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Title: Under the Banner of Heaven : A Story of Violent Faith by JON KRAKAUER ISBN: 0-385-50951-0 Publisher: Doubleday Pub. Date: 15 July, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.97 (355 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Non-Mormon to Kolob: 11MM Mormons?
Comment: As in any organized religion, many practicing Mormons just go through the motions, not paying strict attention either to Scripture or to Mormon writings. They attend church without looking forward to their next calling, doing it mainly for family, or tradition, or the succor of routine. These Mormons can be friendly, easy-going, and as in the weakness of Joseph Smith, they might even share a glass of wine or two. To non-Mormons, they can be good people; in the eyes of the Church, this makes them bad Mormons.
That being said, my only complaint with Jon Krakauer's book, "Under the Banner of Heaven," is its upholding of irrational fears that there are 11 million Mormons, that it's the fastest growing church, and that Mormonism is destined to become a significant force in America. One of the most insidious ways that the hierarchy tries to control Mormons is by alarming them about Gentiles (non-Mormons). Mormons teach that they're inherently better than Gentiles, yet they preach about non-Mormons with vindictive trepidation. Each Mormon's duty is to convert. If we remain friendly without the prospect of converting, their compulsion is to exploit or to shun. Shunning surely occurs if any Gentile balks at being milked by Mormons. Acutely aggressive shunning is reserved for Mormons who leave the Church with the notion of becoming independent thinkers. Why should any pragmatic examination of Mormonism harbor that same kind of fear, which inevitably leads to hatred? Should we worry that Mormonism will eclipse critical thinking via dominance in numbers? Hardly, because with a little grounding we needn't fear Mormons or Mormonism in any form.
The Mormon attrition rate is already the highest of any religion. Despite Krakauer's recitation of hierarchy half-truths, there are only 4 million practicing Mormons worldwide. And, the vast majority of those have been born into Mormonism to bear a lifetime of propaganda and programming; positing that polygamy persists as the principle path to progression. Once baptized, new converts forever remain on Church rolls, and are hounded all of their lives unless they officially resign, in writing, by repudiating their prior poor judgement using very specific language. Krakauer should know that future membership cannot be extrapolated using phony figures furnished by the Church, and that such frenetic forecasts forget foundational fences fixed by Church philosophy.
These limitations to growth include doctrinal dishonesty to outflank traditional Christianity and to attract new converts, a garish and gratuitous group-defensiveness to public corruption or even honest mistakes by Church members, and the bitter fruits of constantly suppressing their individualities. The hierarchy advocates Church-imposed mental and emotional manipulation of children, rather than personally enforced parental discipline. The results are gloomy marriages, female homosexuality, and a divorce rate equal to that of the general population, and much higher than most other churches. Local Mormon communities are continually dazed and demoralized by unremitting humiliations, along with whisper campaigns that accompany habitual secrecy and denials. Krakauer's own evidence proclaims this a characteristic of the myth-fraternity since the days of its founder. Counter to commercials concerning "strong families", the chain of command chiefly cherishes clannish commitment, custom, and conformity in connection with changeable Church canon.
Unlike the heady mid-1840's, the number of ex-Mormons now far surpasses Mormon membership. The attrition rate is so high that "exmormon.org" is the Internet's busiest bulletin board. Ex-Mormons are very supportive of each other's trials in letting go, being especially sympathetic to tales of spiteful ripostes suffered at the hands of dutiful Mormons. Most ex-Mormons are, and remain, loving, trustworthy, and conscientious, because these attributes could never be permitted free expression in the rigidly conformist, mechanistic framework of modern Mormonism. Fortunately, the Church provides an abundance of status titles, daily regimens, and busywork, so that those who have very little natural empathy can find a sense of worth and belonging; only a trickle of Church attrition is siphoned off to the transparently egocentric Mormon fundamentalism that Krakauer details. Mind you, I'd be mesmerized in mulling Krakauer's measurement of why Mormons miss ministering to Smith's morality and markings as the more meticulous Mormon fundamentalists do.
