{"id":137255,"date":"2021-02-21T07:33:32","date_gmt":"2021-02-21T15:33:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=137255"},"modified":"2021-02-23T09:26:59","modified_gmt":"2021-02-23T17:26:59","slug":"wp-his-pastors-tried-to-steer-him-away-from-social-media-rage-he-stormed-the-capitol-anyway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=137255","title":{"rendered":"WP: His pastors tried to steer him away from social media rage. He stormed the Capitol anyway."},"content":{"rendered":"

From the Washington Post<\/a>: <\/p>\n

Facebook was making him angry.<\/p>\n

For weeks last spring and summer, Michael Sparks had watched video of protests for racial justice around the country with growing unease. He could not turn away from his phone, even as he feared it was changing him. He posted his outrage. He posted that he hated seeing what was happening to his country. He posted that it made him want to kill people.<\/p>\n

The 43-year-old husband and father didn\u2019t believe that he actually would, but he knew even just saying so fell short of the Christian witness he wanted to bring to the world. His pastor at Franklin Crossroads Baptist Church in Cecilia, Ky., advised him to leave Facebook. He considered it. Instead, the rage that had begun online led him to Washington, D.C., not long after the new year.<\/p>\n

According to the FBI, Sparks was the first to enter the Capitol through a smashed window near the Ohio Clock Corridor…<\/p>\n

The attack on the Capitol was for many involved a Christian insurrection, urged along by passages of scripture and culminating with prayers intoned in the occupied Senate. But as Sparks\u2019s story shows, his faith played a more complicated role in his journey to Jan. 6. While his social media posts make clear he connected the election and his religious beliefs, his church community had also been a force cautioning him against letting online resentment take over his life. That tension \u2014 religious rhetoric as a goad to extremism on the one hand; community accountability as a safeguard against it on the other \u2014 highlights the complex influence some churches have had through the past tumultuous months, and may yet in the future…<\/p>\n

His occupation at the time of his arrest is unclear. One relative said he has been working at an auto parts company. He once owned a small construction firm, but state corporation records indicate it is no longer active…<\/p>\n

However, facets of his social media persona also present a reflective man struggling with fears of what he was becoming, in particular a 17-minute video he shared with his \u201cchurch family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking directly into the camera in July, Sparks acknowledged that his attitude online had become extreme. With an air both abashed for things he had said and hopeful that he had put those things behind him, he recounted multiple attempts at community intervention and vowed to resist forces that ultimately would overwhelm him.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs you know I consider myself a devout Christian, a follower of Jesus Christ, and that\u2019s my passion, has been for many years now,\u201d he said. \u201cAs of late, with everything that\u2019s been going on, boy it\u2019s been a rough time for me, honestly. And I\u2019ve been fighting really hard with anger. And seeing everything that\u2019s been going on \u2014 whew, it is just \u2026 it\u2019s eatin\u2019 my lunch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Much of his message was devoted to the importance of going to church, relying on others to keep one on the straight and narrow. He spoke often of gratitude and love for people in his life who had helped him through a hard time. But he could not let go of the notion of a world under siege.<\/p>\n

The problem, as he saw it, began with Black Lives Matter, which he regarded as \u201can absolute racist \u2026 horrible \u2026 non-Christian organization.\u201d The protests in dozens of cities following the death of George Floyd in police custody had driven him over the edge.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a patriot. I love the United States of America. I love our freedom,\u201d he said in the video. \u201cThis is the greatest country in the entire world. And that being said, we are under attack. There\u2019s \u2014 It\u2019s good versus evil now.\u201d<\/p>\n

But it wasn\u2019t just the fact of what was happening. It was also the way seeing it felt impossible to escape. \u201cIt\u2019s really got me, and it has had me, very angry,\u201d he said in the video. \u201cBecause if you watch, Facebook is where they\u2019re feeding this anger and hatred. \u2026 They\u2019ll find out what you are for or against and they\u2019re gonna feed anger, that\u2019s what they\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

That wasn\u2019t the reason for the video, though.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to apologize,\u201d he continued. \u201cI have definitely not been showing godly things on there. You know, I\u2019ve even said as far as I would shoot that person in the head, I would shoot this person in the head. Whether I would or not doesn\u2019t matter; I don\u2019t need to get on there and spread this because I\u2019m not showing the love of Christ.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the Washington Post: Facebook was making him angry. For weeks last spring and summer, Michael Sparks had watched video of protests for racial justice around the country with growing unease. He could not turn away from his phone, even … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[79,42874],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-137255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-internet","category-voter-fraud"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=137255"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":137256,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137255\/revisions\/137256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=137255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=137255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=137255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}