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Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer
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Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith

by Jon Krakauer

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Showing 1-5 of 93 (next | show all)
This is the haunting story of Dan and Ron Lafferty, why they killed their sister-in-law and niece and how they gave their religion as motivation. The often disturbing story that unfolds reads more like a horror story than a work of nonfiction.

Karkauer uses the Lafferty story as a way to delve into the Mormon religion as a whole. He gives fascinating details about how the religion started and the road that brought it to the religion it is today. Krakauer’s research explains the reasons behind many of the various sects of the Latter-day Saints as well as the Mormon Fundamentalists.

With so many details and stories Krakauer often seems to be going off on a random tangent, but his tangents always link back to the main story in some surprising way.

The details behind the Lafferty murders are both horrifying and fascinating. Krakauer does a wonderful job of explaining the events that unfolded as well as the history of the religion with as unbiased an opinion as seems possible. So much of the history is filled with violence by and against the church. In response to an exaggerated report, Lilburn Boggs, Governor of Missouri, stated:

“The Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the state, if necessary for the public peace. Their outrages are beyond all description.”
-page 103

I was fascinated by the history of the religion, how it came to exist and the various factors that played a part in molding it. For example, the US government is a huge reason the church eventually prohibited polygamy.

“Although LDS leaders were originally loath to abandon plural marriage, eventually they adopted a more pragmatic approach to American politics, emphatically rejected the practice, and actually began urging government agencies to prosecute polygamists. It was this single change in ecclesiastical policy, more than anything else, that transformed the LDS Church into its astonishingly successful present-day iteration. Having jettisoned polygamy, Mormons gradually ceased to be regarded as a crackpot sect.”
-page 7

This brilliantly researched and well written book is a thought-provoking read that had me constantly pausing so I could read a passage to my husband. I was fascinated the entire time. ( )
  msjessicamae | Nov 25, 2009 |
2006 ( )
  katiemertz | Nov 20, 2009 |
On July 24 1984, Brenda Lafferty and her baby daughter Erica were slaughtered in their home by her brothers in law Dan and Ron Lafferty. Their reasoning and motivation for brutally killing their sister in law can be traced back to the brand of fundamentalist Mormonism that they practiced. In this book Jon Krakauer explores the ideologies that led these two men to seek out an extremist lifestyle that advocates plural marriage as one of its centerpieces. He traces the history of Mormonism from its founding in upstate New York to its eventual rise as America's most successful home grown religion.

Almost from its inception, Mormon worshipers faced many trials and conflicts first from the hostility of their host communities and from within their own ranks due to the political machinations of different power players. Its is from this dissension in the fold that fringe movements would spring, pulling away from the central Mormon movement. Chief amongst the issues at stake was the belief by some that the decision by their leaders to do away with plural marriage was in direct contravention of true Mormonism. Like all fundamentalists, these Mormon off shoots believe that their leaders have departed from the pure practice of the religion and see themselves as restorers of the faith. To achieve this end, many carry out any form of subjugation and violence that they feel furthers their cause including pedophilia, incest, under age marriages, rapes, etc, etc.

Ron and Dan would eventually come under the sway of one of these fundamentalist fringes. Their murder of Brenda stemmed from what they saw as her obstruction of their brother's (Allen) full involvement in their ideals. They harbored so much hatred towards her that they would not even think to spare her child.

This book was absolutely fascinating and the author's extensive research is evident. The history of a nascent religion is traced in almost painstaking detail and draws you in from start to finish. I really enjoyed this book and was riveted. But I was a bit bothered by some conclusions that the author derived. For example, he claims that Elizabeth Smart who was kidnapped, raped and enslaved for nine months by Brian David Mitchell (a fundamentalist Mormon) submitted easily to him because of her Mormon "indoctrination". He says that Mitchell was able to use the tenets that she had been raised on to manipulate her into submission. He uses Debbie Palmer(a woman who had endured unspeakable horrors as a member of a fundamentalist Mormon movement but had escaped) as one of the supporters for this idea. Palmer states " Mitchell would never have been able to have such power over a non Mormon girl" (47). I beg to differ. There are way too many stories that have occurred before and since Elizabeth Smart's kidnapping that in my opinion show that that idea is less than credible. There have been scores of young girls and boys of no religious persuasion who have found themselves under the sway of monsters who steal them from their homes, family and friends. These victims mentally and physically submit to their captors out of fear for their lives and the lives of their parents and other siblings. Was Patty Hearst a Mormon? Was Jaycee Duggard a Mormon? Was Shawn Hornbeck Mormon? When a sick person like Mitchell has a victim under his control he will use whatever he can to brain wash and manipulate them. Their religious persuasion or lack thereof is only of interest to a person like him in as much as he can use it to manipulate and control them. To make it seem as if Mormonism or religion makes it easier to subjugate victims is misleading. Also referring to people's religion as indoctrination makes me doubt a claim to being fair and impartial when you are writing about that group. I am not Mormon and have no interest in becoming one so my impressions are not borne out of my desire to protect something near and dear to me.

But despite my criticisms, I did enjoy this book and it makes for a very interesting read. ( )
  TrishNYC | Nov 19, 2009 |
I couldn't put this book down. Of course, with a good writer like Krakauer, that might be expected. But the history of the Mormans and glimpses into some of their lives was amazing. He's done a lot of research and doesn't beat around the bush. I've read other, smaller accounts of the beginnings of the church's establishment but this is very in-depth writing.

If you like well-written history in the US, pick this up. ( )
  jenn976 | Nov 5, 2009 |
Interesting story of religious extremism. ( )
  corrmorr | Sep 25, 2009 |
Showing 1-5 of 93 (next | show all)
His project is ambitious: With Mormon fundamentalism as his chief illustration, he seeks to understand why religious extremism flourishes in a skeptical, postmodern society. . . . The result is a book that is both insightful and flawed.
 
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Series (with order)
Canonical Title
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People/Characters
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Important events
Awards and honors
Epigraph
PROLOGUE
We believe in honesty, morality and purity; but when they enact tyrannical laws, forbidding us the free exercise of our religion, we cannot submit. God is greater than the United States, and when the Government conflicts with heaven, we will be ranged under the banner of heaven and against the government...Polygamy is a divine institution. it has been handed down direct from God. The united States cannot abolish it. No nation on earth can prevent it, nor all the nations of the earth combined, ... I defy the United States; I will obey God.
JOHN TAYLOR (ON JANUARY 4, 1880), PRESIDENT, PROPHET, SEER, and REVELATOR, CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF THE LATTER-DAY SAINTS
PROLOGUE
No western nation is as religion-soaked as ours, where nine out of ten of us love God and are loved by him in return. That mutual passion centers our society and demands some understanding, if our doom-eager society is to be understood at all.
HAROLD BLOOM, THE AMERICAN RELIGION
PART 1 The schisms that shattered Mormonism time and again, more critical tha inroads from without, only attest its strength. They were signs of the seriousness with which converts and dissenters took their salvation, ready to stake their souls on points of doctrine which a later, less Biblical generation could treat with indifference. WILLIAM MULDER AND A. RUSSELL MORTENSEN, AMONG THE MORMONS
Dedication
For Linda.
First words
Almost everyone in Utah County has heard of the Lafferty boys. That's mostly a function of the lurid murders, of course, but the Lafferty surname had a certain prominence in the county even before Brenda and Erica Lafferty were killed.
Quotations
Last words
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
Disambiguation notice
Publisher's editors
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Book description

Amazon.com (ISBN 0330419129, Paperback)

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 Moe

(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:51 -0400)

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