Dawn's Reading Blog

It’s important to understand that Under the Banner of Heaven follows the history of Mormon Fundamentalism more than the history of Mormonism. A modern day murder committed by a couple of fundamentalists is juxtoposed with the way-back history of Mormonism itself (back when it was still “fundamental”). I don’t think Krakauer is bashing the modern LDS church more than he’s bashing all religion (which he is to some extent), nor is he trying to say that all Mormons are are fundamentalist kooks.

OK, that’s the fine print done with. It’s an interesting book, well-written. It was missing the transition from the old day Mormon church to the modern day church. The history only continues up to the point where the church officially foreswore polygamy, that being the jumping off point for many of the fundamentalist splinter groups. There’s a lot that I understand about Mormon beliefs today, like avoiding caffeine and stocking up a month’s worth of food, that apparently didn’t come into being until after that split, so a lot of what we think we know about the Mormon religion isn’t really fundamental to it. I found that interesting and would have liked to have known more about when and how those beliefs developed. But I guess that’s a different book.

It did cover in detail how polygamy came to be part of their belief system (and then not part of it in order to save the church). I hadn’t realized that polygamy wasn’t an original belief of their religion. So really the fundamentalists should go even farther back in their religion’s history to before polygamy was accepted.

I didn’t find the modern day murder story all that interesting, unlike some people who I guess were disappointed that they didn’t get more murder story. People murder each other for strange reasons all the time, they don’t have to believe in polygamy first. I guess it made a good illustration of where religious beliefs can take you but more relevent were the stories of incest and forced marriage that polygamy seems to breed. In the face of the current furor over whether or not to allow gay marriage, conservatives have asked: what next? Polygamy. Don’t tell them this, but personally I wouldn’t have any problem with polygamy. As long as it’s all consenting adults. The trouble with illegal polygamy is that it’s not all consenting adults and then it gets hidden and lied about even worse. If polygamy were legal, it could be better monitored and the people practicing “nice” polygamy (between consenting adults) would be aligned with the legal forces and against child molesters and rapists instead of aligned with them because they share a common crime.

But that’s a digression as Krakauer really focused on the negative aspects of polygamy and never suggested there could be a nice side to it nor did he suggest that making it legal would fix anything. His focus was more on what happens when religious “beliefs” override rational “facts.” He makes the point (through interviews with others) that anyone who believes in religion believes certain irrational things and that it’s hard to draw a line where faith turns into insanity.

A good, thought-provoking read. I’d recommend it.