Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith [Rauer Buchschnitt] [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

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.

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.

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.