then grief has beenweaponized.
And when grief gets weaponizedlong enough, people stop
trusting the whole system.
Why mourn openly if your painwill just be dissected?
Why speak up if your identitywill be used against you?
That's the cultural corrosion.
(05:52):
It's not just about religion,it's about the very act of
mourning together as a society.
So what's the alternative?
It's not complicated.
You draw the circle wider, notsmaller.
When tragedy hits, you don'tstart with the creed, the
passport, the partyregistration.
You start with the person.
(06:13):
That doesn't mean ignoringtheology, politics, or policy,
it means refusing to weaponizethem in the heat of grief.
There's an old army phrase: first reports are always wrong. (06:21):
undefined
You don't fight the battle onrumor, you wait, you breathe,
you gather facts.
The same principle should applyhere.
First grief is always raw.
It doesn't need spin, it needsspace.
But instead, we rush to themicrophone, to the comment
section, to the viral clip, andin doing so, we let distortion
(06:45):
win.
Drawing the circle wider doesn'tmean you have to agree on
doctrine or politics.
It means you refuse to let thosedisputes erase the humanity of
the people in front of you.
And that's the counterstory.
It's less flashy.
It doesn't trend as fast, butit's the only one that doesn't
burn us all in the long run.
(07:06):
But before we close, let's notskip the obvious.
This whole debate flared upbecause people said, Mormons
aren't Christian.
So, let's clear that up.
Members of the Church of JesusChrist of Latter-day Saints,
yes, that's the full name, putJesus Christ at the absolute
center of their faith.
They believe he is the Son ofGod, the Savior of the world,
(07:28):
the only way to redemption.
Every sacrament, every prayer,every hymn points back to him.
So, why do critics insistotherwise?
The main reason comes down tothe nature of the Godhead.
Most Christians believe in theTrinity, one God and three
persons of the same substance.
LDS doctrine teaches that theFather, the Son, and the Holy
(07:51):
Ghost are three distinct beings,united perfectly in purpose and
glory, but not one substance.
That's the sharpest dividingline, and for many evangelicals,
it's enough to say if you rejectthe historic creeds, you're not
Christian.
Sometimes critics also point toother differences, like extra
(08:13):
scripture beyond the Bible,modern prophets, or teachings
about eternal progression.
But those are side notes, itmostly comes back to one thing:
the Trinity.
And here's the distortion: disagreement on doctrine doesn't (08:23):
undefined
erase devotion to Christ.
By any plain definition,following Jesus as Lord and
Savior, Latter-day Saints areChristian.
Denying that isn't theology.
It's brand control, it'snarrative warfare, it's a way of
drawing the circle smaller, ofrationing compassion, of saying,
(08:46):
you don't count.
And when people say that after atragedy, it tells you more about
their need for control thanabout LDS belief.
This isn't just about the LDSchurch in Michigan, it's about
how narrative warfare hijacksgrief, how identity becomes the
weapon, and how the victimsdisappear in the process.
(09:09):
It's also about the distortionmachine I write about and
distorted.
The bullets are real, but thestory that follows gets cropped,
retouched, rewritten, and beforelong, the edited version feels
more real than the truth.
That's the danger ofgaslighting, that's the comfort
of poetic truth.
And that's why every tragedybecomes a mirror, not just of
(09:31):
what happened, but of how wetwisted after.
That's the danger ofgaslighting, that's the comfort
of poetic truth, and that's whyevery tragedy becomes a mirror,
not just of what happened, butof how we twist it after.
So, the next time a headlinehits, don't just look at the
facts, look at the frame,because stories don't just tell
(09:52):
us what happened, they tell uswhat to feel about it.
And if you're unsure aboutLatter-day Saints, just as with
any other religion, try a sourcecheck.
Ask a Latter-day Saint friendwhat Jesus Christ means in their
life.
Ask missionaries about their ownrelationship with him, not to
debate, but to understand.
Or if you'd rather read thantalk, skim the church's official
(10:15):
site, churchofjesuschrist.org,and weigh it against the hot
takes.
That's the point.
When it comes to faith oranything else, don't let labels
do your thinking for you.
Engage.
Ask, listen, and think first.
And remember, you don't need allthe answers, but you should
(10:36):
question the ones you're handed.
If you want tools to spot thesedistortions more clearly, the
full framework lives atgaslight360.com.
And if you want to go deeper,the early access edition of my
new book, Distorted, isavailable now on Barnes and
Noble and Amazon.
When grief wears a label, itisn't grief anymore.
(10:58):
It's ammunition.
Until next time, stay skeptical,stay curious, and always think
first.
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