Democracy Uprising
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      Democrats Won Power in Several States. Will They…

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      What’s the problem with taking state power?

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      What If America Had Six Political Parties?

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      How movements can maintain their radical vision while winning…

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      What Happens After Movement-Backed Politicians Take Office

      Book Reviews

      The Pan American

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      The Godfather of Microcredit

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      Four Ways of Looking at an Aztec Eagle

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      The Ascent of Niall Ferguson

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      No Better Place

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      Environment

      Why Wendell Matters

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      The Gulf at the Gas Station

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      The Winter of the Climate Denier

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      Climate of Change: An “Inside-Outside” Strategy Against Global…

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      Provoking an American Climate Crisis

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      The Real “Farmer” Story: So God Made High-Fructose…

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      Is Rambo Still A Republican?

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      On the Price is Right

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      The Last Porto Alegre

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      Six Essays About War and About Peace

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      Republicans Among Us

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      New York Says “No”

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      The Sideshow Rebels

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      Meet the Bailout’s New Slush Fund for Corporate…

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      The Seattle Protests Showed That Another World Is…

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      The Amazon Effect: Sweat, Surveillance, Exploitation

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      The Godfather of Microcredit

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      Capitalism as Catastrophe

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      Immigration Economics: An Interview with Professor Giovanni Peri

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      The World Is Not Flat

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      When Undocumented Activists Infiltrated ICE

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      When Sanctuary is Resistance

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      The Massive Immigrants Rights Protests of 2006 Are…

      Labor

      Democrats Won Power in Several States. Will They…

      Labor

      The Case for a Social Distancing Wage

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      The Seattle Protests Showed That Another World Is…

      Labor

      Reviving the General Strike

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      Jeff Bezos Has Enough! It’s Time for a…

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      There’s Still Power in a Strike

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      The Amazon Effect: Sweat, Surveillance, Exploitation

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      There’s More Than One Way to Strike the…

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      How movements can maintain their radical vision while winning…

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      Kissinger Is Not Our Friend

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      Changing the ‘world as it is’ into the…

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      What’s the problem with taking state power?

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      What If America Had Six Political Parties?

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      Movements are vying for political power — is…

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      Democrats Won Power in Several States. Will They…

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      What’s the problem with taking state power?

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      Is Los Angeles Creating a Model for Fighting…

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      What If America Had Six Political Parties?

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      Movements are vying for political power — is…

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      How movements can maintain their radical vision while winning…

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      What Happens After Movement-Backed Politicians Take Office

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      Should we disrupt the Democratic Party or try…

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      Does It Make Sense to Protest a President…

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      Lessons from the Pledge of Resistance

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      Is Rambo Still A Republican?

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      War: The Wrong Jobs Program

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      The Ascent of Niall Ferguson

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      Those Who Don’t Count

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      Six Essays About War and About Peace

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      The Dangerous Dignity of War

  • Translations
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      Translations

      Jordlösa kombinerar radikala visioner med praktiska reformer (Swedish)

      Español

      Hacer Que Nuestras Demandas Sean Tanto Orácticas Como…

      Italiano

      C’è più di un modo per colpire il…

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      As reformas não reformistas de André Gorz mostram…

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      Deutsch

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      Richieste dei movimenti: sia pratiche che visionarie

      Chinese

      泛美洲人 爱德华多·加莱亚诺的世界 (Chinese)

      Chinese

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      Deutsch

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      Mikrokredite: Die Entlassung eines Nobelpreisträgers

      Deutsch

      CAFTA – am besten stillschweigend beerdigen

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      Bush in Mexiko

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      Das globale Duell in Evian

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      Die Rückkehr des Daniel Ortega

      Español

      Hacer Que Nuestras Demandas Sean Tanto Orácticas Como…

      Español

      Las reformas no reformistas de André Gorz

      Español

      ¿Adoptará el nuevo papa la teología de la…

      Español

      Wall Street quiere que les estemos agradecidos

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      Si Las Monjas Se Fueran a una Huelga,…

      Español

      ALEC retrocede; a la derecha le da un…

      Español

      ¿ALEC disgustado ante la pérdida de patrocinadores? Se…

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      Français

      La révolution non-violente a-t-elle échoué en Egypte?

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      Le pari risqué du populisme au Pérou

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      Hong Kong Phooey

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      Bush Nuit Même Aux Compagnies U.S.

