Finished Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven this week. Incredibly interesting book if you’ve never heard about it. Krakauer takes an in-depth look at the history of Mormonism, how some sects within it came about (specifically the Mormon Fundamentalists), and how a few of those Fundamentalists were involved in a horrible murder that took place in 1984. Definitely a worth-while read. At the end of the book, he focuses a bit on the trial of the two brothers who were charged with the murder of their sister-in-law and her 15-month-old daughter. The Lafferty brothers claimed that this message came from God, and yet their lawyers were trying to use the insanity plea, which then causes Krakauer to raise some very interesting questions in relation to religion and revelation from God…
Krakauer writes:
“Such a defense would unavoidably raise the same difficult epistemological questions that had come to the fore after the Tenth Circuit Court’s ruling in 1991: if Ron Lafferty were deemed mentally ill because he obeyed the voice of God, isn’t everyone who believes in God and seeks guidance through prayer mentally ill as well? In a democratic republic that aspires to protect religious freedom, who should have the right to declare that one person’s irrational beliefs are legitimate and commendable, while another person’s are crazy? How can a society actively promote religious faith on one hand and condemn a man for zealously adhering to his faith on the other?”
Good questions. I think the first obvious answer would be that if one person’s religious freedom is causing injury, harm and actively pursuing to infringe on another’s freedom to not take part in that religion or system of beliefs…
Krakauer continues:
“This, after all, is a country led by a born-again Christian, President George W. Bush, who believes he is an instrument of God and characterizes international relations as a biblical clash between forces of good and evil. The highest law officer in the land, Attorney General John Ashcroft, is a dyed-in-the-wool follower of a fundamentalist Christian sect - the Pentecostal Assemblies of God - who begins each day at the Justice Department with a devotional prayer meeting for his staff, periodically has himself anointed with sacred oil, and subscribes to a vividly apocalyptic worldview that has much in common with key millenarian beliefs held by the Lafferty brothers and the residents of Colorado City. The president, the attorney general, and other national leaders frequently implore the American people to have faith in the power of prayer, and to trust in God’s will. Which is precisely what they were doing, say both Dan and Ron Lafferty, when so much blood was spilled in American Fork on July 24, 1984.”
So, if we want to get technical…yes, that is exactly what they thought they were doing the day they committed the murder. Trusting God and having faith in God’s will. Can we equate their understanding of doing God’s will with Bush’s? Or Ashcroft’s? Is that too ridiculous…? Or is there some truth in that…?
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey, are the 1984 Mormon murders you are referring to related to the “Salamander Letter”?
(Andrew, they are not related.)
I have not read the book but following all the hype surrounding its release last year, my impression was that it was unfair to not distinguish where religion ends and mental illness begins.
I am Mormon and I have no idea how anyone can link my faith or most faiths with promoting violence. Just because you have some crazy people doing some awful things is not reason to blame what they claim was their religion.
Just as we can’t have individuals declare that they are above the law, we can’t label one’s actions as religious if they are outside its teachings. The Lafferty brothers are clearly insane and evil people.
And that’s a cheap shot to link the President and AG to the Lafferty brothers. By that logic, clearly all people who take religion seriously are bordeline homicidal maniacs.
For all of their antagonism against the certainties and boundaries of modernism, self-proclaimed post-moderns certainly do a lot of name-calling! Do we have here a new avatar of fundamentalism? Perhaps I just don’t get it. So long, and thanks for all the fish.
Just for clarification here…I’m not calling Bush and Ashcroft religious lunatics (that was just a catchy title that would make people want to read it, which apparently worked) - just raising the question that Krakauer does. I just think the connection is interesting.
David, yes…after reading more and more into the Mormon Fundamentalists, and into the lives of the Lafferty brothers, and their particular crime…yes, I completely agree with you. Insane? Yes. Evil? Yes. Most definitely.
