- “Under the Banner of Heaven” by Jon Krakauer is a gripping exploration of the intertwining realms of religion, extremism, and violence, focusing on the history and consequences of Mormon fundamentalism.
- Discover the profound and unsettling truths about faith, fanaticism, and violence by delving into the pages of “Under the Banner of Heaven,” and gain a deeper understanding of the complex relationship between religion and extreme beliefs.
Under the Banner of Heaven (2003) traces the roots of contemporary Mormon fundamentalism through the lens of a horrendous double murder. The devotion of the Lafferty brothers is a gateway into core tenets that include divine revelation, polygamy, blood atonement, and the way Mormons act in their unique role as God’s chosen.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Understand religious fundamentalism through a true crime story.
In 1984, Brenda Lafferty and her daughter, Erica, were brutally murdered by Ron and Dan Lafferty. The brothers were part of a fundamentalist Mormon group – when they decided to kill their sister-in-law and niece, they were acting on a revelation they believed to be from God.
In this summary to Jon Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven, you’ll discover not just a crime story, but also an analysis of religious extremism.
A content warning before we begin: this summary contains radical views and graphic violence, so please proceed with caution.
The divine revelation
This was no ordinary assembly. It was a gathering of Saints – the most fervent Saints. On this day, April 5, 1984, they’d come together to validate the revelations they’d each received from God. But even these fearless crusaders were shocked by what God had revealed to Ron Lafferty.
The nine members of Onias’s School of Prophets were split. Watson and Dan Lafferty sided with their brother Ron, who’d received the divine revelation. The rest copped out.
The removal revelation, as it’s now known, left no room for doubt: God had instructed Ron Lafferty to kill his brother’s wife, baby, and two close friends. These people stood in the way of God’s work.
Ron’s friends, to his surprise, were horrified. Bernard Brady was so stunned he registered his concerns in an affidavit – just in case.
Dan Lafferty thought about it, asked questions, and then validated the revelation. As the weeks progressed, his support turned to genuine conviction. Soon Dan started to have revelations of his own. He began to see his role in Ron’s plan.
While Ron was the mouth of God, Dan was God’s arm. It was Dan who had been chosen to swing the Sword of the Most High. Family men as they were, they informed their youngest brother, Allen, that his wife and child had to go.
Allen was incensed. He would defend Brenda and little Erica with his life, he told his brothers. Brenda, a brilliant, outspoken woman who’d given up a promising career in journalism to marry Allen, was 24. Allen never mentioned the revelation to his wife.
In their deliberations, Ron and Dan openly discussed the lurid details of their plan in their mother’s dining room. Claudine, a submissive wife who’d been repeatedly abused by Ron and Dan’s father, didn’t bat an eyelid. Her husband had died from diabetes because he didn’t like conventional medicine.
Having been rebuffed by their intimate circle of friends, Ron and Dan left the School of Prophets. Their old friends had now become children of the Devil.
Joseph Smith’s 1832 revelation about The One Mighty and Strong who would put God’s house in order before His coming, was about to happen. God had chosen Ron and Dan.
Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon
In 1823, the angel Moroni guided 17-year-old Joseph Smith to a hill in Palmyra, New York. Buried under a rock for 14,00 years, the angel said, were golden plates inscribed with Holy Scripture in Egyptian hieroglyphics. The plates would come into Smith’s possession once he was mature and married.
Smith was in love with a girl called Emma Hale, but Emma’s father wasn’t happy about their union. He didn’t want Smith, a convicted imposter and soothsayer, to marry his beautiful daughter. So the couple eloped.
Smith had visited the hill in Palmyra every September 22, as Moroni had instructed. On his visit in 1827, Smith brought along his bride. Dressed in black, they rode in a black carriage drawn by a black horse.
Having fulfilled the conditions the angel had laid out, Smith got access to the holy writing. Using spectacles Moroni had given him, he read the ancient text to his neighbor, Martin Harris, who took on the role of scribe. Moroni retrieved the golden plates and spectacles when they’d finished the translation.
And then the worst possible thing happened: Martin Harris borrowed the translated text to show his doubting wife … and it disappeared. It took some effort for Moroni to return the plates. And this time, Moroni didn’t offer any spectacles.
So Smith relied on his experience. He made use of an old technique he’d picked up in his treasure-hunting days. He put the golden plates near him, placed his peeping stone inside an upturned hat, buried his head in it to shut out the light, and looked through a hole in the pebble. He then read out an English version of the Scripture to Emma and other clerks.
The team finished their translation in June 1829 – but Smith couldn’t cough up the printer’s $3,000 advance for 5,000 copies of the Book of Mormon. In another vision, God revealed to Smith that Harris had to pay the printer. Harris had already faced his wife’s wrath due to his involvement with Smith. But even his wife couldn’t stop him from doing God’s work.
Harris sold his farm to finance the printing, and Joseph Smith formally incorporated the religion a week after the book was published. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was born.
A peculiar people
Six hundred years before the birth of Christ, a Hebrew tribe left Jerusalem and set sail for America.
