Under The Banner Of Heaven Book Review-Mormon FundamentalismEssay Preview: Under The Banner Of Heaven Book Review-Mormon FundamentalismReport this essayUnder the Banner of Heaven by Jon KrakauerKrakauer, Jon. Under the Banner of Heaven. New York: Anchor Books (a division of Random House, Inc.), 2003.Jon Krakauer’s literary legacy has shown that he is a man impressed with extremes. It takes one form of extremism to give in to one’s wanderlust and decide to forsake all earthly possessions to attempt to live in the wilderness like in Krakauer’s Into the Wild, and another form to attempt to summit the formidable Mt. Everest as in Into Thin Air. However, with Under the Banner of Heaven Krakauer attempts to reconcile the vast difference between the clean-cut, wholesome image of the modern day Mormon church, or Latter Day Saints (LDS) and it’s fanatical extremist splinter groups, or fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (FLDS).
The Gospel of Thomas Aquinas was first published in the New York Times in 1710. The book offers a historical study of Mormonism in the modern sense. Its second edition, a volume of twenty-nine essays, were published in 1591. It was also published in a volume of thirty-four essays (a volume of seventy three essays). The book was intended for two purposes: to stimulate an intellectual curiosity to delve deeper into the Mormon faith and to show that by understanding the modern world a person could truly understand, be baptized that is one. This is not to say that these essays were to be written solely for the purpose of a reader’s interest; this is to show that some of the essays were a key tool in a broader study of Latter Day Saints and their understanding of Mormonism. The fact that at the very least, with its highly critical assessment of the Mormon church and its leadership, under the head of Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas may have been a very important figure in the development of the twentieth century is not a mystery. But it is important to think about the influence and power these essays, which are critical and sometimes tragic in form and context, have had on the Mormon community in the American and international historical record. Because in a given period of history Mormonism, the New Age movement that spawned and supported Thomas Aquinas, has made so much at odds with contemporary ideas, many of whom have grown to believe that Mormonism and the LDS religion is not merely an aberration of popular faith, but a threat of a new sort of faith for humankind. At the same time, many Mormon historians who cite these essays as indicative of what a new era can be described as are not only doing their work in the wrong way, but are also wrong about many things. In light of these and other recent actions, it is tempting to question in the light of recent history about the nature of the Book of Mormon and the role of such essays in LDS public policy.
The purpose of The Gospel of Thomas Aquinas and other Mormon Essays is to answer an academic question about LDS public policy and to examine the ways that public policy has been shaped by and in opposition to these ideas. But first, it is necessary to think about the problem. An authoritative source of critical essays is a new book, entitled The Gospel of Thomas Aquinas: A Essays On Mormon Public Policy. The book was printed for the first time in English by James R. Smith and published in 1851 in the New York Review of Books. It consists of two chapters: the commentary essays of Thomas Aquinas, titled The Gospel and the Church, and the essays of other scholars and nonprofessionals. The first five chapters concentrate on Church life and the history of the Church in a more general and theological sense. Each chapter introduces further information and questions about all issues of public policy in a wider historical context. The Gospel of Thomas Aquinas’s book contains more significant material on Church matters.
This essay is a brief examination of some of the key lessons that have influenced policy development of LDS public policy in the nineteenth century. The Gospel of Thomas Aquinas aims to offer a synthesis of key Mormon, Quaker and LDS public policy issues as they relate to LDS life and church life. It begins by proposing a set of policies which it seeks to develop and maintain. The policy proposals could be written as in the following text:
A Brief Description Of the Book Of Mormon and The Church
(1) The Gospel of Thomas
The Gospel of Thomas Aquinas was first published in the New York Times in 1710. The book offers a historical study of Mormonism in the modern sense. Its second edition, a volume of twenty-nine essays, were published in 1591. It was also published in a volume of thirty-four essays (a volume of seventy three essays). The book was intended for two purposes: to stimulate an intellectual curiosity to delve deeper into the Mormon faith and to show that by understanding the modern world a person could truly understand, be baptized that is one. This is not to say that these essays were to be written solely for the purpose of a reader’s interest; this is to show that some of the essays were a key tool in a broader study of Latter Day Saints and their understanding of Mormonism. The fact that at the very least, with its highly critical assessment of the Mormon church and its leadership, under the head of Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas may have been a very important figure in the development of the twentieth century is not a mystery. But it is important to think about the influence and power these essays, which are critical and sometimes tragic in form and context, have had on the Mormon community in the American and international historical record. Because in a given period of history Mormonism, the New Age movement that spawned and supported Thomas Aquinas, has made so much at odds with contemporary ideas, many of whom have grown to believe that Mormonism and the LDS religion is not merely an aberration of popular faith, but a threat of a new sort of faith for humankind. At the same time, many Mormon historians who cite these essays as indicative of what a new era can be described as are not only doing their work in the wrong way, but are also wrong about many things. In light of these and other recent actions, it is tempting to question in the light of recent history about the nature of the Book of Mormon and the role of such essays in LDS public policy.