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      Le dynamisme du mouvement pour la paix

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      C’è più di un modo per colpire il…

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      Richieste dei movimenti: sia pratiche che visionarie

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      La strategia di Gandhi per il successo –…

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      Come il movimento Occupiamo Wall Street si sta…

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      ガンジーはどのように勝利したのか? (Japanese)

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Democracy Uprising

  • About
    • About Mark Engler
    • About Democracy Uprising
  • Books
    • This Is An Uprising
    • How To Rule the World
  • Topics
    • All Book Reviews Environment Essays / First Person Global Economy Immigration Labor Latin America Social Movements Religion U.S. Politics / Elections War / Militarism
      Latest Articles

      Democrats Won Power in Several States. Will They…

      Social Movements

      Changing the ‘world as it is’ into the…

      Social Movements

      What’s the problem with taking state power?

      Latest Articles

      Is Los Angeles Creating a Model for Fighting…

      Social Movements

      What If America Had Six Political Parties?

      Social Movements

      Movements are vying for political power — is…

      2021-2023

      How movements can maintain their radical vision while winning…

      Social Movements

      What Happens After Movement-Backed Politicians Take Office

      Book Reviews

      The Pan American

      Book Reviews

      The Godfather of Microcredit

      Book Reviews

      Capitalism as Catastrophe

      Book Reviews

      Four Ways of Looking at an Aztec Eagle

      Book Reviews

      The Ascent of Niall Ferguson

      Book Reviews

      Ordinary Outrages

      Book Reviews

      No Better Place

      Book Reviews

      In God’s Country

      Environment

      Why Wendell Matters

      Environment

      The Gulf at the Gas Station

      Environment

      Climate Disobedience

      Environment

      Farming the Everglades

      Environment

      The Winter of the Climate Denier

      Environment

      Climate of Change: An “Inside-Outside” Strategy Against Global…

      Environment

      Provoking an American Climate Crisis

      Environment

      The Real “Farmer” Story: So God Made High-Fructose…

      Essays / First Person

      Is Rambo Still A Republican?

      Essays / First Person

      On the Price is Right

      Essays / First Person

      The Last Porto Alegre

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      Six Essays About War and About Peace

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      Republicans Among Us

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      New York Says “No”

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      The Sideshow Rebels

      Essays / First Person

      A Week in New York

      Global Economy

      Meet the Bailout’s New Slush Fund for Corporate…

      Global Economy

      The Seattle Protests Showed That Another World Is…

      Global Economy

      Jeff Bezos Has Enough! It’s Time for a…

      Global Economy

      The Amazon Effect: Sweat, Surveillance, Exploitation

      Global Economy

      The Godfather of Microcredit

      Global Economy

      Capitalism as Catastrophe

      Global Economy

      Immigration Economics: An Interview with Professor Giovanni Peri

      Global Economy

      The World Is Not Flat

      Immigration

      When Undocumented Activists Infiltrated ICE

      Immigration

      The Children of Intervention

      Immigration

      Immigration Economics: An Interview with Professor Giovanni Peri

      Immigration

      Science Fiction From Below

      Immigration

      Four Ways of Looking at an Aztec Eagle

      Immigration

      Treated Like a Criminal

      Immigration

      When Sanctuary is Resistance

      Immigration

      The Massive Immigrants Rights Protests of 2006 Are…

      Labor

      Democrats Won Power in Several States. Will They…

      Labor

      The Case for a Social Distancing Wage

      Labor

      The Seattle Protests Showed That Another World Is…

      Labor

      Reviving the General Strike

      Labor

      Jeff Bezos Has Enough! It’s Time for a…

      Labor

      There’s Still Power in a Strike

      Labor

      The Amazon Effect: Sweat, Surveillance, Exploitation

      Labor

      There’s More Than One Way to Strike the…

      Latin America

      How movements can maintain their radical vision while winning…

      Latin America

      The Pan American

      Latin America

      Lessons from the Pledge of Resistance

      Latin America

      The Children of Intervention

      Latin America

      Against Shithole Nationalism

      Latin America

      The Last Porto Alegre

      Latin America

      Kissinger Is Not Our Friend

      Latin America

      Even If You Have Nothing to Hide

      Social Movements

      Changing the ‘world as it is’ into the…

      Social Movements

      What’s the problem with taking state power?

      Social Movements

      Is Los Angeles Creating a Model for Fighting…

      Social Movements

      What If America Had Six Political Parties?

