Krakauer has a knack for capturing and keeping his readers. Using his by-now familiar prose style — clear, descriptive, unflinching, touched with dry humor and with great compassion for his subject — he goes through the history of the LDS Church which is largely unfamiliar to Gentiles (according to the LDS, all non-Mormons are referred to as “Gentiles,” even those of Jewish faith), and alternates the historical chapters with more modern chapters which include many candid interviews with both current and former fundamentalist Mormons. As the book builds, Krakauer shows how the last 180 years have shaped the intensely faithful and violent FLDS, from the Mormons being brutally ostracized and driven across the country until they finally found refuge in the barrens of the Great Salt Lake, to the horrific murder of Gentile emigrants in the Meadow Mountains Massacre, to the proliferation of sexual abuse and pedophilia in plural marriage.
Any fundamentalist religious movement — Mormon, Muslim, evangelical Christian, Jewish — is frightening to mainstreamers. Fundamentalists read their sacred texts as literal and wish to return to their church’s earliest state. The fundamentalist Mormons believe wholeheartedly in the Book of Mormon with no exceptions. To Ron and Dan Lafferty — extremists even for fundamentalists — that belief included blood atonement sanctioned by God against people who didn’t follow the Work, and specifically their pretty, young sister-in-law, who chafed against the plural marriages surrounding her, and their infant niece.
I have enjoyed Krakauer’s previous work and Under the Banner of Heaven didn’t let me down. As an avowed agnostic, this book was a true page-turner, fascinating, horrifying and amazing.
Article comments
1 - Jennifer Bogart
Very interesting. Even in the mainstream Mormon church today, members take temple vows where they agree to disembowelment if they 'spill the beans' about temple ceremonies and a variety of other misdemeanors.
2 - Mr. N.
You are behind the times Bogart, that is no longer the case and has not been for many years. The temple ceremonies are not discussed outside of the temples because they are sacred and God does not want us to. This means that the members do not speak of the ceremonies even amongst themselves when they are outside the temples, so obviously they would not do so with nonmembers too. The world makes too much of it, because they think there must be something sinister going on if they don’t know everything, but it is a ridiculous notion. It should also be noted that The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is an entirely separate religion from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Among other things, the mainstream Latter-days Saints with over 13 million members from all over the world, no longer practice polygamy and have not done so for over hundreds of years.
3 - Friend Mouse
According to Krakauer's research, the mainstream LDS renounced polygamy in 1890, so that's technically just over 100 years ago. This book makes it very clear that the Fundamentalists are separate from the mainstream Church.