I do think it’s interesting if a court rules that because they thought “God spoke to them” - that makes them insane….then, what is the court and judicial system thus saying about *anyone* who says that they believe God speaks to them…
J.Edwards. I would love to know who this really is - I just have something about people not posting anonymously on this blog. I tried to email you and it got sent back to me, saying it wasn’t a real address at PTSEM. So…
“I think the first obvious answer would be that if one perons’s religious freedom is causing injury, harm and actively pursuing to infringe on another’s freedom to not take part in that religion or system of beliefs…”
Of course injury, harm and forced conversions/participation are pretty clearly wrong - but what about when things start getting a little more muddled. Take the abortion debate; it clearly impinges on matters of personal choice & freedom and yet also touches on matters of faith. Where do we draw the line? And, is it realistic to describe ourselves as people of faith if we draw a line that we will not let God cross? It seems to me that we can run the risk of putting God into a box if we are overly cautious in predetermining where God will and will not go.
Please allow me to introduce myself
I’m a man of wealth and taste
I’ve been around for a long, long year
Stole many a man’s soul and faith
And I was ’round when jesus christ
Had his moment of doubt and pain
Made damn sure that pilate
Washed his hands and sealed his fate
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name
But what’s puzzling you
Is the nature of my game
Hell-o. I am finishing the Krakauer book and was interested to see if there was any news on the termination of Ron Lafferty’s life. I found this blog.
I have no background info on this blog, but thought I’d post my comments. I am non-Mormon. In fact I was rasied as the child of a Lutheran Minister and as such, highly derided mormon beliefs as rediculous and silly. As I’ve grown, I’ve come to realize that religion and religious views are far more complicated than the texts that document them.
I have spent time in SLC, dated Mormans, know a whole bunch, and feel that I can safely say that most Mormans are no different than most other people. I feel that, as a ‘gentile’, Krakauer’s book actuallly goes a long way in defending and equalizing Momanism with other religions. Certain reviews of his book, (http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,510040251,00.html) seem to indicate paranoia on the part of the Morman hierarchy toward it’s depiction of their history. The reality is that Mormon history is fundamentaly no different from traditions like Catholicism, Anglicanism, and Islam, to name a few.
Religion is an organized social expression that defines values, dogma and history. Religions attempt to present a roadmap to a higher spiritual plane and generally fall short. Sadly, the need for religion is a human flaw, and in our quest for understanding, even science has attained religious status leaving NOTHING free of some sort of divine expression or description.
The Lafferty brothers, IMHO, acted out of delusion and human emotion (anger, resentment, revenge). The basis for the action, however, must be squarely placed on the shoulders of organized religion, as it was framed and carried out based on notions that developed from a childhood, no less a shared history of a particular religious bent. By being raised with the history and iconography of this particular religion, Mormanism, they were able to perpetrate their crimes ‘Under the Banner of Heaven’, however, they are only one example of the thousands that bloody our history books.
Krakauer’s book actually affected me positively toward Mormanism. Sorry, but I could never believe it, or become a Morman, but I can sympathize with the basic tenets and it’s history, which, as a modern religion is almost unfairly under a higher degree of scrutiny than, say, Catholicism.
In the long run, human history seems to indicate that all religions run dry and fade, only to be replaced by new ones, Mormanism being one of the most current and energized, Protestant christianity and Islam being close behind. What it indicates is that religion as a whole is a human malignacy that we depend on for comfort and organization and nothing more. All true spiritual events are no more than personal experiences placed onto a inherited backdrop, and in the long run, weakened by the religious context that seeks to compartmentalize and limit it’s true meaning.
Finally, the USA is based on a system that protects the liberties of the individual, not the state, and as such, finds itself obligated to the individual. This means that actions or opinions that threaten the safty of the individual must be, by moral obligation, curtailed. Regardless of your religions ideology, if you believe you are directed by god to hurt, maim, or defraud other Americans, the government, must, by virtue of the constitution, seek to stop you. And the real catch is that the right you are given to think and say what you like is curbed by the same articles. to paraphrase soemthing I heard a long time ago: ” your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins.” “Lying for God”, “Blood attonement”, “Jihad”, these are all counter-intuitive to any belief in civil liberties and add special irony to the Lafferty case as it arose from a strictly American religion that owes it’s survival to the first amendment. This, in my opinion, is the true understanding of the Krakauer book, which I recommend as an extremely compelling read. thanks.