Under the Banner of Heaven

I finally finished the Jon Krakauer book "Under the Banner of Heaven". It is loosely about the story of a murder in Utah committed by Ron and Dan Lafferty that was divinely inspired. However, in the process of looking at this "inspiration", it digs into firstly the culture of fundamentalist mormons and then expands as a general history of the mormon faith in general. It is an interesting story and worth a read, however, much of it is kind of "heavy going" as a lot of names and places are thrown around. I would have done better to devote more time to it per sitting...but often this is difficult with two small kids! :-)

The most interesting discussion in the book for me was around the discussion of whether Ron Lafferty, who believed (in short) that God told him to commit these murders, was insane. The ultimate answer was that he was not but the potential implications of an insanity verdict were quite large. The follow on from such a decision would be to label anyone who believes they communicate with God as insane (prayer?) ... including the current president, many world leaders and a huge chunk of the population. In a world, and especially a country where having a personal connection with God is considered a virtue, to label someone insane for acting on that (perceived) connection would have been interesting to say the least.

It was strange timing in some ways as I was reading about the fundamentalists around the same time of the recent raid on the fundamentalist compound in Texas. This is the same sect that the book looks at in detail. Many of their poligamist practices are nothing more than child abuse, rape and/or incest - completely offensive in all respects.

The early history of the mormons is also quite interesting - I had no idea there was that much bloodshed and persecution over those times. I do challenge anyone who has not been brought up in that faith to listen to the story they believe and maintain a straight face however...quite an interesting tale.

Certainly read this book and be amazed at just what goes on in some of these communities.