Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith

Jon Krakauer’s literary reputation rests on insightful chronicles of lives conducted at the outer limits. He now shifts his focus from extremes of physical adventure to extremes of religious belief within our own borders, taking readers inside isolated American communities where some 40,000 Mormon Fundamentalists still practice polygamy. Defying both civil authorities and the Mormon establishment in Salt Lake City, the renegade leaders of these Taliban-like theocracies are zealots who answer only to God.

At the core of Krakauer’s book are brothers Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they received a commandment from God to kill a blameless woman and her baby girl. Beginning with a meticulously researched account of this appalling double murder, Krakauer constructs a multi-layered, bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, polygamy, savage violence, and unyielding faith. Along the way he uncovers a shadowy offshoot of America’s fastest growing religion, and raises provocative questions about the nature of religious belief.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

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The above quote is from a man who brutally murdered his fifteen month-old niece and her 24 year-old mother in their home while his younger brother was at work. Lafferty's older brother Ron convinced him to commit the crime by claiming that God had spoken to him and instructed that it should be that way. Both men were born and raised Mormons, but turned to radical Mormon fundamentalism as adults. Through their horrific story and the history of the Mormon church in genral, author Jon Krakauer examines the larger issue of how relgion leads some people to commit unspeakable acts.

"Under the Banner of Heaven" is not an anti-Mormon diatribe, as anyone who has actually read it can attest. Krakauer, who had such a massive success with "Into Thin Air," should be applauded for taking a risk following up that work with a potentially controversial project well outside his area of expertise. Part travelog and part history, "Under the Banner of Heaven" is a very unique true crime book as the various narrative threads are wound together by the author. The simple yet forceful narrative style that made Krakauer's Everest such compelling reading are very much evident here.

Overall, "Under the Banner of Heaven" is an outstanding true crime book that raises some disturbing theological questions.

734 of 831 found the following review helpful:

Brilliant synthesis of history, religion, and abuseSep 26, 2003
By Maddi Hausmann Sojourner "madhaus"
Jon Krakauer admits he has become obsessed with extremes. It takes one form of extremism to go on an Everest climb, as he shows with "Into Thin Air." Now he returns to the West of his youth. Yet this is not the book he planned to write. Krakauer admits he wanted to describe how today's LDS Church, with their clean-cut, do-good approach, is at odds with its founding history.

Instead, he decided to write about fundamentalist Mormons. While the LDS Church declared polygamy illegal in 1890, it took time for the practice to end in the official church. Those who would not accept the changes continued polygamy, with groups moving to Mexico and Canada. And there are those who continue this practice today. Krakauer is determined to understand how this came to be. In order to do this, he must retell the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints.

While polygamy is no longer accepted by the current LDS authorities, the average Mormon seems less inclined to stamp it out. Krakauer shows several cases of gung-go district attorneys who go after polygamous families, and how these white knights are subsequently removed from office in the next election. He introduces us to small towns where everything and everyone in it answers to one man, the head of the Fundamentalist LDS church (FLDS). All property is owned by their church's corporation. And the girls are married by age 14. Krakauer finds many of them married to men who are already related to them, and at least a generation older. Women are seen as transferrable property, with marriages cancelled should any church member run afoul of the church leader.

And remember Elizabeth Smart? Here was a case of a modern Mormon family running into another FLDS wanna-be. Krakauer contrasts her case with another 14-year-old, a FLDS community member, who was hidden in another FLDS community when her sister tried to rescue her from an early marriage she didn't want. The difference between the media treatment of the two kidnap victims is horrifying.

All this is merely background for a shocking murder case, where two LDS members who moved toward FLDS decided to kill their sister-in-law for being a bad influence, and her two-year-old as well. Both men insisted they were acting on revelations from God. Krakauer turns this into the Court's unease with discussions of religious belief and sanity.

The negative reviews of this book appear to come from LDS members who are unhappy with Krakauer's history of their church. It's a pity they missed his important points on the danger of revealed religion (where anyone can justify anything), or the welfare fraud committed by FLDS communities (subsequent wives declare themselves single parents and don't identify the father, while living in a trailer in his backyard), or the uneasy relationship between mainline Mormons and latter-day polygamists. It's a shame they are unwilling to look at their own church's rapidly mutating scriptures, where Krakauer shows how doctrinal racism was not removed from church teachings until the 1970s. One might ask how many of them actually read the book rather than took the advice of their stake president to publicly condemn it.

Read it for yourself, then let us know. It is a fascinating, disturbing, insightful, and important book.

48 of 50 found the following review helpful:

The persecution complex abides . . .Aug 05, 2003

The vocal, unfavorable response to this book by many LDS people (I exclude the LDS Church, which had a pretty fair response) is unfortunate. What this reaction reveals is that as a people we continue to be very thin-skinned when it comes to any hint of an unfavorable review. In short, we have a persecution complex.

LDS people would do well to remember that there are other groups out there (Catholics, for one) with far more serious press issues who are dealing with these problems with far more honesty and grace.

The previous reviewers are correct about some of this book's faults. It does have some errors of fact, but to be fair, it does a far better job than most non-LDS examinations of this kind. Krakauer has a fair grasp of LDS history and culture. A faux-pas like calling Mark E. Peterson a prophet should not be grounds for dismissing the book altogether.