      Social Movements

      Movements are vying for political power — is…

      Social Movements

      How movements can maintain their radical vision while winning…

      Social Movements

      What Happens After Movement-Backed Politicians Take Office

      Social Movements

      Should we disrupt the Democratic Party or try…

      Religion

      In God’s Country

      Religion

      Reverend Billy’s Holiday Shopocalypse

      Religion

      Toward the “Rights of the Poor”

      Religion

      The Pope and the Poor

      Religion

      Will the Next Pope Embrace Liberation Theology?

      Religion

      Remembering Romero

      Religion

      John Paul II’s Economic Ethics

      Religion

      Against the God of Free Trade

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      Democrats Won Power in Several States. Will They…

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      What’s the problem with taking state power?

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      Is Los Angeles Creating a Model for Fighting…

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      What If America Had Six Political Parties?

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      Movements are vying for political power — is…

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      How movements can maintain their radical vision while winning…

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      What Happens After Movement-Backed Politicians Take Office

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      Should we disrupt the Democratic Party or try…

      War / Militarism

      Does It Make Sense to Protest a President…

      War / Militarism

      Lessons from the Pledge of Resistance

      War / Militarism

      Is Rambo Still A Republican?

      War / Militarism

      War: The Wrong Jobs Program

      War / Militarism

      The Ascent of Niall Ferguson

      War / Militarism

      Those Who Don’t Count

      War / Militarism

      Six Essays About War and About Peace

      War / Militarism

      The Dangerous Dignity of War

  • Translations
    • All Chinese Deutsch Español Français Italiano Japanese Português Arabic Thai
      Translations

      Jordlösa kombinerar radikala visioner med praktiska reformer (Swedish)

      Español

      Hacer Que Nuestras Demandas Sean Tanto Orácticas Como…

      Italiano

      C’è più di un modo per colpire il…

      Português

      As reformas não reformistas de André Gorz mostram…

      Español

      Las reformas no reformistas de André Gorz

      Deutsch

      Die nicht-reformistischen Reformen von André Gorz

      Italiano

      Richieste dei movimenti: sia pratiche che visionarie

      Chinese

      泛美洲人 爱德华多·加莱亚诺的世界 (Chinese)

      Chinese

      泛美洲人 爱德华多·加莱亚诺的世界 (Chinese)

      Chinese

      Why Wendell Matters (in Chinese)

      Chinese

      Globalization’s Watchdogs (in Chinese)

      Deutsch

      Die nicht-reformistischen Reformen von André Gorz

      Deutsch

      Als Martin Luther King seine Feuerwaffen aufgab

      Deutsch

      Mikrokredite: Die Entlassung eines Nobelpreisträgers

      Deutsch

      CAFTA – am besten stillschweigend beerdigen

      Deutsch

      Bush in Mexiko

      Deutsch

      Das globale Duell in Evian

      Deutsch

      Die Rückkehr des Daniel Ortega

      Español

      Hacer Que Nuestras Demandas Sean Tanto Orácticas Como…

      Español

      Las reformas no reformistas de André Gorz

      Español

      ¿Adoptará el nuevo papa la teología de la…

      Español

      Wall Street quiere que les estemos agradecidos

      Español

      Si Las Monjas Se Fueran a una Huelga,…

      Español

      ALEC retrocede; a la derecha le da un…

      Español

      ¿ALEC disgustado ante la pérdida de patrocinadores? Se…

      Español

      La vida en la nación prisión

      Français

      La révolution non-violente a-t-elle échoué en Egypte?

      Français

      Le pari risqué du populisme au Pérou

      Français

      Hong Kong Phooey

      Français

      Bush Nuit Même Aux Compagnies U.S.

      Français

      Le dynamisme du mouvement pour la paix

      Français

      La déroute de l’ALCA dans une Miami en…

      Français

      Ceux qui ne comptent pas

      Français

      La guerre en Irak : une expo des…

      Italiano

      C’è più di un modo per colpire il…

      Italiano

      Richieste dei movimenti: sia pratiche che visionarie

      Italiano

      La strategia di Gandhi per il successo –…

      Italiano

      Le promesse infrante di Obama

      Italiano

      Guantanamo deve sparire

      Italiano

      IL BANK TRANSFER DAY: UN SUCCESSO

      Italiano

      Come il movimento Occupiamo Wall Street si sta…

      Italiano

      Economia tabù

      Japanese

      ガンジーはどのように勝利したのか? (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Truth Versus Superpower (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Bush’s Bad Business Empire (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Revenge of the Combat Cartoonist (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Bush’s Uneasy Mexican Visita (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Mark Twain in Iraq (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Globalization’s “Lost Decade” (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Hawks Say the Damnedest Things (Japanese)

      Português

      As reformas não reformistas de André Gorz mostram…

      Português

      A vida na Nação Prisão

      Português

      Outro pretexto?

