Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith

So I live in Utah now, right? I think I am beginning to have a pretty good grasp of Mormonism's pros (on average, they're really nice people, plus SLC Mormons provide way better support for local farmers than a whole bunch of self-righteous yuppies I know) and cons (um...patriarchy and homophobia?), and enjoy learning more the longer I live here. It's intriguing, and Jon Krakauer has come along and woven a fascinating, often terribly disturbing tale of Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints, and how such a sinister strain of fanaticism grew out of the mainstream Latter Day Saints. When you hear about crazy shit going down in the American southwest, it's FLDS, not LDS, that's at the bottom of it (Warren Jeffs and his polygamist compound being a prime example). LDS abhors the connection when it is made (which, in fairness, is mostly made by non-Mormons who don't understand that the LDS doesn't recognize FLDS as a valid offshoot of their faith), but historically speaking, the more colorful stories of Mormonism became the backbone of much of the FLDS theology and practice. Which Krakauer explores.

This book is gripping and well-written. And might give you nightmares based on the descriptions of more than a few murders, massacres, and rapes. I definitely had one or two. But the Mormon faith is one of the only homegrown American ones, I think for particularly American reasons, and it rivals (perhaps exceeds?) the conversion pace of Islam, so you'd best get reading now, because there are projected to be 265 million Mormons worldwide by 2080.

The cultist phenomenon of Mormonism is not new or unique, and not the only religion with a minority number of terrifying fundamentalists who seek to control people's thoughts and bank accounts through fear and adapted retellings of history long ago debunked by scientists and archeologists. What an incredible book that shook me to the core.

This was a very interesting read. I learned a lot about LDS history and was very entertained. If you don't know much about mormonism, its origin and teachings, let me tell you, it's pretty wild. The book was hard to follow at times, since it cuts from one timeline to another quite often, and expects the reader to remember a lot of names, but in general it's well written. After giving you a lot of backstory on the church, it goes pretty deeply into the Lafferty murders. It is very sad to see how far an extremist approach can go, to the point of doing the unimaginable. The author managed to interview one of the culprits, making for an extremely interesting and baffling telling of the crime and what led up to it.

This was an interesting read about the Mormon religion and the murders of Brenda and Erica Lafferty. I did watch the show on Hulu before reading this but there was much more information in the book. I was not expecting this to cover the Mormon religion from when it started to where it was when this book was written. I wish this book covered more about the Lafferty family, especially Ron and Dan. I wanted to know their whole backstory and how they were raised. I wish we got to see how Ron and Dan transitioned into such extremists. I don't rate nonfiction but if I did this would probably be 2.75 stars.

I've been wanting to read this ever since it came out FOREVER AGO. It's a fascinating story of murder and religious fanaticism, but also the history of the Mormon church. I don't know very much about Mormonism - despite having visited Palmyra, NY and the hill where Moroni visited Joseph Smith for some reason?! - so it was very interesting.

File this book alongside Salt: A World History under “Books that my friends probably got tired of me reading” since the whole time I read it I was constantly sharing facts about the history of the Mormon church. Possibly my favorite is that Mormon churches usually feature a statue of the angel Moroni. MORONI. Anyway.

I really like the style that this is written in... Krakauer is good about pointing out some seriously wacky/disturbing shit but without calling it wacky or seeming patronizing. One of my favorite parts was this from the afterword:

“... He's convinced me that those who write about religion owe it to their readers to come clean about their own theological frame of reference. SO here's mine:

I don't know what God is, or what God had in mind when the universe was set in motion. In fact, I don't know if God even exists, although i confess that I sometimes find myself praying in times of great fear, or despair, or astonishment at a display of unexpected beauty.

There are some ten thousand extant religious sects–each with its own cosmology, each with its own answer for the meaning of life and death. Most assert that the other 9,999 not only have it completely wrong, but are instruments of evil, besides. None of the ten thousand has yet persuaded me to make the requisite leap of faith. In the absence of conviction, I've come to terms with the fact that uncertainty is an inescapable corollary of life. An abundance of mystery is simply part of the bargain–which doesn't strike me as something to lament. Accepting the essential inscrutability of existence, in any case, is surely preferable to its opposite: capitulating to the tyranny of intransigent belief.

And If I remain in the dark about our purpose here, and the meaning of eternity, I have nevertheless arrived at an understanding of a few more modest truths: Most of us fear death. Most of us yearn to comprehend how we got here, and why–which is to say, most of us ache to know the love of our creator. And we will no doubt feel that ache, most of us, for as long as we happen to be alive.”

Right!? Anyway, it's also a really interesting biography/history of Ron and Dan Lafferty, who I hadn't heard of before this book but I guess I should have.

Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer

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I came to this book while watching the Hulu serialization based on the book. The book and series do not have a lot in common. The book does not make any mention of the investigating officers, while the series is centered around these apparently fictional characters. Similarly, while the murders of Brenda Lafferty and her daughter are the centerpiece of both narratives, the book spends far more time on Mormon culture than the series. Another difference is the major dysfunction of polygamy while the series seems to want to make the issue about “blood atonement.”

Brenda was murdered by her brothers-in-law, Ron and Dan Lafferty in July of 1984. Ron believed that he was being given revelations by God. One revelation advised him to kill his sister-in-law and her infant daughter. Ron and Dan were convicted of first-degree murder in 1985 and Ron was sentenced to death. Thanks to the speed of our justice system, Ron died of natural causes in 2019.

Krakauer provides a “warts and all” history of Mormonism. I had heard a lot of this in passing but I had never followed up for the details. For example, I didn't know that the Mountains Meadow Massacre involved the execution of 140 unarmed pioneers who had surrendered to a Mormon militia (after being attacked by Mormons in the guise of Paiute Indians.)

Krakauer places the blame for Lafferty murder on the Mormon tradition of polygamy and authoritarian religion. Krakauer distinguishes between mainstream Mormonism and Fundamentalist Mormonism, although he does not separate the two.

Joseph Smith surreptitiously disclosed his revelation of polygamous marriage only to his closest allies. It was up to Brigham Young to share the revelation with the broader Mormon community after Smith was killed and the Mormons had left for Utah. The adoption of polygamy caused a schism. In 1890, a new revelation repealed the requirement of polygamy, which led to more schisms. Those who held to polygamy became the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints (“FLDS.”)

Krakauer's description of the fundamentalists is eye-opening. The fundamentalists have created their own communities, often quite sizeable (See Colorado City, Arizona.) In these communities the local prophet holds sway, assigning 12-year-old girls to marriages with 60-year-old men with multiple wives. Incest crops up regularly. Women are taken away from men if the man displeases the prophet. A reader forms the opinion that polygamy bestializes both the men and women who come within its culture. I came out of this book with the conviction that we should be waging a war on polygamy that is every bit as strong as our war on trafficking (because in many cases it seems to be the same war.)

Krakauer touches on the question of the Mormon doctrine of Blood Atonement. One of the more shocking features of Mormonism - at least, early Mormonism - is that there are some sins that Christ's Passion could not atone for. To these sins, the early Mormons taught that only the death of the wrongdoer could suffice.

Finally, the question of revelation and sanity was raised. It seems that when Mormons go “nuts” they go nuts in a stereotyped way where they will claim to hear the Heavenly Father telling them things, some of which seem like confirmation bias, e.g., “remove Brenda Lafferty.” At which point, they are free to do whatever the Heavenly Father wants, which frequently corresponds to what they want, without remorse, such as slicing the throat of an eighteen month old baby girl. The matter of fact way that this lunatics go about responding to the revelation is inhuman. at one time, Ron told Dan that the Heavenly Father had revealed to Ron that he should kill Dan. Dan thought this made sense, so he initially cooperated with the murder attempt.

These people are not insane. They have a logic that fits their assumptions. They have the same mindset that informs other people who are equally capable of following the logical entailments of other intangibles like love, freedom, or socialism.

The book was interesting. I'm sure that a Mormon apologist would be offended by it. Krakauer pulled no punches in his description of Mormon history or the dysfunction of the FLDS communities. I suspect that there is context that would make the recitation of Mormon history less awful. I also got a sense that polygamy may be a constant attraction to some devout Mormons, people who want to follow the teachings of the church no matter what. There were a lot of stories of such people hopping the fence to Crazyville on the polygamous train.

A meandering look at the Mormon religion - its history, right from its founder Joseph Smith and his secret proclivities for polygamy, the founding of Utah, through to present-day Mormonism and its many offshoots (notably the fundamentalist Mormons who still practice polygamy). Krakaeur also makes a connection between some of the violence committed by Mormons in its early history with the murders carried out by two fundamentalist Mormons in the present day.

Published in 2003, I can imagine this book did some good towards exposing some of the church's dark sides (for instance it wasn't until 2013 when they stopped discouraging interracial marriage at their youth groups). However it did feel anti-religion and anti-Mormon (although weirdly Krakauer preferred to express this via quoting from books/other resources rather than outright saying it himself) which as a non-religious person I'm fine with but is probably very off-putting for any potential Mormon readers.

I was also expecting more of a “true crime” style novel but instead I felt like there was a lot of jumping around. The author would mention present-day Mormons towards the start of the novel and then reference them again towards the end (although making sure though to remind you who they were) which didn't really help me to connect with their stories.

The history was more engaging than the modern crime aspect (which was actually the central storyline of the book). The most interesting idea is that Joseph Smith encouraged laymen in the church to receive their own personal revelations more so than in other faiths, and that contributes to the regular fracturing of Mormon sects. Not a comprehensive history, but worthwhile.