Review by Randy Russell
Mormon History – February 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine
Under the Banner of Heaven
by Jon Krakauer
Published in 2003 by Anchor Books
ISBN 1-4000-3280-6
UNDER THE BANNER OF HEAVEN examines a double murder in American Fork, Utah in 1984, and also goes on a tour of Mormon history and the current schismatic practices of polygamy that provide a context for the crime.
Brenda Lafferty, a young mother and her baby daughter Erica, were murdered in cold blood by two of her husband’s elder brothers. The murders appeared to be a ritual killing, and the investigation pinpointed the brothers and members of their small, schismatic religious group as prime suspects. The two brothers had previously been excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
This is not a typical sensational murder retrospective, although it has those dramatic qualities. The LDS Church has condemned the book, more for its history tour than its analysis of the murder. Krakauer’s book takes this crime as the basis for what ends up being a retrospective on polygamy from the formal disavowal by the church until the present, and its extremely valuable for that alone, as well as for its discussion on the nature of fundamentalism and isolationism.
Krakauer starts off making the point that he sees all religion as having to be classified as irrational by its nature, and he makes no effort to single out Mormon beliefs as being any less or more irrational than others. These beliefs turn out to be necessary ingredients in the exploration, as the book nears its end and the issue of whether people who believe in direct prophecies from God, and act on them, can be considered insane.
The murderers, it turns out, were acting on what they believed to be a direct prophesy from God, and the group they belonged to had actually discussed many prophecies and debated their credibility and authenticity. This is a touchy issue in the court as the trials of the accused progress — and the insanity defense borders on declaring a wide range of religious beliefs and practices insane.
That discussion is highly interesting as it boils down to whether the belief is organized, shared, ‘internally rational,’ and stems logically from teachings in childhood. Nobody in the prosecution wants to see a denomination (any denomination, or even any schismatic movement of it) declared insane for the purposes of defense. And the defense walks a tightrope looking for an insanity plea despite the protests of the defendants. The court findings eventually suggest that insanity is limited only to a belief system that results in anti-social behavior – a finding so problematical that I would have enjoyed more analysis of it.
Krakauer, however, points out the dilemma of any religious movement that allows adherents to talk to God directly and receive communication back directly. While polygamy represents a special and rather compelling context for these murders, and a series of other crimes including some shocking revelations on the treatment of children and especially young girls, I thought the book was more of an indictment of fundamentalism in all of its guises and how that fosters anti-tolerant belief systems, one-dimensional people and anti-social behavior. Such behavior is clearly the down side of a utopian isolationism that has to go to more and more extremes to enforce isolation.
As for the history tour, Krakauer’s Mormon history vignettes are pretty solid, with most of his findings based on well-accepted accounts by dispassionate historians. If the author focuses on some of the more violent Mormon episodes of the past, to the exclusion of other accomplishments, it is because they are germane to his point. But in an attempt to clear the air, Krakauer publishes, in whole, one of the detailed criticisms of his work by a church official at the end and responds to it. I was struck that the church criticism starts with an indictment of Krakauer’s admitted agnosticism as a reason for denying the veracity of his work.
Krakauer actually seems to have a deep respect for the accomplishments of the majority of Mormons and their movement, along with admiration for the communities they created and the rather decent quality of life they established — given the times and the alternatives. His humanism creeps in as he suggests that most people, most of the time, will act decently towards each other and that on balance that probably is a better characterization of Mormon life and communities, than are the aberrations. Krakauer also points out that a persecuted people may be somewhat justified in their attitudes and suspicions, and Mormons weren’t exactly paranoid in feeling that some people were out to get them!
I recommend the book because of this interplay — it isn’t trying to be a definitive history, a simple sensational murder diagnosis, or a study of current polygamy as much as a study of the driving forces that capture human beings in the play of what might be best described as the ‘unintended consequences’ of a narrow belief system.
The picture presented by Krakauer’s analysis is especially disturbing because of the ‘matter of fact’ way the proponents described their beliefs and actions. I was left feeling how fragile things like diversity, tolerance and respect for the individual are in any culture, and reflecting on our continued propensity for blood atonement, now on a global scale.
It wouldn’t surprise me if a similar work couldn’t be constructed for the lives of the suicide bombers of 9/11, if we had equal access to their personal history. So the lesson of this work is powerfully current. I was also reminded that the death penalty is often a culture’s attempt to get rid of the extreme manifestations of its own foibles and faults, rather than learn from them.
