Under the Banner of Heaven
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Is Jon Krakauer the man? It feels like there’s no topic he can’t tackle. He climbed Mount Everest and then wrote about it in Into Thin Air. He studied Christopher McCandless’ unique death and then wrote about it Into the Wild. Then, he examined a particularly graphic murder perpetrated by a group of fundamentalist Mormons and wrote about it in Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith.
The men who committed the crime gave a whiny baby response– “I did it because God told me to!” The crime? They slit the throats of their sister-in-law and their infant niece. I think we can all agree that this is where freedom of religion gets a lil dicey.
Krakauer uses this murder as a launching pad to cover the entire history of Mormonism. Mormonism is particularly interesting to study, because its main dude (Joseph Smith) was alive when the printing press was up and running. So, there’s a lot of material to work with from a lot of different angles. Mormonism is also particularly interesting because it’s a home-grown American religion. Krakauer did an excellent job of describing how different presidential administrations dealt with the growing religion, especially the problem of polygamy. For example, while Mormonism started in New York, they eventually traveled to Utah to escape what they claimed was government-backed religious persecution. They landed in Utah because it wasn’t a state at the time, so they could set up their own little theocracy that answered to God rather than the laws of man. But then the Mexican-American War screwed that up and they had to make some changes to answer to Uncle Sam. They (reluctantly) gave up polygamy, which led to a bunch of pissed off, horny Mormon guys starting their own fundamentalist offshoots, many of which still exist today.
Because the scope of this book is so large and there are so many names thrown at you, it can feel jumpy and difficult to keep track of who’s who. Still, the through-line is that the history of Mormonism is steeped in violence. The official church today tries to distance itself from this fact, but the historical evidence proves otherwise. Sometimes, when I lost my sense of place, I had to just roll with it– okay, this guy did this really messed up thing here and justified it with his beliefs and then this guy over here also did this really messed up thing and justified it with his beliefs, etc.
All religions throughout history have been susceptible to the problem of zealots, but Krakauer argues that the Mormon emphasis on “blood atonement” makes it particularly violent and corrupt. By circling around the modern-day murder, he also highlights how strongly held religious beliefs intersect with the legal system. “If Ron Lafferty [one of the murderers] was deemed mentally ill because he obeyed the voice of his God, isn’t everyone who believes in God and seeks guidance through prayer mentally ill as well? In a democratic republic that aspires to protect religious freedom, who should have the right to declare that one person’s irrational beliefs are legitimate and commendable, while another person’s are crazy?” At the very least, this raises thought-provoking philosophical questions as to where you personally might draw the line.
Did you know that currently, there are more Mormons in America than Presbyterians or Episcopalians? Or that on the planet as a whole, there are now more Mormons than Jews? Probably not, because who knows that stuff? This fast-growing religion is clearly a force to be reckoned with, and therefore useful to learn about. I do recommend this book, although I pause in giving it a full 5 flames because again, the popping around in time and place was disorienting at times. So, I give Under the Banner of Heaven 4 out of 5 flames.
