(RNS) — This time last week, all of them were still alive.
Four of my fellow Latter-day Saints were murdered on Sunday, September 28, while worshiping at church. Eight others were wounded. The youngest shooting victim, who is recovering, is only six years old.
All week, I’ve been following the story, praying for the victims and their families. And I’ve been trying – and failing – to pray for the shooter, who also died that day. I’ve been too filled with righteous anger to pray for him.
How could he do it? Why did he do it?
This afternoon, I was finally able to pray for him too, and it was because of something that happened at General Conference.
Or rather, I should say it was because of something that didn’t happen today. None of the Conference speakers used the shooting to whip our people into a frenzy of tribal grievance.
It would have been easy to do. We’re so primed for it. Right now we’re mourning a one-two punch: not only the horrifying and unexpected deaths of our fellow Saints who died violently, but also the more expected loss of Russell M. Nelson, who died peacefully the night before the shooting at age 101.
The irony that President Nelson, whose last major written words were an op ed about peacemaking for Time magazine, died just before this violent event shook our people is something I’ve been thinking about all week.
At the start of General Conference today, Dallin H. Oaks, who will be our next president of the church, made a point of saying that President Nelson had already planned all the speakers and the music for this conference, and that one way to honor him would be by following the schedule he had approved. Oaks asked the speakers to refrain from giving personal tributes to President Nelson and instead stick to the Conference-as-usual plan, saving any personal remarks for Tuesday’s funeral.
But Nelson’s handprint was evident from the very first speaker, whose topic was peacemaking. Elder Gary Stevenson opened by acknowledging that “our hearts are mourning loss” and that tragedy and violence have marked our world. He didn’t name the Michigan shooting, but I’m sure most U.S. Saints were thinking of it.
What I took from his talk was that the times when it seems most impossible to make peace are the times when it is most imperative to make peace.
It made me think of the GoFund me campaigns that have been started for the victims of the shooting, so I went and made a donation there. You can go to that site to support the families of those who died and also the families of those who are recovering – people who will need surgeries and therapy and time off work.
A GoFundMe page for the victims of the September 28, 2025 LDS Church shooting in Michigan. (screenshot)
But there’s also another way to donate, and that’s to the family of the shooter.
A member of the church has set up a GiveFundGo page to help the wife and children of Thomas Sanford, the man who shot the victims and burned the church. As of this afternoon, it had raised more than $361,000 to provide support for the Sanford family.
The man who started it, David Butler, is a Latter-day Saint science fiction writer with no connection to the Sanfords. He set up the fundraiser because in the New Testament book of James, we learn that “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction.”
Yesterday, the fund creator said he had been “standing in a hurricane of love and generosity for three days now. Thank you.” He has been in touch with the Sanford family, who expressed gratitude “for the massive outpouring of support and compassion.”
Somehow, this flood of love — not just for my own people who have been wronged, but for the family of the one who wronged them — softened my heart. I gave too. I prayed. And I cried — not just the tears of sorrow and anger I’ve succumbed to this week, but tears of joy as well.
I am proud of my people. This is how we conquer the hatred and prejudice of the world: not with an eye for an eye, but with an inundation of love. President Nelson would smile on this response, I think.
How fitting today were the words of “Now Let Us Rejoice,” sung by the Tabernacle Choir at the opening of Conference:
Now let us rejoice in the day of salvation.
No longer as strangers on earth need we roam.
Good tidings are sounding to us and each nation,
And shortly the hour of redemption will come,
When all that was promised the Saints will be given,
And none will molest them from morn until ev’n,
And earth will appear as the Garden of Eden,
And Jesus will say to all Israel, “Come home.”
May we be safe, inhabiting a Zion where none will molest us from morn until ev’n. But may we also strive for more than that: to create such a Zion for all people, even the ones who seek to do harm. This is the gospel.
Related column:
Remembering Russell M. Nelson, LDS president who shook up the church