They were led by Lehi, who eventually picked his younger son, Nephi, to lead the tribe. Lehi’s decision didn’t go down well with Laman, the older son. Along with his followers, Laman’s skin got darker as he became more evil.
According to Smith’s revelations, the evil faction were ancestors of the Native Americans. The Lamanites killed all the Nephites – all but one, that is. This last Nephite’s name was Mormon.
Mormon’s son, Moroni, was the angel that handed Joseph Smith the golden plates at the holy site Mormons now call Hill Cumorah.
Smith’s story attracted derision from local newspapers and commentators – but it also attracted over a thousand converts in a single year from the area around Palmyra. Smith declared his church the one and only true church.
He also communicated with God on a regular basis – a skill his followers picked up. Smith’s revelations, however, were considered more sacred. They offered guidance for the establishment of his church and were published in an official dogma which he titled The Doctrine and Covenants.
Facing persecution in Palmyra, Smith received a revelation to lead God’s chosen to Zion. The Saints stopped briefly in Kirtland, Ohio, before settling in Jackson County, Missouri.
But tensions started to brew.
To the people of Jackson County, Mormons were an entitled group: they preferred to trade among themselves, voted as one bloc, and bought up a lot of land around the area. The locals also disliked that these Northerners favored the abolition of slavery.
Bloody clashes ensued, leading to the deaths of many men and women on both sides. After one such battle, Smith offered to sacrifice himself to establish peace.
He was ordered to be shot alongside some of his followers. But by this time, Mormons had begun to draw some public sympathy from Americans who thought they were being persecuted for their faith. This deterred local government officials from going on with the execution.
Encouraged by a bribe, prison officials got drunk and dozed off while the prisoners escaped. The Saints crossed over into Illinois and created a new settlement in the city of Nauvoo, Hancock County.
It wasn’t long before they enraged the locals again. But this time, the president, prophet, seer, and revelator of the church was starting to face some resistance from his home turf too.
The road to fundamentalism
Officially, the Mormon church rejects polygamy. But that’s just one side of Joseph Smith’s legacy. Polygamy is practiced by countless Mormon sects.
This division started under Smith’s own roof.
In Nauvoo, Smith started sleeping with other women. He secretly married some of them, in what he called “celestial marriages.” Men had to marry as many women as they could to create offspring and populate God’s earth, Smith told close friends.
However strongly he felt about it, though, Smith couldn’t find the courage to tell his wife. He dropped a few hints to see the reaction. It was negative. Understanding that the times hadn’t yet caught up with his audacious vision, he secretly canonized polygamy in Section 132 of The Doctrines and Covenants as one of the central principles of Mormonism.
The road to salvation lay in these spiritual marriages. Anyone who ignored this principle, man or woman, would be damned.
In 1844, a church elder named William Law sided with Emma and threatened to expose Smith in a newspaper article. Smith, acting as mayor of Nauvoo, raided Law’s office.
Smith was arrested and locked up in Carthage, Illinois, but his enemies in Hancock County broke into his cell and attacked him. He jumped out of the prison window and crashed to the ground, 20 feet below.
Polygamy’s time came in 1852 when Smith’s successor, Brigham Young, announced Smith’s secret principle to an assembly in Salt Lake City. Saints sympathizers were shocked. But before long, it became the dogma and accepted practice of the mainstream Mormon church – the church in which the Lafferty brothers were raised.
When Ron Lafferty and his brothers came across this revelation, they felt betrayed by the authorities in Salt Lake City. The church had compromised its principles to make peace with the government of the United States. Not only had it renounced polygamy – it had also allowed Black people to join the Mormon church and priesthood.
The Lafferty wives weren’t happy with their husbands’ revelation. They didn’t like the fact that they were discussing polygamy with old men in distant communes, secretly marrying their stepdaughters, and sexually abusing their kids.
Once the Lafferty brothers adopted Mormon fundamentalism, they started relying on divine provision. Ron left his job and drove around without a license, often exceeding speed limits to defy police officers. In his eyes, the law of God superseded the law of man. He traveled to Colorado City in Utah and Bountiful in Canada, and started experimenting with drugs and alcohol. His first wife had left with their kids, so he started to take other wives.
Everyone who opposed the chosen, Smith had declared, was a child of the Devil. Not able to make their husbands see reason, the Lafferty wives turned to Brenda, the youngest wife. Her interventions angered the Lafferty men.
Blood atonement
On July 24, 1984, Ron and Dan Lafferty parked their Impala station wagon outside their brother Allen’s home in American Fork. July 24 is Pioneer Day, which Mormons celebrate every year to commemorate the day their ancestors marched into Utah territory back in 1847.
Ron got out and knocked on the front door – no reply. He jumped back into the car to join Dan and two companions they’d been traveling around with.
But as they drove away from Allen’s house, Dan suddenly felt an urge. It was he, Dan, that had been chosen to carry out this assignment. He turned the car around and drove back to Allen’s house.
This time, Brenda opened the door. He forced his way in and closed the door from inside. Then he attacked his sister-in-law. Ron entered the house moments later and helped his brother subdue Brenda, who passed out.