Also, this is less a story of the Lafferty murders than an unveiling of the vast tapestry of weird Mormon sects and the rationalizations for their bizarre doings. By far, the best part of "Under the Banner of Heaven" is Krakauer's elucidation of how and why the Church originally outfitted outposts of true Mormonism throughout North America. These settlements were to bide their time, ensuring the survival of the one-true-faith after Gentile authorities were to have dismantled the central organization. As it happened, the Church endures, but only by adapting and cloaking most of its principles, including its most unambiguous Principle. I was enthralled with Krakauer's recapitulation of the hierarchy's disingenuous duplicity by devolving, in fits and starts, to ultimately ban polygamy. While the Church bends as a reed in the wind, Mormon fundamentalists, who were marooned by the reworked theology, view its sandy foundations as the Great Apostasy. 'Lying for the Lord' leaves lasciviously lusty legacies!
Krakauer further illustrates the Church's treacherous turnabout towards its sanctioned satellites in some detail by skipping back and forth through decades in time. For instance, the Church disputes anyone using the qualifier "Mormon" in reference to Mormon fundamentalists, claiming that 'those people' have no share in Mormonism. Strangely, the hierarchy refuses to recognize itself as the Mormon Church, but acknowledges only The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Mentioning "Mormon Church", either in print or on-air, is a surefire way of entertaining frantic calls and letters from Mormon attorneys vigorously petitioning a retraction. If it weren't for Krakauer's sizzling chronicle of lives lost and ruined, peppered with sometimes savagely sickening sagas, such slapstick should supplement sidesplitting strokes in a farfetched falderal. As affirmation, a pre-chapter quote adroitly avows, 'One cannot write fiction involving Mormons; it takes too much explanation.'
Necessarily, naive non-Mormon interactions with Mormons are somewhat precarious. Get educated! Here, Krakauer has crafted a commendable commencement.
Rating: 5
Summary: Challenging the Creationist Approach to Mormon History
Comment: The basic issue here is historiography by creation vs. historiography by research.
Krakauer does a superb job of chronicling several schisms in the Mormon church-based on the issue of polygamy-and connecting the pattern of violence associated with LDS "apostate groups" with the origins of the church, particularly with the story of the sword of Laban in the Book of Mormon. Some reviewers from the Mountain West seem to have their heads in the ground regarding an obvious link between the Mountain Meadows Massacre, the activities of Porter Rockwell, and the violence endemic in some of the offshoot groups. They also appear to deal poorly the church's polygamous origins. The book meticulously traces the roots of the Mormon offshoot groups to the incongruity of strong statements regarding the practice of polygamy of back-to-back LDS prophets, John Taylor and Wilford Woodruff.
I was particularly fascinated with Krakauer's account of the fate of the three members who left John Wesley Powell near the end of his historic expedition through the Grand Canyon. I know Wesley Larsen, who discovered documents that suggest that the three may have been murdered by Southern Utah Mormons. Dr. Larsen's version of the men's fate holds water and is consistent with the violence in early Mormonism.
Krakauer is insistent in pointing out that the LDS church bears little resemblance to the early church: today's church is image conscious and tends to lean toward mainstream Christianity. Krakauer illudes to the possibility that today's church may have become what it hates. The early Mormons felt persecuted because of polygamy, and today's Mormons are adamant about making it as tough as possible for the infidel "polygs" (I recall while living in Cedar City, Utah that the LDS church leaders there advised the local membership on several occasions not to do any business with members of the polygamous sect from Colorado City).
Juanita Brooks' book on John D. Lee and the Mountain Meadows Massacre was probably the first treatise that challenged Mormon historiography (but was eventually accepted by LDS scholars). Krakauer's treatise will challenge Mormon apologists who still prefer to create history, rather than to research it.
Rating: 5
Summary: As evidenced by reviewer example......
Comment: Jon does an excellent job of engaging the reader in this fast-paced account of a true crime/historical look at the FLDS movement. He already has plenty of 5-star reviews to alert avid readers that this is a book worth picking up. So instead of giving more applause to Jon, I will comment on those who are writing the 1-star reviews. Yes, you who feel the need to defend the Mormon faith are entitled to your opinions. However, I find it quite amusing that the "defense ranks" are submitting multiple entries of the same review. RCBarden, for one, has submitted the same 1-star review 4 times. When are you going to submit your 5th? I believe a leader of the LDS church ("seefilms") submitted the same review multiple times as well. Often these 1-star diatribes are copied from old media reviews. If you didn't learn anything else from this book, how about THINK FOR YOURSELF!! It's funny how Jon can portray religious zealots in his book and then we can see examples of this fanaticism from the 1-star reviewers online. I love it!!
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