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.

When the subject of religiously inspired bloodshed comes up, many Americans immediately think of Islamic fundamentalism, which is to be expected in the wake of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington. But men have been committing heinous acts in the name of God ever since mankind began believing in deities, and extremists exist within all religions. Muhammad is not the only prophet whose words have been used to sanction barbarism; history has not lacked for Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, and even Buddhists who have been motivated by scripture to butcher innocents. Plenty of these religious extremists have been homegrown, corn-fed Americans.

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.

Faith is the very antithesis of reason, injudiciousness a crucial component of spiritual devotion. And when religious fanaticism supplants ratiocination, all bets are suddenly off. Anything can happen. Absolutely anything. Common sense is no match for the voice of God—as the actions of Dan Lafferty vividly attest.

All religious belief is a function of nonrational faith. And faith, by its very definition, tends to be impervious to intellectual argument or academic criticism.

Those who would assail The Book of Mormon should bear in mind that its veracity is no more dubious than the veracity of the Bible, say, or the Qur’an, or the sacred texts of most other religions. The latter texts simply enjoy the considerable advantage of having made their public debut in the shadowy recesses of the ancient past, and are thus much harder to refute.

The impetus for most fundamentalist movements—whether Mormon, Catholic, Evangelical Christian, Muslim, or Jewish—is a yearning to return to the mythical order and perfection of the original church. Dan

“When you put your whole heart into a search for the truth,” Dan says, “in due course you start to see the contradictions in what you’ve been taught. You start to realize that something doesn’t feel right and doesn’t look right. Something starts to stink. . . . I used to refer to myself as a religious fanatic, but I realize I was kicked out of the LDS Church because I was really a truth fanatic. I have the need to resolve contradictions, which is what got me excommunicated.”

“Organized religion is hate masquerading as love. Which inevitably leads you back to the religion as it originally existed, before it was corrupted. It leads you to become a fundamentalist. You can see where the Church lost the answers by giving up its fundamental principles. So you find your beliefs evolving toward fundamentalism.

“My whole life, I’ve had this need to believe in something,” he says. “I’ve wanted answers to why we were put here, just like everybody else. The religion provided those answers. And there is so much else that’s good about it. The truth is, everything I ever learned came from this religion. It made me what I am. And I’m proud of what I am.

“Even though I don’t believe anymore, I’m still wearing the garment—the sacred long underwear. I try not to wear it, but I just can’t seem to leave it off, even on hot summer days like this. For some reason not wearing it just doesn’t feel right. I feel naked.” He laughs again, then adds, “That ought to tell you something about the power of this religion.”

“It just got to be where I could no longer ignore that the religion is a lie. It’s not like the prophets that control everybody are intentionally fooling the people—as far as I can tell Rulon and Warren and Winston and them sincerely believe the lie themselves. I’m not sure about that, but I think so. And it’s not just their religion that’s a lie. I’ve really come to believe that all religions are lies. Every single one of ’em. “Could there be supreme power out there somewhere? Is there a grand plan behind the big bang, the creation of the universe, the evolution of species? I don’t know, I suppose it’s possible; I guess I’d like to at least allow for the possibility in the back of my mind. But common sense tells me otherwise.”

Indeed, the FLDS church continues to teach that interracial marriage is a sin so great that “the penalty, under the law of God is death on the spot.”*

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.”

“But some things in life are more important than being happy. Like being free to think for yourself.”