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Whistle Stopper - Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith
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List Price: $14.95
Our Price: $8.43
Your Save: $ 6.52 ( 44% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Anchor
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 289.33
EAN: 9781400032808
ISBN: 1400032806
Label: Anchor
Manufacturer: Anchor
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 432
Publication Date: 2004-06-08
Publisher: Anchor
Release Date: 2004-06-08
Studio: Anchor
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Very timely, given TX events
Comment: Although I am only 30 pages into this book, which takes place primarily in Arizona, the details of previous raids on FLDS compounds are shockingly similar to what is currently happening in Eldorado, TX--including how the press is presenting this group as being persecuted for their religion when in fact, the FDLS is guilty of heinous crimes against its female members, who are little more than breeding stock. What FLDS members present to the networks and media may not be at all what goes on behind those locked and closed doors. Read this book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Mind-Boggling Historical Account
Comment: This book is a must read for anyone interested in reading a non-biased historical account of the Latter Day Saints. The parallel of events which occurred in the development of Mormanism as compared to the development of Islam are of a striking similarity.
Jon Krakauer is truly an amazing author and story teller.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Interesting history of the Mormon Church. Unfair to paint today's followers with the brush of the past.
Comment: I am fascinated with different religious sects and I must admit that the Mormon Church has always seemed to be founded on bizarre circumstances by some questionable characters. This book kept my interest and the history of the founders was interesting and disturbing. I soon became confused with the geneology of the family members of the FLDS in Colorado and Utah. No wonder genealogy is so important to the Mormon's how else could the keep up with their blood lines.
I don't think that it is fair to paint todays LDS members with the same brush as the FLDS and the early "church" which I think the author is attempting to do. Unfortunately, the majority who are good citizens with a strong (admirable) sense of family are tainted by the few whackos who make all the news.
Customer Rating:
Summary: LDS church history is years of material for Saturday Night Live
Comment: I am serious that the History of the Mormon church is years of material for Saturday Night Live.
Couple of ideas for skits:
Joseph Smith (founder of the LDS) is married and after a few years his eyes start wandering, so he tells his wife God has told him to take on more wives. The wife is mad and threatens to take on more husbands, Joe doesn't like that, so he tells his wife that God told him that if a wife takes on another man she will go to hell for ever ! Nice.
The locals don't like Joes unfaithfull ways, and drag him out of his bed, into the woods at night with the plan to castarate him - they even had a doctor along. Once Joe is stripped naked, and spread eagle the doctor can't go thru with it, and instead they beat Joe up badly and then tar and feather him.
Currently, various Fundemnetalist mormon church off shoots all have a leader that claim to be ' the mighty and strong one' - that is the guy who is immortal and will be present during the second coming ( or something like that) - well the followers all flip out when their annoited immortal leader dies.
The book covers a double homicide that took place in 1984. The two brothers that commited the crime are arrested, and after one beats the other one while in the same cell, they are put in adjacent cells. some days pass and one brother tells the other brother that God told him that he needs to kill him. So they discuss the best way to do the killing, and decide to have the one to die back up to the bars while the other one strangles him to death. They then proceed to follow thru the plan.
Mormons might feel picked on by this book, but I see it as a book about religion, and what it does to people. There are Mormons that are completely nuts, just like the 9/11 moslem bombers.
Krakauer writes this book in a similar style to Into the Wild. He mentions a couple other books about the LDS which I plan on reading.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Well-Researched, Exciting Read
Comment: John Krakauer has written a well-researched, narratively compelling account of the history of the Mormon church, and its influence on the modern-day Mormon Fundamentalists. The focus of the book is on the Fundamentalists, not the mainstream church.
Contrary to what other Amazon reviewers here have tried to suggest, Krakauer's book relies on a wide range of highly credible sources--both previous histories and primary source material. True, he does use sources that have over the years been venomously denounced by the Mormon church--such as Fawn Brodie's famous biography of Joseph Smith, and D. Michael Quinn's (who was excommunicated for publishing unsanitized critiques of the church) work--but he also uses Mormon sources as well.
I don't see how any reasonable person can in good conscience give this a one-star review. It simply is not a one-star book. It is well-written, with a compelling and credibly argued thesis. I suspect the one-star tirades are mostly written by Mormons unhappy with what this book brings to light about the church's past, and the peculiar practices and predilections of its prophets, especially Joseph Smith (whose revelation regarding the holiness of polygamy seems to have been preceded by adulterous affairs with multiple females, including at least one young teenage girl). Krakauer is, after all, a widely-read author, and not one of the bible-thumping anti-Mormon whackjobs who publish crazy tracts against the church. This information will reach lots of people.
When the book came out, Mormons were outraged, and the church issued an official refutation of the book, written by Robert Turley. In the paperback edition of this book, Krakauer includes Turley's 5-page argument, and responds to it. Elder Turley points out some minor factual errors (which Krakauer readily admits and corrects) that are not germane to the book's central argument, and uses them to try to undermine the credibility of the author--unsuccessfully. Most of the most damning evidence Turley just ignores.
Krakauer responds to Turley's accusations carefully, revealing Turley's own less-than-complete (and less-than-honest) appraisal of source material, and documenting the Mormon church's long history of suppressing unsavory details about its past. (For instance, the church still denies any involvement in the Mountain Meadows Massacre--although through some strange logic it admits that Mormons were culpable.)
Mormon readers seem to take particular offense at the book's attention to the massacre, and to its exploring the likelihood of Brigham Young's complicity. The evidence against Young is circumstantial, but there is evidence against him. At the very least, he deliberately incited hatred against "Gentiles" in the months leading up to the massacre that contributed to the blood lust of the killers. Turley doesn't address this at all. Nor does he mention the church's (now-renounced) tenet of Blood Atonement, the belief that some offenses against the church were so great they could not be forgiven without the sinner's blood being spilled--and there were those in the church happy to spill that blood.
Krakauer's book details all this and more. There is not much new history here, although he did do much of his own research. Krakauer doesn't whitewash the church, but in reading this book you can see that he admires the early Mormons--regardless of their faults--and sympathizes with them. He details the prolonged and brutal persecution they endured before moving to Utah.
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Editorial Reviews:
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In 1984, Ron and Dan Lafferty murdered the wife and infant daughter of their younger brother Allen. The crimes were noteworthy not merely for their brutality but for the brothers' claim that they were acting on direct orders from God. In Under the Banner of Heaven, Jon Krakauer tells the story of the killers and their crime but also explores the shadowy world of Mormon fundamentalism from which the two emerged. The Mormon Church was founded, in part, on the idea that true believers could speak directly with God. But while the mainstream church attempted to be more palatable to the general public by rejecting the controversial tenet of polygamy, fundamentalist splinter groups saw this as apostasy and took to the hills to live what they believed to be a righteous life. When their beliefs are challenged or their patriarchal, cult-like order defied, these still-active groups, according to Krakauer, are capable of fighting back with tremendous violence. While Krakauer's research into the history of the church is admirably extensive, the real power of the book comes from present-day information, notably jailhouse interviews with Dan Lafferty. Far from being the brooding maniac one might expect, Lafferty is chillingly coherent, still insisting that his motive was merely to obey God's command. Krakauer's accounts of the actual murders are graphic and disturbing, but such detail makes the brothers' claim of divine instruction all the more horrifying. In an age where Westerners have trouble comprehending what drives Islamic fundamentalists to kill, Jon Krakauer advises us to look within America's own borders. --John Moe
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