Stephen Spencer Pittman, the 19-year-old suspected of setting fire to Mississippi’s largest synagogue, uses his social media accounts to post about baseball, his friends, his commitment to physical fitness and his devotion to Christianity. 

That was until 12:52 a.m. on Saturday, Jan. 10, when he posted an antisemitic video on Instagram.

“A Jew in my backyard, I can’t believe my Jew crow didn’t work,” an animated Disney-Princess-esque character says to a short yellow figure with a long nose. “You’re getting baptized right now.”

About two hours later, Pittman is alleged to have driven to a synagogue, the Beth Israel Congregation in northeast Jackson, where federal authorities say he used an ax to break through one of the windows. Once inside, Pittman is alleged to have doused the lobby with gasoline and set it on fire with a torch. 

The flames reduced the historic synagogue’s library and administrative offices to charred ruins — and burned his hands in the process. 

Federal authorities say Pittman laughed when he told his father what he did, boasting about finally getting “them.” 

Pittman is facing state and federal arson charges, including elevated hate crime charges at the state level. The federal criminal complaint says he admitted to law enforcement that he targeted the synagogue for its “Jewish ties.” 

Previous local news reports show Pittman, who goes by his middle name, was a multi-year honor roll student and varsity baseball player at St. Joseph Catholic School in Madison. After graduating in 2024, Pittman attended Coahoma Community College in the Mississippi Delta, where he played on the baseball team. 

The federal criminal complaint detailing Pittman’s alleged crime stands in stark contrast to the aspirational and seemingly comfortable life documented on social media by the suburban student-athlete from one of Mississippi’s wealthiest cities.  

Pittman has posted regularly on his X account, often about baseball and Christianity. Many posts pair videos of him practicing his swing in a batting cage with a captioned Bible verse. 

His most recent post, on Jan. 6, links to a website called One Purpose, which describes itself as a faith-based community for men focused on “​​Scripture-backed fitness. Brotherhood accountability. Life-expectancy maxxing.”

“Maxxing” refers to a trend, popularized on sites like TikTok and Youtube, where people talk about maximizing certain aspects of their lives — most often physical appearance, health or wealth. 

Mississippi Today reviewed the site’s domain, which showed that the website was created on Dec. 5 and registered to a Stephen Pittman in Madison. 

A number listed under the domain name has been disconnected, and efforts to reach Pittman’s family and his court-appointed attorney on Tuesday were unsuccessful. His court-appointed federal public defenders did not immediately respond to emails and phone calls seeking comment.

The site Pittman promoted days before he allegedly committed a shocking act of antisemitic violence offers a window into his beliefs. Court records, a review of Pittman’s online activity, and an interview with a longtime friend also paint a portrait of how he spent his time and his worldview, one that appears to have been informed by internet subcultures weaving between fitness, finance and Christian Identity. 

With reports showing an increase in antisemitic content and encounters on social media, researchers argue that a review of a suspect’s digital footprint can provide insight into their motive.

Sheep or Shepherd? 

The One Purpose website, which culminates with an offer of a $99 per month membership subscription, is a mishmash of pop self-improvement fads alongside religious references. 

A bar at the top of the site shows a number shifting back and forth between 240 and 245 “brothers building their temples right now,” a reference to the supposed number of paying subscribers.

The top of the site advertises 96 scripture lessons for free next to a beaming yellow button that asks users to begin their “transformation.” A click of that button opens a prompt that asks the user to select whether they are a Shepherd or a Sheep, a biblical metaphor that contrasts those who lead through divine guidance and those who are easily lost and dependent on others. 

“This is a pivotal moment,” the site says. “Will you follow the crowd or lead with purpose?”

The Shepherd button directs the user to answer questions about what ails them, such as a lack of confidence, discipline or energy. The user then selects from a list what “wordly methods” they’ve used to change, such as diets or workout routines. The user is prompted to imagine a transformed version of himself. Eventually, the prompt asks for the user’s information to create a personalized “temple plan.”

The user is directed to a “biblical nutrition” plan touting the “Seven Species of Israel,” including wheat, pomegranate and honey. 

Pittman’s emphasis on a puritanical diet extends to his broader online footprint, one that shows he was not simply a passive consumer of content but also encouraged others to engage with his corner of the internet. 

Stacks of cash, diet fads and ‘how to destroy a society’

Pittman appeared to have multiple social media pages, including duplicate accounts on various platforms.

Mississippi Today reviewed Pittman’s social media activity and interviewed one of Pittman’s longtime school friends. The person was granted anonymity to share details from Pittman’s social media activity and their personal interactions. To verify the person’s connection to Pittman, Mississippi Today cross-referenced screenshots of messages Pittman sent the person with other screenshots of Pittman’s Snapchat username. 

Of all his accounts, Pittman seemed to be most prolific on Snapchat. So much so, he even posted a photo of himself in the hospital with burnt hands, allegedly after setting fire to the synagogue.  

According to the friend, Pittman has “changed a lot” in recent years, living an extremely online existence. The friend said Pittman posts 10-15 Snapchats a day, often documenting his interest in diet trends, fitness, expensive cars and thousands of dollars in cash he claimed to have made through an artificial intelligence platform.

