**He Started Out as a Gym Bro for Jesus. He Ended Up Burning Down a Synagogue**

Spencer Pittman, a 19-year-old from Mississippi, had a seemingly idyllic online presence. His Instagram account was filled with photos of him in baseball uniform, action shots on the diamond, and off-field moments with teammates. The captions were often infused with his faith, such as "God is good. Thankful for my teammates." On X, he chronicled his college career as an outfielder for Coahoma Community College in western Mississippi, posting game schedules, personal records in the gym, and videos of his training captioned with scripture passages.

Pittman's online persona was a quintessential representation of the Southern Christian sports bro. He looked like any other young athlete who had found solace in his faith to guide him through life. But beneath this façade, Pittman harbored a dark secret: he had been radicalized into a fanatical antisemite.

Last week, Pittman confessed to burning down the Beth Israel Synagogue in Jackson, Mississippi. The synagogue, which had been firebombed by the Ku Klux Klan in 1967, was targeted by Pittman as part of his calculated and ambitious hate. He told investigators that he had targeted the "Synagogue of Satan" for its "Jewish ties." When confronted by his father, Pittman laughed and bragged about finally getting them.

The question of how Spencer Pittman was radicalized is a confounding one. He didn't appear to be an isolated internet obsessive with overt ties to white nationalists. He seemed to have friends or at least teammates, and his life appeared to be largely offline, with community in his world of athletics. There are gaps in our understanding of how Pittman went from being a baseball-obsessed teenager to a fanatical antisemite.

However, it seems that Pittman had found himself highly active in a strange community on the internet – one where toxic forms of masculinity culture merge with fundamentalist Christianity. This Christian-bro gym culture offers many young men an intoxicating sense of purpose, one in which the pursuit of conventional masculinity is given divine backing.

A closer look at Pittman's online activities reveals his immersion in this subculture. In early January, he posted a link to a website for a lifestyle brand called "One Purpose." The site advertised a wellness subscription service that combined Gen Z buzzwords with Christian self-help: looksmaxxing, testosterone optimization, scripture memorization, divine schedule optimization, A.I. food scanning, financial tracking, and Bible-based workouts.

The brand's website scattered Hebrew throughout its content, promising a diet based on biblical foods (such as figs, olives, and barley) and a health plan that enabled the biblical patriarchs to live for centuries. The protocol was advertised as a "life-expectancy maxxing" system – an original concept, but one rooted in internet culture's framing of an older idea.

According to Heidi Campbell, a professor who researches technology, religion, and digital culture, there is nothing hate-oriented about this content. However, it calls on young men to cast off their old interests and influences and remake their lives by embracing a collection of extreme worldviews – including tech's optimization culture, fundamentalist Christianity, and the manosphere's aesthetic self-improvement culture.

When brought to reforming the physical body, Campbell warns that this level of single-minded intensity can set conditions for other kinds of extremism. "There can be a lot of overlap with different people who tend toward more extremist ideas and behaviors," she said. "That jump in an extreme how you treat bodies to an extreme in how you treat culture – that idea of purification – can be twisted to justify certain logic."

Pittman's online presence became increasingly erratic, posting about what he perceived as the true threats to the world: "Make discipline cringe. Make truth offensive. Make masculinity shameful." These ideas are often articulated in conservative Christian spaces as about being a "warrior" for Christ.

However, experts warn that this theology of power and dominance lends itself to antisemitism. It's possible that Pittman had become confused or radicalized by the time he committed the crime. His mental state before the incident remains unclear.

The case raises questions about the internet's role in shaping young men like Pittman. The platform is awash with groups ready to prey on their confusion and insecurities, telling them that if they only remake themselves to be strong enough, masculine enough, driven enough, powerful enough, they'll get the approval they want – from women, society, or God.