Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith Paperback – June 8, 2004

Can religious beliefs be taken too far? Looking at examples from history, the answer is a resounding yes, and while acts of religious violence are less common today than in the past, atrocities continue to take place in the name of religion all the way up to the current day. One such event that happened in the 1980s involved two brothers who claim that they were divinely ordered to kill their sister- in- law and her baby. The details of this event and the history of the religion that inspired the brothers is the subject of Under the Banner of Heaven.Dan and Ron Lafferty are the two brothers responsible for these gruesome deaths and their actions can be traced to the fundamentalist Mormon church. The two had become increasingly engrossed in their religious beliefs and are convinced that the decision to commit these murders was a direct order from god, and that meant it had to be carried out, no questions asked. They carried out the deed, were eventually arrested, and sent directly to prison. They showed absolutely no remorse for what they did and continued to show no remorse even after years behind bars.This book covers the background of the Lafferty brothers and some of their relatives well, offering the reader a glimpse inside of the minds of divinely- inspired killers. But the book is more than that. The author also includes a good deal of history on the Mormon faith, showing what the early Mormons did to combat the persecution they often faced, everywhere they went. These early Mormons were often harassed, yes, but they responded with vengeance and revenge, doing what they could to ‘get even’ whenever possible.The trials of the two brothers are bizarre to read about and the book includes many direct quotes from Dan and Ron, both in the court room and from prison. The book raises many questions and that is probably its strongest point. How far should religious freedom be allowed to go? Should polygamy be legal if one’s religion calls for it? What defines insanity? Dan and Ron Lafferty obviously had off- the- wall ideas, but is that insanity? And what about kids who are raised as fundamentalist latter- day saints? Is what they go through a form of child abuse, or should parents be allowed to raise their kids any way they choose?Under the Banner of Heaven is a chilling book that is written in a direct, no- nonsense way. It’s an excellent book for understanding more, not just about the fundamentalist latter day saints church, but also about the founding of the Mormon church. The edition of the book I read even includes criticisms of the book’s accuracy, and I really like the author’s responses to these LDS criticisms, as he really puts these critics in their place. It’s a worthwhile read for anyone with an interest in the subject and it succeeds at getting the reader to think long and hard about religious freedom and what it should entail.

Under the Banner of Heaven is a two-part book in this departure story for adventure writer Jon Krakauer.Krakauer focuses on the murderous brothers Ron and Dan Lafferty who felt called by a god known only to them to brutally kill their sister-in-law and niece. The Lafferty's are excommunicated Latter Day Saints, thrown out from the church because of their insistence on taking founder Joseph Smith at his word and accepting such disavowed commandments as polygamy and blood atonement. Their crime was real and brutal. Krakauer was able to interview Dan Lafferty at length from his prison cell in Utah where he is serving two life sentences for his acts. Even years later, this man is externally at peace with himself in believing he answered the call of his lord to remove two who stood in the way of The Plan.In order to explain, or give background to the Lafferty's religiously inspired killings, Krakauer explores the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS or Mormons) at length. He describes Mormonism from its founding by Joseph Smith in upstate New York, through their bloody emigration west through Illinois and Missouri to Utah, and the establishment of what the early believers hoped would be a nation apart from the rest of the world. The bloody trials at the hands of suspicious neighbors in the American mid-west are detailed (confrontations that cost the life of their founder Smith and gave rise to Brigham Young). So is Young's establishment of the Mormon state of Utah (Deseret at the time) in an attempt to separate the Saints from America. The Mountain Meadows Massacre and the killing three of John Wesley Powell's Grand Canyon explorers are detailed. These last two violent chapters -- perpetrated by Mormons and possibly with the knowledge of Young in the case of Mountain Meadows (according to the author) -- bear witness to Mormonism at its most insular and reactionary. These killings were related at least in part to the original Mormon doctrine of blood atonement, a tenet revealed by Smith that called for the spilling of blood for "crimes" (or religious failings) serious enough that only death was judged a proper set off.Polygamy, or plural or celestial marriage, the taking of multiple wives as commanded by Joseph Smith and popularized by Brigham Young, is explored in depth. It was many things -- a distinguishing characteristic of Mormonism, the practice that caused non-Mormons to react in horror and disgust, the percipitator of Congressional laws and the tenet that kept Utah out of the embrace of the larger Union in the late 1800's.Although the church decided to abandon polygamy around 1890 as a price for gaining statehood and acceptance, it remained a sharp dividing line among Mormons. This abandonment of one of the Church's founding testaments has caused schisms in the church, excommunications and the creation of fundamentalist outposts throughout the American West of communities of practicing polygamists who while officially removed as LDS members by the mainstream church, consider themselves the true Mormon's and keepers of God's commandments as revealed through Smith.These Mormon fundamentalists have given rise to perpetrators of murder, statutory rape, female brutalization and other crimes in the last several decades. As true believers who are convinced that only they are living right with God and that they face an ungodly hostile world (counting LDS leadership), many turn to god-talking for revelations on how to deal with the challenges and frustrations that lay in their paths. These types of revelations have produced the Lafferty's -- convinced that God told them to take the lives of a young lady and her eighteen month old daughter, as well as the kidnappers of Samantha Smart.Krakauer does a good job of weaving the history of Mormonism, the religious split within the faith between accommodationists and fundamentalists and the fringe fundamentalist groups that have given rise to violent men like the Lafferty's.The author does point out that the vast Majority of Mormons -- and even the majority of Mormon fundamentalists -- are non-violent people living lives filled with close families, spirituality and wholesomeness. The religion has produced -- as have all religions -- seekers who establish at least in their own minds direct links to the almighty or revelations of the "true" plan of God that lead them to acts abhorred by their fellow travelers. These aberrants are the focus of the author. He does a good job of explaining the particular mind-set of Dan and Ron Lafferty and the background of America's only home-grown large religious denomination. Krakauer shows how this history spawned the doctrine, disagreements, schisms and personalities that gave voice and meaning to the terrible impulses that produced Dan and Ron Lafferty.This is a very interesting book. The history of Mormonism is fascinating and I think Krakauer does a good job of exploring the religion as it unfolded. I am sure LDS will accuse him of focusing on errors and omissions of the past instead of the millions of hard working and clean living LDS who are by very many measures the epitome of a stable, productive and happy people. This is true, but Krakauer is specifically hunting for the why that has enabled excommunicated Mormons who self style themselves as fundamentalists to produce religiously inspired perpetrators of ghastly violent acts.His exploration of some of these perpetrators, including the Laffertys, paints a disturbingly interesting portrait of some of the lunatic fringe who cloak themselves in what they see as the "true" image of Mormonism.A very intersting non-fiction book.