Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith

by Jon Krakauer

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.

Prior to Dan’s conviction, and for more than a decade afterward, he steadfastly maintained that he was innocent of the murders of Brenda and Erica Lafferty. When he was arrested in Reno in August 1984, he told the arresting officers, “You think I have committed a crime of homicide, but I have not.” He still insists that he is innocent of any crime but, paradoxically, does not deny that he killed Brenda and Erica. When asked to explain how both these apparently contradictory statements can be true, he says, “I was doing God’s will, which is not a crime.”

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.

The zealot may be outwardly motivated by the anticipation of a great reward at the other end—wealth, fame, eternal salvation—but the real recompense is probably the obsession itself. This is no less true for the religious fanatic than for the fanatical pianist or fanatical mountain climber. As a result of his (or her) infatuation, existence overflows with purpose. Ambiguity vanishes from the fanatic’s worldview; a narcissistic sense of self-assurance displaces all doubt. A delicious rage quickens his pulse, fueled by the sins and shortcomings of lesser mortals, who are soiling the world wherever he looks. His perspective narrows until the last remnants of proportion are shed from his life. Through immoderation, he experiences something akin to rapture.

Extreme and bizarre religious ideas are so commonplace in American history that it is difficult to speak of them as fringe at all. To speak of a fringe implies a mainstream, but in terms of numbers, perhaps the largest component of the religious spectrum in contemporary America remains what it has been since colonial times: a fundamentalist evangelicalism with powerful millenarian strands.

To avoid prosecution, typically men in Colorado City will legally marry only the first of their wives; subsequent wives, although “spiritually married” to their husband by Uncle Rulon, thus remain single mothers in the eyes of the state. This has the added benefit of allowing the enormous families in town to qualify for welfare and other forms of public assistance. 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.

Mark Twain famously ridiculed The Book of Mormon’s tedious, quasi-biblical prose as “chloroform in print,” observing that the phrase “and it came to pass” is used more than two thousand times.

Joseph preached something he called “free agency”; everyone was free to choose whether to be on the side of the Lord or the side of wickedness; it was an entirely personal decision—but woe to those who decided wrong. If you knowingly chose to shun the God of Joseph and the Saints, you were utterly undeserving of sympathy or mercy.

Between 1840 and 1844 God instructed the prophet to marry some forty women. Most were shocked and revolted when Joseph revealed what the Lord had in mind for them. Several were still pubescent girls, such as fourteen-year-old Helen Mar Kimball. Although she acquiesced when the prophet explained that God had commanded her to become his plural wife—and that she would be permitted twenty-four hours to comply—Helen later confided to a friend, “I was young, and they deceived me, by saying the salvation of our whole family depended on it.”

Not coincidentally, it repeatedly mentions Emma by name. For example, in the revelation’s fifty-fourth verse God warns, And I command mine handmaid, Emma Smith, to abide and cleave unto my servant Joseph, and to none else. But if she will not abide this commandment she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord; for I am the Lord thy God, and will destroy her if she abide not in my law.

WTF so many wtf moments i am so disgusted

If any man espouse a virgin, and desire to espouse another . . . , then he is justified; he cannot commit adultery for they are given unto him. . . . And if he have ten virgins given unto him by this law, he cannot commit adultery, for they belong to him, and they are given unto him; therefore he is justified. . . . But if one or either of the ten virgins, after she is espoused, shall be with another man, she has committed adultery, and shall be destroyed; for they are given unto him to multiply and replenish the earth, according to my commandment.

How is any woman a mormon

For people like Dan who view existence through the narrow lens of literalism, the language in certain select documents is assumed to possess extraordinary power. Such language is to be taken assiduously at face value, according to a single incontrovertible interpretation that makes no allowance for nuance, ambiguity, or situational contingencies. As Vincent Crapanzano observes in his book Serving the Word, Dan Lafferty’s brand of literalism encourages a closed, usually (though not necessarily) politically conservative view of the world: one with a stop-time notion of history and a we-and-they approach to people, in which we are possessed of truth, virtue, and goodness and they of falsehood, depravity, and evil. It looks askance at figurative language, which, so long as its symbols and metaphors are vital, can open—promiscuously in the eyes of the strict literalist—the world and its imaginative possibilities.

