Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith

by Jon Krakauer

There is a dark side to religious devotion that is too often ignored or denied. As a means of motivating people to be cruel or inhumane—as a means of inciting evil, to borrow the vocabulary of the devout—there may be no more potent force than religion.

men have been committing heinous acts in the name of God ever since mankind began believing in deities, and extremists exist within all religions.

the province of the extreme holds an allure that’s irresistible.

a man needed at least three wives to attain the “fulness of exaltation” in the afterlife.

Despite the fact that Uncle Rulon and his followers regard the governments of Arizona, Utah, and the United States as Satanic forces out to destroy the UEP, their polygamous community receives more than $6 million a year in public funds.

“Satan has been jealous of God since day one,”

Here, the wife is pronounced the husband’s property, as much so as his manservant, his maidservant, his ox, or his horse. . . .

The Utah War, as it was known, has been compared by more than one historian to a comic opera.