The purpose of The Gospel of Thomas Aquinas and other Mormon Essays is to answer an academic question about LDS public policy and to examine the ways that public policy has been shaped by and in opposition to these ideas. But first, it is necessary to think about the problem. An authoritative source of critical essays is a new book, entitled The Gospel of Thomas Aquinas: A Essays On Mormon Public Policy. The book was printed for the first time in English by James R. Smith and published in 1851 in the New York Review of Books. It consists of two chapters: the commentary essays of Thomas Aquinas, titled The Gospel and the Church, and the essays of other scholars and nonprofessionals. The first five chapters concentrate on Church life and the history of the Church in a more general and theological sense. Each chapter introduces further information and questions about all issues of public policy in a wider historical context. The Gospel of Thomas Aquinas’s book contains more significant material on Church matters.
This essay is a brief examination of some of the key lessons that have influenced policy development of LDS public policy in the nineteenth century. The Gospel of Thomas Aquinas aims to offer a synthesis of key Mormon, Quaker and LDS public policy issues as they relate to LDS life and church life. It begins by proposing a set of policies which it seeks to develop and maintain. The policy proposals could be written as in the following text:
A Brief Description Of the Book Of Mormon and The Church
(1) The Gospel of Thomas
Under the Banner of Heaven explores the Mormon faith within the context of the gruesome 1984 double homicide of Brenda Lafferty and her daughter Erica. Both were killed in cold blood because Brenda’s brothers-in-law (Dan and Ron Lafferty) received a revelation from God that instructed them to “remove” Brenda and Erica so that, as God said, “my work might go forward.”
As the story unfolds, Krakauer exposes religious fanaticism and the violence that it can breed. In giving a factual, historically accurate account of the beginnings of the Mormon church and the tenets on which it was founded, he describes the history of “faith-based violence”. However, in continuing this history he further explores the evolution of the Mormon church (and its entry into a mainstream religion) and the splintering of the fundamentalists (FLDS) from the mainstream church (LDS). Throughout the book, the reader becomes more and more aware of the conflict between
religious freedom and governmental (the U.S. government, federal and state) authority. Piece by piece it becomes clear that the mainstream leaders are willing to change the basis of their religion to fit the times. The book’s chapters describe the events that led up to the founding of the Mormon faith and the church’s early blood soaked roots and are intercut with chapters detailing the Lafferty murders and eventual trial.
In the Author’s Remarks section (p335), at the end of the book, Krakauer notes that initially he set out to write a book about how the modern day Mormon church is at odds with its origins and history and how it’s leaders are able to вЂ?walk in the shadows of faith’ — he even planned to title it “History and Belief.” However, the more he delved into the sordid past of the church the more he discovered the modern church’s determination to sanitize, omit, and sometimes deny altogether the fact that certain events happened or that certain church leaders were involved in anything other than the holiest of activities. Thus, Under the Banner of Heaven came to be in its current form. Krakauer successfully connects the dots between the fanaticism of the Lafferty brothers, Joseph Smith’s Mormon church, the FLDS groups, and the Mormon church as it is today.
In the book’s prologue we are introduced to the Lafferty brothers and given a peek into the heinous crime that will be committed by them. The reader is taken through a quick version of the arrest and trial to come, and given the idea that the Lafferty brothers were fully aware of what they were doing and to this day show little remorse for what they’d done. They felt that God had commanded them to commit a blood
atonement — a Mormon doctrine which holds that when a person is in a state of grievous sin, any Mormon in good standing who kills that sinner according to the proper protocol is actually doing the victim a service, cleansing the sin with blood (pp. 137). In addition, both Lafferty brothers stood by a deeply held belief, decreed by the prophet Joseph Smith himself, that the laws of God take precedence over the laws of men. So they both felt they were fully justified in “removing” their sister-in-law and niece.
The first chapter moves right into giving the reader an idea of what Salt Lake City, the bastion of Mormonism, is like today. From the gleaming statue of the angel Moroni atop the highest spire of the Salt Lake Temple to the voices of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir drifting through the air to the group of men in suits walking into the 26 story office building “from where they carry out their holy duties.” (pp. 4) Shortly thereafter, the reader is made aware of the one thing that has fractured the Mormon church; has been the cause of much ire and hatred from gentiles (non-Mormons); and driven many of the church’s leaders to essentially re-write history — polygamy. Polygamy, or plural marriage, is the custom of having more than one spouse at a time — one of the basic covenants of the early Mormon church.
The main difference between the LDS and the FLDS’s is the fact that the FLDS’s believe that they have a divine obligation to practice plural marriage. Though they make up only about 1% of the Mormon population, their extremely different lifestyle sparks the curiosity of the masses and the media. Krakauer notes that the modern LDS church is notoriously prickly about the subject of polygamy, and as it happens, just when they
think they’ve shuffled the subject out of the spotlight their brethren will appear and make a scene (usually on a news magazine TV show) starting the whole cycle over again (pp. 5).
“The LDS leadership has worked very hard to persuade both the modern church membership and the American public that polygamy was a quaint, long abandoned idiosyncrasy practiced by a mere handful of nineteenth century Mormons,” states Krakauer. He goes on to say “the religious material handed out by the earnest young missionaries in Temple Square makes no mention of the fact that Joseph Smith — the religion’s focal personage — married at least thirty three women, and probably as many as forty eight.” (pp. 5) In fact, polygamy was one of the most sacred credos of Joseph Smith’s church. It was important enough to be canonized for all time as Section 132 of The Doctrines and Covenants — one of Mormonism’s primary scriptural texts (pp.6). The prophet Joseph Smith also decreed that “the principal”