Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith
by Jon Krakauer
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jon KrakauerEdition: Paperback
Published: 2004-06-08
ISBN: 1400032806
Number of pages: 432
Publisher: Anchor
Book Reviews of Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith
Book Review: Personal Revelation: the potential for good and evil
Summary: 5 Stars
Under the Banner of Heaven is a very interesting and informative book. Parts of it are creepy, but overall I do not look at it as particularly anti-Mormon. It deals with some of the unfortunate bits in the history of the LDS, and with many of the unsavory current practices of the FLDS. My impression is that most religions (and governments) have these homicidal episodes in their pasts, and the LDS history is recent enough to be documented. Note that all the really nasty stuff attributed to the LDS in this book were before 1890, the Mormons as a group were certainly provoked. The Fundamentalist LDS, on the other hand, come off as seriously scary dudes. Others have discussed this topics ad nauseum. I would like to bring up two newer points.
Personal revelation plays an important role in the narrative and by implication in the FLDS church. Krakauer nicely points out the problem with ongoing personal revelation: who gets to decide what is valid? It clearly leads to schisms. I am interested in the topic because personal revelation can be found in other Christian denominations, including the one with which I am aligned. The story of the Lafferty boys is a scary cautionary tale about how to analyze personal revelation--when should one take it seriously and when should it be dismissed as lunacy. The book implies that there is serious wish fulfillment going on with some personal revelation. Discernment is the catch phrase I hear bandied about, but perhaps the more obvious filter is "who will be hurt?" In one of the quotes, William James suggests that a religion without ongoing revelation is a dead religion. The corollary is that religion with ongoing revelation is powerful and scary and the practitioners need to be concerned with the potential for evil.
I have not read much about Joseph Smith previous to this book. He is a very impressive man. He grew up poor but was very intelligent, hard working and had charisma in spades. He was certainly a self-made man and one of the great leaders of the 19th century. He was a polarizing figure that people loved or hated. He had a weakness for women. Ultimately, his enemies cornered him and lynched him. Given the current significance of his Latter Day Saints Church, he was one of the most important Americans to ever live. The parallels to a contemporary figure in America are striking. Who? Why Bill Clinton of course!
Summary of Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith
In 1984, Ron and Dan Lafferty murdered the wife and infant daughter of their younger brother Allen. The crimes were noteworthy not merely for their brutality but for the brothers' claim that they were acting on direct orders from God. In Under the Banner of Heaven, Jon Krakauer tells the story of the killers and their crime but also explores the shadowy world of Mormon fundamentalism from which the two emerged. The Mormon Church was founded, in part, on the idea that true believers could speak directly with God. But while the mainstream church attempted to be more palatable to the general public by rejecting the controversial tenet of polygamy, fundamentalist splinter groups saw this as apostasy and took to the hills to live what they believed to be a righteous life. When their beliefs are challenged or their patriarchal, cult-like order defied, these still-active groups, according to Krakauer, are capable of fighting back with tremendous violence. While Krakauer's research into the history of the church is admirably extensive, the real power of the book comes from present-day information, notably jailhouse interviews with Dan Lafferty. Far from being the brooding maniac one might expect, Lafferty is chillingly coherent, still insisting that his motive was merely to obey God's command. Krakauer's accounts of the actual murders are graphic and disturbing, but such detail makes the brothers' claim of divine instruction all the more horrifying. In an age where Westerners have trouble comprehending what drives Islamic fundamentalists to kill, Jon Krakauer advises us to look within America's own borders. --John MoeJon 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.
JON KRAKAUER is the author of Eiger Dreams, Into the Wild, and Into Thin Air, and is editor of the Modern Library Exploration series.
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