Hence, at Nauvoo the innocent children of God realized their identity through their struggle against the evil followers of Satan, who dominated American society everywhere except in the city of the Saints. The problem, of course, with this kind of dichotomous myth is that, for the people who hold it, guilt and innocence become matters of belief, not evidence.

Prompted by Onias’s instruction, throughout February and March Ron received approximately twenty revelations. Some he recorded on Brady’s computer on the spot, as they came to him; more often he kept the revelations in his head for a while before committing them to print, in order to mull them over and better understand them. The most disturbing of Ron’s revelations occurred in late March, and he recorded it by hand, on a sheet of yellow legal paper: Thus Saith the lord unto My servants the Prophets. It is My will and commandment that ye remove the following individuals in order that My work might go forward. For they have truly become obstacles in My path and I will not allow My work to be stopped. First thy brother’s wife Brenda and her baby, then Chloe Low, then Richard Stowe. And it is My will that they be removed in rapid succession and that an example be made of them in order that others might see the fate of those who fight against the true Saints of God. And it is My will that this matter be taken care of as soon as possible and I will prepare a way for My instrument to be delivered and instructions be given unto My servant Todd.* And it is My will that he show great care in his duties for I have raised him up and prepared him for this important work and is he not like unto My servant Porter Rockwell[?]† And great blessings await him if he will do My Will, for I am the Lord thy God and have control over all things. Be still and know that I am with thee. Even so Amen.

In one of Ron’s revelations, God had, in fact, instructed him to send his brother Mark to Nevada to wager on a horse race to raise funds for the City of Refuge. With the Lord letting Mark know which mount to bet on, it seemed that they couldn’t lose. But they did.

Dan wondered whether it was really necessary to cut the throats of the four individuals slated for removal, as Ron had been instructed in one of his revelations. “He asked Ron how come he couldn’t just go in and shoot them,” Carnes said. “Ron replied that it was the Lord’s command that they—that their throats be slashed.” Betty Wright McEntire heard all of this for the first time when, twelve years later, she listened to Carnes testify from the witness stand of the Fourth District Court in Provo. And when she learned that Claudine Lafferty had been sitting right there, quietly listening as her two oldest sons discussed the imminent murder of her daughter-in-law and baby granddaughter, Betty was stunned. “How could someone hear what they were planning and not do anything to warn Brenda?” she asks. “I just can’t understand it.”

betty :(

Both revelation and delusion are attempts at the solution of problems. Artists and scientists realize that no solution is ever final, but that each new creative step points the way to the next artistic or scientific problem. In contrast, those who embrace religious revelations and delusional systems tend to see them as unshakeable and permanent. . . . Religious faith is an answer to the problem of life. . . . The majority of mankind want or need some all-embracing belief system which purports to provide an answer to life’s mysteries, and are not necessarily dismayed by the discovery that their belief system, which they proclaim as “the truth,” is incompatible with the beliefs of other people. One man’s faith is another man’s delusion. . . . Whether a belief is considered to be a delusion or not depends partly upon the intensity with which it is defended, and partly upon the numbers of people subscribing to it.*

Utah Assistant Attorney General Creighton Horton asked him, “Are people who believe in divine guidance, or believe God sends guardian angels to protect us, mentally ill?” “I would hope not,” Gardner replied. “Certainly, the majority of people in our country believe in God. Most people in our country say they pray to God. It’s a common experience. And while the labels that Mr. Lafferty uses are certainly unusual, the thought forms themselves are really very common . . . to all of us.”

Gardner explained that what makes Ron Lafferty’s religious beliefs “so striking is not that they are somewhat strange or even irrational, because all religious people have . . . irrational ideas; what makes them different is that they are so uniquely his own.” And although Ron had constructed his own idiosyncratic theology, Gardner insisted that he did so “in a very non-psychotic way. . . . He created it by whatever feels good to him. He says, ‘It just gives me a sense of peace, and I know it’s true,’ and it becomes a part of his own unique article of faith. That is not a product of a schizophrenic, broken brain.”

