‘Anger never persuades’: Leaders of faith, an Idaho senator and professor weigh in on tragedy at Michigan church shooting

Brad Moss is praying for the four churchgoers who died on Sunday after a man drove his truck through a ward in Michigan and began to open fire on an innocent crowd.

He’s also praying for the shooter.

Moss, the president of the Post Falls Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said as cliche as it may sound, he doesn’t find it difficult to pray for the soul of a man who unleashed such violence in a place of worship.

“Anybody that does anything like that, I just don’t believe they’re in the right mind,” Moss said. “They needed help a long, long time ago, and didn’t get the appropriate help that they needed. They’re still my brother and my sister. … In the next life, we believe there’s a judgment portion to all this, and they’re going to be adequately judged and not judged by me, even in a moment of anger. What I think they may deserve is likely far less than what the Savior Himself understands about that person.”

Watching TV and reading the news often makes it feel like the acts of violance at businesses, places of worship and schools take place in far-off lands, Moss said.

But when he and other members of the church watched the news report from Sunday’s shooting that left four dead and eight injured, it hit a lot closer to home.

The white spire of the church in Michiga n and the bricks of the building closely resembled his own place of worship.

Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, expressed sorrow over the senseless violence and said he would pray for the families of those affected.

“Places of worship are meant to be sacred, unifying havens for people of faith; they are a place to provide hope and healing, to lift up believers and to share solace with the lonely, sick and broken-hearted,” his statement read.

The day before the shooting, church members were mourning the loss of the 17th president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Russell Nelson, who died at 101.

For Robert Sanders, the president of the Mt. Spokane Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, losing Nelson and four innocent lives within hours was devastating.

In difficult times like this, Sanders said he tries to hearken back to the wise words of Nelson.

“Anger never persuades,” Nelson said in an April 2023 speech. “Hostility builds no one. Contention never leads to inspired solutions.”

These are the words to which Sanders has clung over the past couple days and a topic he shares regularly with members of his stake.

A stake is a unit of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that typically includes anywhere from five to 10 different congregations. Across the Inland Northwest, there are 15 stakes that serve over 54,000 members of the church.

John Sheveland, a professor of religious studies at Gonzaga University who teaches a course on religion and violence, said violence at schools, concerts and houses of worship all fall under the umbrella of a phenomenon of mass shootings that’s become a distinctly American problem.

According to the nonpartisan online database called the Gun Violence Archive, as of day 272 of 2025, there had been 325 mass shootings this year alone.

“There isn’t really a silver-bullet method to predict who will become a shooter, but the people who do become shooters, they leave evidence, they leave statements,” Sheveland said. “They’ll say things. At the planning stages, for people who have eyes to see it, there are ways of seeing what a person is doing when they’re in the planning stages.”

Sheveland said he would like to see the average person and the government find ways to get “upstream” of mass shootings and intervene before anything actually happens.

Looking at whether a person is traumatized, recently out of a war zone, bought a weapon for the first time, has large swaths of ammunition without an obvious need for that ammunition, or displays patterns of aggressive behavior can all be signs that an individual is preparing to commit a violent act.

Sheveland said having this alertness is tantamount to acting upstream from an event of harm to prevent it from happening in the first place.

Beyond that, he would like to see the government become much more committed to learning how radicalization and deradicalization work. He also touched on the importance and long-term effectiveness of soft power compared to hard power. But soft power, Sheveland said, takes time to develop and requires “oodles” of skill.

Using the example of the War on Terror, Sheveland said it’s become abundantly clear that hard power, or defeating an enemy militarily, does not fix the problem in its entirety.

“Soft power is going to look to different kinds of online fora where people are being radicalized and develop deradicalization, or content that’s critical, even comically critical of white nationalists or of ISIS recruiters,” Sheveland said. “Soft power would also look at educational institutions and develop a willingness to examine, maybe in a public health lens of analysis, what are the ills affecting our society, and how can education kind of address these?”

In the case of Sunday’s mass shooting in Michigan, the shooter was a 40-year-old Marine veteran. While there’s no evidence that mass shootings are a trend among military veterans, Sheveland would still like to see the government be more successful in giving veterans what they need post-deployment.

And then there’s the bigger picture. A 2018 report by the Switzerland-based Small Arms Survey stated that there are more than 393 million civilian-owned firearms in the United States. This is enough for every man, woman and child in the country to own a gun and still have 67 million guns left over.

Through interpersonal and even financial commitments, Sheveland said Americans should support each other in more ways. In the aftermath of Sunday’s mass shooting, Sheveland suggested for people to reach out to neighbors, friends, workers and students who are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and express solidarity. Anyone who would like to send a message to the Church can email sendcondolences@churchofjesuschrist.org.

Both Moss and Sanders are pleased with the outpouring of support they’ve received. Moss said more people have reached out to them from outside their faith with flowers and tender messages than from within.

He said there’s a prominent misconception that their buildings are only open to members of the church who have been baptized. While temples are a different story, visitors are welcome at wards. Similarly, Sanders said they welcome everyone, no matter their race, nationality or religion.

“Contention is a choice,” Sanders said. “Peacemaking is a choice. You have your agency to choose contention or reconciliation. I urge you to try to be a peacemaker now and always.”