LDS Church Attacked In Dominican Republic - Rob Riener - Greg's Mormon Stories Appearance

A man with a fake gun and chemicals attacks Latter-day Saint worshipers in a Sacrament Meeting in the Dominican Republic.

Rob Reiner and his wife were stabbed to death. Why are some, including the President, dancing on his grave?

Greg appeared on John Dehlin's Mormon Stories podcast yesterday.

 Raw Transcript

All right, welcome to Quick Show today.
Today is December 16th, 2025. Today we
are covering a Latterday Saint chapel
that was attacked in the Dominican
Republic. We are also covering Rob
Reiner and reaction to uh the horrific
stabbing of he and his wife. And just
quickly, my appearance on Mormon stories
yesterday, a very interesting
interaction with John Delin. But first,
this episode is brought to you by Go and
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out more. Here we go.
All right. So, in the Dominican
Republic, a an attacker
arrived at the chapel at 9:15 a.m. The
services had started at 9:00 a.m. So,
they had timed this exactly waiting for
people to be settled and in the chapel
for sacrament meeting. Maybe this is
even during sacrament. I'm not sure. But
I want to go over the
statement by the Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints in the Caribbean.
Here's what it says. Statement of the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints following incident in one of its
chapels. The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints confirms and regrets
an incident that occurred today,
December 14th, just this was just
Sunday, 2025, at approximately 9:15 a.m.
in one of its chapels located in the
lower Hina sector, specifically in the
chapel of the neighborhood Hina 1 of the
Estaka San. Domingo, Dominican Republic
Independence during the Sunday meeting.
Okay, very specific on where this
happened. Despite what happened, the
situation was quickly controlled and
there are no reports of serious injuries
or fatalities.
All members, friends of the church, and
missionaries that were in the building
are safe. Now, what happened here? Well,
the incident occurred, says the
statement, when an individual entered
the facility and attempted to intimidate
and assault the attendants using a
manipulative a manipulated toy gun with
the appearance of a weapon along with a
homemade low effect fortunately costic
substance
chemicals. The quick reaction of the
leaders and members in attendance
allowed bigger consequences to be
avoided. Right? That's an a key element
here in this, right? The quick reaction.
We've got to be prepared for these
things. I mean, these attacks are
happening more and more often and we
need to be prepared for this and we need
to react quickly. I'm thinking about the
Bondi uh terrorist attack in Australia
where there were I mean there was a
police department just a block away.
There were at least three officers on
the scene while this happened and they
were from most reports showing that they
were female officers not really ready to
respond to this type of thing. They were
looking for cover. Of course, they may
not have had weapons, but it took a man
to take down one of the terrorists for a
time and and who knows how many lives he
may have saved when he did that. An
unarmed man to do that. Uh my point on
this is first we need to react quickly
in these situations. We need to be
prepared for these situations then react
quickly. And men need to step up. You
ought to have in your mind what would
you do if there was an attack at the
church? What would you do? How do you
protect your family and others? as we
see with the terrorist attacks, as we
see with these attacks on the churches,
this is not some hypothetical situation
anymore where where you know the the the
the chance of this being is so
unbelievably remote that you don't need
to worry about it. That that is not the
case anymore. And hopefully wards and
stakes have taken measures as they have
been counseledled to do to prepare for
these types of things. maybe even go
through drills, close certain doors
during services,
have men roaming the halls. This is what
most churches do, but they have security
teams.
And it's, of course, it's logical. It's
what you do when you have a large number
of people congregated in a building,
especially in a building holding people
that might be a target.
Let's finish with the statement here.
Several people presented mild effects
from contact with substance you the
substance used are the chemicals and
were treated immediately on site. Only
one person was moved to a medical center
for evaluation due to an emotional
reaction associated with the event. He
is currently stable and out of danger.
We deeply appreciate the effective
assistance of the local authorities to
this event which happened for the first
time in the history of the church in the
in the sector. Thank you for the
solidarity received because I want to
make sure that this isn't something that
has happened often in that area. Um
but but this is a trend worldwide,
right? Violence is a trend worldwide.
These are terrorist attacks
and
we we need to be prepared for this.
I know that the
individuals that work for the church,
that are in charge of security, have
have worked tirelessly at this to try
and figure out what they need to do. And
maybe there will be more changes coming
and more instruction coming, I would
imagine.
But there is some excellent information
out there
online with the church on how to prepare
yourself for this. I think that there
will likely be more is my guess.
I think about myself in that type of a
situation and what I would do. I I' I've
run through the scenarios several times.
I I don't think that's ridiculous. I
think that's smart. I think you need to
be prepared.
All right. Rob Reiner, what a horrific
horrific story. Uh,
apparently the son is in custody. This
is the primary suspect for the
stabbings. This is an unbelievably
tragic story. What a great filmmaker.
Rob Briner was some of my favorite
films. A Few Good Men. Stand by Me was
absolutely superb for a young male uh
profile of basically junior high-aged
kids, boys
on a mission to get to a dead body. It
was it was fantastic. What is not
fantastic is some of the response to him
being stabbed. I mean this is a a our
our society is in a position where we
are more concerned with the politics of
the individual than we are about their
lives, their families, the very precious
things in their lives and those things
that are precious to us. Also, I'm
thinking of primarily here President
Trump's tweet uh saying the following in
regards to Rob Reiner, right? A very sad
thing happened last night in Hollywood.
Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling
but once very talented movie director
and comedy star, has passed away
together with his wife Michelle,
reportedly due to the anger he caused
others through his massive unyielding
and incurable affliction with a mind
