U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced last month that she would seek the death penalty for Luigi Mangione, the 27-year-old accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Shortly after, Bondi reported receiving death threats.

A recent California ballot initiative seeking to penalize insurers that delay or deny lifesaving care has been introduced as the “Luigi Mangione Access to Healthcare Act.” And last week in San Francisco, the Taylor Street Theater reportedly sold out its upcoming run of “Luigi: The Musical,” described as “a wildly irreverent, razor-sharp comedy” in which Mangione becomes “an accidental folk hero.” The show’s website insists the play is “not a celebration of violence” — only a satire probing why Mangione “struck such a chord with the public.”

Mangione’s story raises broader questions about how justice is defined and how quickly society applauds those who take it into their own hands.

How has a man who allegedly executed a business executive come to be hailed as a hero, packaged as entertainment, and nearly canonized?

On the morning of Dec. 4, Thompson stepped out of his Midtown Manhattan hotel, less than a block from the Museum of Modern Art, en route to a meeting on West 54th Street. Around 6:45 a.m., Mangione allegedly emerged from between two parked cars and allegedly shot Thompson multiple times in the back. Investigators say each round was etched with the words “deny, defend, depose.” Prosecutors say Mangione had tracked Thompson’s routine for weeks, crossed state lines with a silenced pistol, and carried out a carefully calculated assassination.

Social media reacted within minutes. TikTok users anointed Mangione a “Healthcare Hero.” A legal defense fund is approaching $1 million, and online vendors now sell “Saint Luigi” prayer candles. Meanwhile, Thompson’s widow and two children have watched strangers celebrate the man who took their husband and father.

A deeper sickness

The public response reveals a broader frustration with the health care system, where delayed treatments, inflated procedure costs, and unaffordable medications have become disturbingly common. It looks for someone to blame.

But beneath the outrage and helplessness lies something deeper: a longing for rescue. A savior. Someone to step in and make it right. And when no one does, society crowns those who take justice into their own hands. Or inspires others to try.

Many supporters online justified Thompson’s murder. One TikTok user put it bluntly: “Insurance companies have killed thousands by refusing care. Mangione just gave them what they deserve.”

Genuine pain meets cultural drift. Emotions now outrank principles. And spectacle outranks substance. Turning a homicide into a musical is not clever, thoughtful critique — it signals moral exhaustion. Cheering a vigilante says, in effect, “I’ll decide what justice looks like.” And when a society lights prayer candles in honor of an accused murderer, it has confused vengeance for virtue.

True justice, by contrast, is anchored in truth, aims at restoration, and moves through lawful process. The crime bypassed every safeguard — reducing a human being, an image-bearer of God, to collateral damage. Scripture is clear: “Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord.”

Publicly available evidence doesn’t indicate that Mangione ever filed a lawsuit, sat down with Thompson, or met with anyone from a health insurance company. He never organized a peaceful protest. Instead, he allegedly opened fire — and people cheered.

A different way

History, though, offers a different blueprint for confronting deep injustice — one that Martin Luther King Jr. understood. Writing from a Birmingham, Alabama, jail, King outlined four steps for confronting it: gather facts, negotiate, undergo self-purification, and only then take direct, nonviolent action.

King’s patient, God-honoring approach didn’t just reshape laws — it reshaped hearts. The assassin, by contrast, strategized with rage and gunfire, appointing himself judge and jury. The applause he receives now threatens to silence the very lesson King labored to impart.

Two forces appear to be fueling the public response. First, widespread frustration with systemic failures exposes real suffering in this fallen world. For many Americans, the health care maze of insurers, drug companies, hospitals, and policymakers feels predatory. Second, cultural norms have shifted. Outrage has replaced deliberation, and peaceful restoration is no longer the goal. The value of human life feels negotiable.

Applauding an alleged gunman reveals that self-justified anger, not discernment, is now steering the ship. But vengeance disguised as justice is still evil. Right and wrong don’t bend to hashtags, personal versions of truth, or societal trends. True justice is steady, ordered, and restorative. It requires humility to acknowledge that human beings are not its author.

Micah 6:8 presents a higher standard of justice rooted in mercy and humility: “To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” The verse binds justice to mercy — and both to humility. Mangione’s story raises broader questions about how justice is defined and how quickly society applauds those who take it into their own hands. It also invites a quieter kind of reflection: Where do those same vigilante instincts surface in everyday life — not in violence, but in subtler forms of retaliation, exposure, or punishment that feel justified in the moment?

Maybe it’s blasting a business online for poor service instead of speaking to the owner face-to-face. Perhaps it’s joining a social media pile-on, canceling someone over a single misstep, or cutting someone off in traffic to “teach them a lesson.” Different scale, same instinct: to occupy the judge’s seat and declare justice on personal terms.

These actions may feel justified — even redemptive. In the face of valid grievances, whether rooted in exploitative workplaces or overpriced services, the way they are addressed still matters. When individuals act as their own law, the result is often greater injustice, not less. In such conditions, human flourishing gives way to division, fear, and moral confusion.

Lasting justice, changed hearts

The assassin's bullets didn’t reform health care or restore human flourishing. They killed a father, traumatized a nation, and tempted a society to pursue a counterfeit justice. They sowed fear, chaos, and the potential for copycats. Proposals such as the Luigi Mangione Access to Healthcare Act may bring change, but it’s born of fear and opportunism, not transformed hearts. It seeks control, proclaiming, “I am the judge.”

Lasting justice doesn’t begin in systems but rather in the moral character of individuals. A just society is built by people who embody justice before they demand it — whose hearts, habits, and relationships reflect a higher moral order. When justice is rooted in truth and shaped by mercy and humility, it becomes self-sustaining. In such a society, the need to seek justice is diminished because it is already present in people’s lives.

God has shown you what is good. And what does he require of you? To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. It’s justice with mercy, mercy with humility — humility that recognizes no individual is the hero or the god of the story.

The assassin did not just kill a man. He redefined, for some, what it means to be just. It is the kind of distortion that ought to provoke moral outrage, not because it shocks, but because it substitutes true justice with a dangerous imitation. Resisting it demands more than words; it calls for lives shaped by prayer, grounded in truth, and anchored in humility and mercy.

Brian Thompson is gone. Luigi Mangione still faces trial. What remains is a choice: Buy a ticket to the musical or pursue a justice marked by mercy and truth. One path longs for a savior. The other already knows who the savior is.