When Esplin continued to press Golding, arguing that Ron’s brand of religious zealotry was so excessive that it must be considered a symptom of psychological instability, Golding stated, “I do not believe that zealots are mentally ill, per se.” He explained that there were “zealots of all stripes and colors” in the world—political, religious, and otherwise: “A zealot is simply someone who has an extreme, fervently held belief” and is willing to go “to great lengths to impose those beliefs, act on those beliefs. . . . For example, the Palestinian terrorist organization, Hamas. Hamas means ‘zeal.’ ” Golding reiterated, “I guess my actual point, to try and say it again, is the existence of an extreme religious, personal, or political belief system is not, per se, an indication of mental illness.”

If Ron wasn’t insane—or at least no more insane than anyone else who believes in God—what was he? Why had the Lafferty brothers’ religious beliefs turned them into ruthless killers?

Dan believes, as he did when he was a fundamentalist Mormon, that the most salient fact of existence is the immutable division of humankind into those who are inherently righteous and those who are inherently evil.

What about Osama’s underlings, the holy warriors who sacrificed their lives for Allah by flying jumbo jets into the World Trade Center? Surely their faith and conviction were every bit as powerful as Dan’s. Does he think the sincerity of their belief justified the act? And if not, how can Dan know that what he did isn’t every bit as misguided as what bin Laden’s followers did on September 11, despite the obvious sincerity of his own faith? As he pauses to consider this possibility, there comes a moment when a shadow of doubt seems to flicker across his mien. But only for an instant, and then it’s gone. “I have to admit, the terrorists were following their prophet,” Dan says. “They were willing to do essentially what I did. I see the parallel. But the difference between those guys and me is, they were following a false prophet, and I’m not. “I believe I’m a good person,” Dan insists. “I’ve never done anything intentionally wrong. I never have.

If opponents of Mormonism have often asked, “Can’t we stop the Mormons from being Mormon?”, ostensible admirers of Mormons as people have often asked, at least by implication, “Can’t we have Mormons—but without Mormonism?”

“It’s amazing how gullible people are,” DeLoy continues. “But you have to remember what a huge comfort the religion is. It provides all the answers. It makes life simple. Nothing makes you feel better than doing what the prophet commands you to do. If you have some controversial issue that you’re dealing with—let’s say you owe a lot of money to somebody, and you don’t have the means to pay them—you go in and talk to the prophet, and he might tell you, ‘You don’t have to pay the money back. The Lord says it’s Okay.’ And if you just do what the prophet says, all the responsibility for your actions is now totally in his hands. You can refuse to pay the guy, or even kill somebody, or whatever, and feel completely good about it. And that’s a real big part of what holds this religion together: it’s not having to make those critical decisions that many of us have to make, and be responsible for your decisions.”

“If you want to know the truth,” he says, squinting against the glare, “I think people within the religion—people who live here in Colorado City—are probably happier, on the whole, than people on the outside.” He looks down at the red sand, scowls, and nudges a rock with the toe of one shoe. “But some things in life are more important than being happy. Like being free to think for yourself.”

I don’t know what God is, or what God had in mind when the universe was set in motion. In fact, I don’t know if God even exists, although I confess that I sometimes find myself praying in times of great fear, or despair, or astonishment at a display of unexpected beauty. There are some ten thousand extant religious sects—each with its own cosmology, each with its own answer for the meaning of life and death. Most assert that the other 9,999 not only have it completely wrong but are instruments of evil, besides. None of the ten thousand has yet persuaded me to make the requisite leap of faith. In the absence of conviction, I’ve come to terms with the fact that uncertainty is an inescapable corollary of life. An abundance of mystery is simply part of the bargain—which doesn’t strike me as something to lament. Accepting the essential inscrutability of existence, in any case, is surely preferable to its opposite: capitulating to the tyranny of intransigent belief. And if I remain in the dark about our purpose here, and the meaning of eternity, I have nevertheless arrived at an understanding of a few more modest truths: Most of us fear death. Most of us yearn to comprehend how we got here, and why—which is to say, most of us ache to know the love of our creator. And we will no doubt feel that ache, most of us, for as long as we happen to be alive.