crippling disease known as Trump
derangement syndrome. I think that not
only do other people have Trump der
derangement syndrome, but maybe Trump
himself has some Trump derangement
syndrome to make this about him. This is
preposterous.
Uh he was known to have driven people
crazy by his raging obsession of
President Donald J. Trump. This is in
the aftermath of him being brutally
murdered, possibly by his son
and his wife. This is horrendous.
Horrendous
with his obvious paranoia reaching new
heights as the Trump administration surp
expectations of greatness. And with the
golden age of America upon us, perhaps
like never before, may Rob and Michelle
rest in peace. You know, that's very
much a a backhand slap there at the end.
Uh look, I I I I this is very difficult
to process.
It's this is absolutely horrible for a
president of the United States to come
out like this. This idea again of
dancing on the grave of political
enemies, dancing on the grave of people
that have different political ideas than
you do or that are in a different class
than you are. The whole idea of
intersectionality and political identity
is is pulling us apart.
Look at some of the reaction of Charlie
Kirk, a husband and a father
murdered on live video and people
dancing on his grave.
because they have put in their mind that
he is some kind of monster, that morally
he's bankrupt and deserves to die. Or
Brian Thompson, the CEO of United
Healthcare, who is stabbed to death by
Luigi Manion, who is now a cult leader
basically,
especially of women, because of what he
did. He's some hero to some people. This
comp idea of of violence and murder as a
means to an end is extremely disturbing.
When someone dies, especially when
someone is murdered, what should come to
mind above all else is the preciousness
of life and of human value of an
individual. Rob Reiner is a husband and
a father and and just the act itself,
the horrendous tragic act of your own
son committing this and then dancing on
the grave of that individual, especially
as the president of the United States
tells you very much where we're at
today. Are we desensitized so much at
this point that that murder is okay if
it's against the other side? Do people
join the Islamists in their murder of
Jews and say this is okay because they
don't agree with the politics of of
Israel? Is it okay to kill someone
because you don't agree with their
positions on LGBTQ issues? We cannot
become so desensitized
with hearing about these things that we
lose the value of life and we lose the
value of those things that are precious.
It's concerning because you wonder, is
this just going to keep happening? We
need to find a way to get these
individuals off the streets and as a
society, we need to unanimously
condemn
those that dance on the graves of
others. Now, my last point here,
uh, so I went on against some people's
judgment. Uh, I went on John Delane's
Mormon stories yesterday, or it was
aired yesterday. It was actually a
couple weeks ago that I went on the show
and and recorded well, it was just shy
of about 3 hours of an interview. Uh, it
was very different than what John
usually does on his show. We had talked
about this. We'd gone to lunch, spent uh
more than a couple of hours at lunch. Um
talking back and forth on the phone and
on text uh since then and and then ended
up doing this interview.
It has very mixed reviews as I would
expect to have both from people that
would support me and from people that
are very much against me. If you look at
the comments on his
on the video, you will see obviously
from his group of people, his audience,
a lot of very negative things. It's
fascinating to me when I look at that,
you know, because the the topic was not
as much about faith and truth claims,
although we did go over those things,
but it was also well, it was primarily
social issues that we were talking
about. And yes, I brought brought up the
ideas of woke and I said I think I said
the term woke madness and uh a few
things. But then when you look at the
response
from many not all but you know there was
actually some positive there also from
his audience. But you look at the
response from a number of people on that
video. It has completely to do with the
wokeness. It is you're white, you're
privileged, you're a misogynist, you're
homophobic. you know, all of the
intersectional derogatory terms that
would be thrown at someone. Uh, and I
still don't understand why. I really
don't understand really why the
interview would would bring that type of
a response. I I suggest that you go
watch it and and obviously use your own
judgment.
Tell me what you think about that that
interview. Uh, am I any of those things?
I I don't think so.
But a lot of people were not real happy
with me. I thought that it was a very
cordial
um uh interview between John and I where
we could have a real conversation on
some things and talk without worrying
about an immediate, you know, horrific
response from the other side. I thought
that was important. Mostly as I was
going through the interview, my thought
was, okay, I want to talk to those that
are in a faith crisis. You know, a lot
of people, they might go on to John's
show or uh tune in to John's show
because they have a faith crisis, and I
wanted to go over a few things about
that faith crisis, a few things about
doubt and and understanding how to deal
with it. I think that we all need doubt.
I think that doubt is a part of the
process of growing in your faith. And if
you don't have it, then you have no
resiliency in your faith. So those
things need to be, I think, articulated,
brought up to people that have not heard
those things before. And and that's kind
of what I was looking at. That's who
that's who I was talking to. As well as
he has a very large never mo audience,
right? Those that have never been uh
members of the church before. And so I
wanted to talk to a a slice of those
individuals, a portion of those
individuals also and give them just a
different view of maybe both politically
and and of socially and of the gospel,
right, from someone who is promoting a a
faith a faithful point of view with the
church. And that was my goal with it.
I'll be doing a reaction video to that
soon. Uh, so look for that. I want to
say in regards to this again, you can't
succumb to the spiral of silence. You've
got to be able to go talk. You've got to
be able to stand up for what you believe
in. Even going into a hostile
environment or going into and and John's
environment was not hostile, but the
audience might be a little hostile,
right, toward toward what I'm going to
say. John was great actually and and set
up a a very uh accommodating
uh uh environment for me in in that
interview. But you got to be able to
speak up. You got to be able to talk and
and to do that you also need to be able
to articulate your position and your
opinions. And so you need to learn how
to do that. But most of all, just speak
up. Thanks for listening.