Under the Banner of Heaven, by John Krakauer

Author Jon Krakauer has a good sense of relating the human experience, as he writes about summiting Everest, living in the wild, rape in a college town, or military service.  In Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith, Krakauer examines the case of the murder of a young mother and her baby, and the fringe Mormon group that inspired it.

Krakauer gives us a history lesson on Mormonism, with a focus on the fundamentalist, polygamist sects that have spun on the main branch.  As long as I can remember, I have considered Mormonism to be a non-Christian offshoot from orthodox Christianity, with too many fundamental theological aberrations for them to be considered Christian.  Krakauer points out some of these aberrations (although he himself doesn't claim faith one way or another), but more importantly, he describes the questionable historical foundations on which Mormons base their faith.

However, he does a disservice to Mormon history by focussing on fringe groups that have split from "official" church teaching.  I would expect practicing Mormons not only to be upset by his narrow characterization but by his tendency to lump fundamentalist Mormons together with mainstream Mormons.  This led me to consider what parts of my own tradition's history could be represented (or misrepresented) as problematic.  What fringe groups or independent congregations could be described that would embarrass me or that I would call heretical?  To take a glaring example, for much of my life I have been a Baptist, but I in no way identify with the radical Westboro Baptist Church (few Baptists do).  More broadly, sociopaths and criminals regularly justify their actions in the name of religion, but in almost every case, actual adherents to those religions disavow those bad actors.

Krakauer tends to present the bad actors in this book as representative of the fundamentalist sects to which they belong, leaving the reader with the impression that the polygamy, incest, autocracy, and, ultimately, murderous acts, are typical of Mormonism, and that mainstream Mormonism has simply found ways to keep it covered up, both in their history and in contemporary life.  I remain no less convinced that Mormonism is a cult, but I don't believe Krakauer has given them a fair shake in Under the Banner of Heaven.

This was an interesting book to read, even with its anti-Mormon tendencies.  Hopping back and forth between Mormonism's beginnings to current events, and between mainstream Mormonism and many of its offshoots, the story tends to become fractured.  Krakauer used some shocking events as a springboard to paint a biased, unflattering picture of Mormonism.