Then Dan walked into his niece Erica’s room. She was standing in her crib, burbling and smiling at her uncle. Her uncle explained to the toddler that he was doing God’s work, closed his eyes, and then slashed the baby’s throat with the instrument God had chosen: a boning knife.
Unfazed by what he’d just done, Dan washed the blood off the knife. He walked back to the kitchen, where Brenda lay motionless. He grabbed her by the hair, closed his eyes, and cut her throat too.
Drenched in blood, the brothers and their crew drove to the home of their next intended victim: Chloe Low. She wasn’t there – she and her family had decided to celebrate Pioneer Day away from American Fork – so they stole some jewelry and money, and destroyed Chloe’s collection of figurines. Chloe had angered the brothers by supporting their wives.
Richard Stowe, their final target, had done the same. But on their way to execute Richard, they missed a turn. And their companions decided they’d seen enough. They told the brothers it wasn’t God’s will. That’s why they’d missed the turn, their friends pleaded.
When their companions disappeared with their car, the brothers separated and reunited in Reno, Nevada. There, they relied on free casino food and the generosity of strangers. A driver let them sleep in his bus. Other times, free casino chips would win them a meal.
One day, they decided to check out a friend in Circus Circus casino. When they didn’t find her, they lined up to eat at the casino’s buffet. The police were waiting. But Ron and Dan didn’t resist – everything they’d done was the Lord’s work.
When Dan was learning about the early Mormon church, he discovered blood atonement had been encouraged by Joseph Smith and his successor, Brigham Young. Spilling blood was fine, they argued, if an unbeliever committed an unforgivable sin against a Saint. Mormon legends like Porter Rockwell, also known as the Destroying Angel, killed many people on behalf of the church.
Locked up in prison, Ron had another revelation: God had asked him to kill Dan. He tried to sneak up on his brother while he slept, but retreated when his brother woke up. On another occasion, Ron brutally attacked Dan, who put up no resistance.
The brothers were separated and put in adjoining cells after this incident. Dan let Ron strangle him with a towel through his cell. He suffered injuries but survived. Then it dawned on him: Ron was the child of the Devil. Dan now thought of himself as the prophet Elijah, sent to earth to prepare the way for Christ.
The brothers were convicted in separate trials – Dan to life in prison, Ron to death.
JON KRAKAUER is the author of eight books and has received an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. According to the award citation, “Krakauer combines the tenacity and courage of the finest tradition of investigative journalism with the stylish subtlety and profound insight of the born writer.”
Genres
History, Religion, Spirituality, Society, Culture, Nonfiction, True Crime, Crime, Cults, Biography, Historical
Journalism, Sociology, History of Christianity, Murder and Mayhem True Accounts
Review
“Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith” by Jon Krakauer is a compelling and thought-provoking exploration of the intersection between religion, fanaticism, and violence within the context of Mormonism. In this meticulously researched non-fiction work, Krakauer delves into the history of the Latter-day Saint movement, examining its origins, beliefs, and the schisms that have occurred throughout its existence. The book also presents a chilling account of two brothers, Ron and Dan Lafferty, who committed a gruesome double murder in the name of religious revelation. Krakauer skillfully weaves together the history of the Mormon Church with the Lafferty brothers’ story, shedding light on the darker aspects of religious fervor and its potential for violence.
The narrative of “Under the Banner of Heaven” alternates between historical accounts of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or LDS Church, and the contemporary events leading to the Lafferty brothers’ heinous crime. Krakauer explores the early days of Mormonism, including the life of its founder, Joseph Smith, and the doctrine of plural marriage that played a significant role in the Church’s history. He traces the development of various sects and fundamentalist groups that broke away from the LDS Church, highlighting the complex dynamics within the Mormon community.
The book’s core focus, however, is on the Lafferty case. Krakauer meticulously reconstructs the events leading up to the murder of their sister-in-law and her infant daughter, providing a harrowing account of religious delusion and the tragic consequences it can produce. He investigates the theological justifications behind the Lafferty brothers’ actions and how their beliefs, influenced by extremist interpretations of Mormonism, led to their violent acts.
“Under the Banner of Heaven” is a riveting and meticulously researched book that offers a balanced and well-rounded examination of the complex and often controversial history of the Mormon faith. Jon Krakauer’s investigative journalism is masterful, as he provides readers with a comprehensive understanding of the roots of the LDS Church, the emergence of fundamentalist offshoots, and the violent acts committed by a select few in the name of religious conviction. The author does not demonize the entire faith but rather explores the extremes that can emerge when religious fervor takes a dark turn.
Krakauer’s writing is engaging and thought-provoking, making this book an essential read for anyone interested in the intersection of religion and violence. It challenges readers to consider the broader implications of religious extremism and the need for religious institutions to address these issues responsibly.
In conclusion, “Under the Banner of Heaven” is a compelling exploration of the complexities of faith, the dangers of extremism, and the impact of religious beliefs on individuals and society. Jon Krakauer’s meticulous research and compelling storytelling make this book an important addition to the conversation about the role of religion in contemporary society.