“He posts about either him eating the kind of food that’ll make him really ripped, or his money stuff, or him driving his Porsche or his dad’s Porsche,” the friend said. 

Pittman also frequently posted his fitness regimen, the friend said. He would post about “testosterone optimization” and videos of himself cracking raw eggs into his mouth. His physical regimen also included injecting himself with steroids, the person said.

“He was probably like, ‘OK, I’m gonna get jacked’ or whatever,” the friend said. “And he definitely did steroids, because he posts him putting needles into himself.” 

Themes such as diet, masculinity and fitness frequently co-occur in online spaces associated with the “manosphere” and Christian nationalist-adjacent subcultures, where physical strength, dietary “purity” and hormonal optimization are framed as markers of masculinity and discipline.

The friend said Pittman never talked much about politics, and that is supported by his Instagram page, which shows little engagement with notable political figures.

On Instagram, Pittman described himself as an entrepreneur, a follower of Christ and a “lawyer” of God. His bio includes an Italian flag and dove emojis.

He follows hundreds of accounts, suggesting he was an avid user, including baseball accounts, well-known rappers like Drake and Playboi Carti, President Donald Trump, an account devoted to “Catholic hopecore content,” several motivational accounts and pages about conspiracy theories. 

Pittman also posted photos on his Instagram account showing a Porsche, jewelry, stacks of dollar bills and a reference to an AI venture.

“Link in bio, start making passive income with less than 10 minutes a day, Crazy ROI, 300k views and you’ve already been repaid for the ai. Stop being lazy get started today,” Pittman wrote, linking to a now broken webpage. 

The content on Pittman’s Instagram shifted in the fall of 2025. Prior to that, Pittman would often go months between posting, and all of his photos were about baseball or his friends, such as pictures of him at bat or in the outfield.

“We have brotherly bonds that couldn’t be broken,” he wrote in May 2022 about his high school baseball team. 

But on Dec. 13, Pittman posted a slideshow of photos, the first one seemingly of him holding his middle finger up to multiple stacks of $100 bills. “Money is the root of all evil,” he wrote in the caption. “Hate hates growth.” 

More bizarre posts followed. A video of him driving with the hashtags “bullish,” “ecom,” “clipping,” and “dropshipping.” On Dec. 23, he posted a video of himself stuffing multiple $20 bills into a Salvation Army donation box. 

The next day, he uploaded a video of his hand on the steering wheel of a car, listening to a Chief Keef song, a post he captioned “How to destroy a society: Make discipline cringe. Make truth offensive. Make masculinity shameful. Make femininity weak. Make families unstable. Make loyalty rare. Make education manipulation.” 

Earlier this month, four days before he posted the antisemitic video, Pittman posted a bullet point list of recommendations for a “Christian Diet,” including raw milk, raw eggs, raw honey, raw oysters, raw nuts and “Only God-made fats,” such as olive oil, butter, lard and ghee. 

Influencers in online spaces popular with young men interested in masculinity, diet fads and faith can sometimes blend self-improvement content with ideological messaging, portraying modern society as decadent or feminized, some analysts have noted.  

Pittman also created a second Instagram account, with the first post in July 2025, to promote free fitness routines that he would create for clients if they DMed him the word “SHRED.” His videos included photos of him flexing in front of mirrors and frying red meat and eggs. 

But in between all of the newfangled fads Pittman seemed to embrace, a professed devotion to God seemed to remain at the center of his pursuits. 

‘Synagogue of Satan’ and Christian Identity 

After Pittman was arrested at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, where he had sought treatment for burns, investigators said he admitted to starting the fire at Beth Israel, which he called the “synagogue of Satan.”

It was not the first time the Jackson congregation had been targeted, and it was not the first time that phrase was directed at a Jewish house of worship in Mississippi. Jewish people make up a small percentage of Mississippi residents. Although Beth Israel is the state’s largest Jewish congregation, it has only about 150 families as members.

“Synagogue of Satan” is a phrase used by followers of Christian Identity, a white supremacist interpretation of Christianity, to refer to Jews. In Mississippi in the 1960s, it was also adopted by the Ku Klux Klan, which in 1967 bombed Beth Israel Synagogue over its rabbi’s support for civil rights.

Christian Identity is a white supremacist interpretation of Christianity that teaches that Adam and Eve were white, that non-whites were created on the Sixth Day with the animals and have no souls, and that Jews are the offspring of Satan. Christian Identity teaches that white people are the true Israelites and that Jews are impostors.

More recently, the phrase has been adopted by figures such as Candace Owens, the right-wing commentator who has used the phrase and suggested there are people “who are pretending to be Jews, but are in fact people that worship Satan.”

Pittman, who is scheduled to return to federal court for a preliminary hearing Jan. 20, first appeared on Monday afternoon via video conference from a hospital, accompanied by a public defender. 

Aside from answering the judge’s questions, the young man did not speak. At times during the proceedings, he appeared to be leaning back in his chair, gazing away from the camera. Both his hands were heavily bandaged. 

When the judge asked him if he understood his rights to an attorney, Pittman responded, “Yes sir, Jesus Christ is Lord.”

Reporters Katherine Lin and Jerry Mitchell contributed to this report.