One must also remember that Krakauer is examining people who belong to the fringe of Mormon culture and placing them in the context of Mormon history. Though he should have been more careful about distinguishing between members of the LDS church and so called "fundamentalist Mormons" (this is, after all, a name taken from the name of one polygamist group), many LDS readers react as though he aimed criticism at the contemporary LDS Church.

Were I about to read this book for the first time, I would treat it as a "true crime" story that benefits from better than average writing and interesting (though somewhat sensationalist) historical treatment. The book is not history; it is a poignant reminder that religious fanaticism, be it Muslim (Usama bin Laden), Christian (David Koresh), or Mormon (Lafferty brothers), is potentially, and sometimes actually, deadly.

194 of 223 found the following review helpful:

Not Anti-Mormon...just IntelligentSep 25, 2003
By Missing in Action
This is an extraordinary book, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. Though the Mormon Church has expressed it's hostility toward the book, as with all ostriches, they are simply sticking their head in the sand and asking the rest of us to follow suit. Thank goodness for people outside the Church who look in, and tell us what they see.

This is not an anti-mormon book, and the fact that Latter-day Saints and their leaders are so worked up about it seems to me to be a recognition that Krakauer is hitting pretty close to home. Ironically, he handles the modern LDS church with kid gloves, and is very careful to make the distinction between the Mormon Fundamentalits and the Mormons themselves. However, and this is the point that should be lost on no one, both churches hail from the same "common ancestors," and have evolved rather organically from those early prophets, most importantly Joseph Smith, Brigham Young and John Taylor. At the time of Wilford Woodruff the world saw a split, and those familiar with the paradigms of biological evolution will recognize exactly what was going on. Today we see two radically different organizations with radically different messages...but they came from the same place.

Here's another juicy item that must drive the Church nuts. The fundamentalists are perfectly justified in their position on polygamy, extreme patriarchy and racism. After all, if those were the "revealed word of God" back in the early days of the church, then who are the modern day leaders to deny that word of God today? Just because wicked governments :-) refuse to cooperate should be no reason to back away from the most important points of doctrine. If it was good enough for Daniel to not back down (resulting in being cast into the lions den) then it should be good enough for modern prophets to not back down, either. (Okay, it's pretty darn important for me to state that I'm simply pointing out the fundamentalist argument, not my own opinion...)

At the end of the book you are treated to the prosecution team's argument that religious thinking is NOT insane, even it is, on the face, irrational. Any religious person should be moved, not disturbed, by the thoughtful arguments made by the prosecution's witnesses, many of whom were Mormon.

There are those who review this book who claim that the history is all wrong because it isn't always consistent with the "faithful history" that Elder Boyd K. Packer et al promote, and which is often the only history Mormons are familiar. Krakauer has consumed a great deal of history, and has drawn some really important conclusions. To throw out his book as "inacurate" because of a few minor disagreements on interpretation of facts would be like throwing out the quantum theory because we can't actually "see" a quark. The viewer, or the reader, interprets what they see or read and comes to rational conclusions based on their assessment. I want to read what other people DECIDE ON THEIR OWN after doing the research, not the same, tired old stories that have been approved and fed to the sheep year after year after year. I 've read a ton of Church history, and nothing that Krakauer said raised any red flags for me. But if there is a mistake in his "facts" somewhere (and if it's there, it's tiny), then it is still immaterial. The conclusions that the reader draws as they read how religious zeal CAN lead the faithful far, far astray is dead-on, pun intended.

This is an excellent, excellent book, and no one, Mormon or otherwise, should be "afraid" to read it, or afraid to consider what the implications might be.

31 of 33 found the following review helpful:

Don't pay attention to the negative reviews on this page!!!Sep 07, 2003
By Aaron J. Race
This is a fascinating and easy to read book--I could barely put it down after I started. However, there are people out there who want to criticize it simply because they feel it shows their religion in a negative light. I have respect for Mormons and the Mormon church, but I realize that the early days fo the church had many violent and negative moments. See these negative reviewers do not tell you that the LDS church has come out against the book--members have been told to not read the book, and they have been told to attack the book. So the negative reviews are not really honest. The LDS church has a heavy history in promoting revisionist views. Porter Rockwell is generally taught as a godly hero to children; the Meadows Mountain Massacre is completely removed from Mormon history--ask any Mormon about it and they will never have heard about the incident. Mormons only know a favorable view of their history. Nevertheless, at no point did I feel the book was attacking the current LDS church. The author always pointed out that the current church has nothing to do with the fundementalists. In fact, the author was actually quite kind to the current church. The reason that early church history is presented is to show its influence on current events. I felt it was quite balanced in presenting the past. Some reviewers state that the author refered to anti-LDS writers from the past, but he also refered to positive LDS writers and the words of the prophets themselves. Also, the author took fairly scholarly and respected texts that criticized the church--he did not take overly anti- and false sources like the Godmakers. The author at no time seemed to want to attack the church--those with a negative take are those who romanticize the early days and cannot accept that the early church has some dubious issues--does that mean the church is not true? No, and the writer never does that. So take off the rose-colored glasses and read the excellent work for what it is. As a professor, non-fiction reader and writer, and former member of the church, I found this book fascinating, well-written, and very well-researched. It was also extremely objective.

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