      Português

      Imigração tem efeito positivo sobre emprego e salários

      Português

      O império hipotecado

      Arabic

      Abandoning the World Bank (in Arabic)

      Arabic

      The Return of Daniel Ortega (in Arabic)

      Arabic

      Where’s The Jubilee? (in Arabic)

      Arabic

      The Last Porto Alegre (in Arabic)

      Arabic

      Seattle At Five (in Arabic)

      Arabic

      Is Market Access the Answer to Poverty? (in…

      Arabic

      Mexico’s Democratic Transition Still Incomplete (in Arabic)

      Thai

      Progressive Good Tidings of 2007 (in Thai)

      Thai

      2006: A Global Justice Year in Review (In…

      Thai

      WTO: Best Left For Dead? (In Thai)

      Thai

      Is Market Access the Answer to Poverty? (In…

      Thai

      Bush’s Bad Business Empire (In Thai)

      Thai

      The Last Porto Alegre [Thai]

      Thai

      Globalizers, Neocons, or… ? (in Thai)

    • Other Translations
  • Appearances
  • Archive
    • 2021-2023
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Book ReviewsReligionPast FavoritesFrom the Archives2003-2004

In God’s Country

by Mark Engler August 19, 2003
written by Mark Engler August 19, 2003
In God’s Country

A review of Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer.

Published by In These Times.


Early on July 24, 1984, Dan Lafferty, a fundamentalist Mormon living near Provo, Utah, got out of bed, prayed for guidance, and then “felt prompted by the Lord to saw the barrel and stock off a 12-gauge, pump-action shotgun that he had been storing in his mother’s house.” The absurd revelation would be comical if, later that same day, Lafferty and his older brother Ron had not proceeded to murder a 24-year-old woman and her baby daughter.

The victims of this crime were the wife and child of another Lafferty, Allen, the youngest of five brothers. Each of the brothers were converts to a radical sect that had split from the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints over its rejection of religious tenets, most notably polygamy, held dear by the church’s founding fathers, Joseph Smith and Brigham Young.

Ron Lafferty, a self-proclaimed prophet, believed that he could communicate directly with God. When his sister-in-law Brenda refused to submit before the family brothers’ desire to take “plural wives,” Ron received a “removal revelation” indicating that she and her 15-month-old daughter were “children of perdition” standing in the way of God’s work.

In Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith, Jon Krakauer attempts to understand the history and theological principles that produced this “distinctly American brand of religious extremism.” Having grown up around Mormons in Corvallis, Oregon, Krakauer has a personal “desire to grasp the nature of religious belief,” to comprehend the “unfluctuating certainty of faith” that his playmates expressed.

At the same time, the topic of fundamentalism has clear public resonance. During an interview in a maximum-security prison, Krakauer asks Dan Lafferty about what he has in common with the terrorists who destroyed the World Trade Center. “I see the parallel,” the still-unrepentant convict admits. “But the difference between those guys and me is, they were following a false prophet, and I’m not.”

Krakauer structures his book with chapters that alternately tell the story of the Lafferty brothers and recount pivotal moments in the development of early Mormonism. The author finds no shortage of colorful material in either strain and crafts engaging vignettes. But bouncing between “true crime” and Church history can be jarring, sapping the story’s momentum. Yet despite feeling disjointed the book simmers in controversy.

Famous for writing about mountain climbing, Krakauer cannot be described in conventional terms as a political chronicler. Nonetheless, Into Thin Air, his account of a deadly expedition up Mt. Everest that he joined in 1996, showed a mountain covered with discarded oxygen canisters, exploited sherpas, and under-experienced dilettantes willing to pay for their shot at the top. His earlier bestseller, Into the Wild, retraced the steps of a young college graduate whose Tolstoy- and Thoreau-inspired individualism compelled him to reject the norms of workaday society and ultimately led to his death in Alaska’s interior.

While Krakauer’s self-identified attraction to “extremes” has always invited strong reactions, his new book’s choice of subject ensured that it would be his most contentious yet. Upon its publication the Latter-Day Saints issued a stern condemnation challenging Krakauer’s historical scholarship and calling the focus on fundamentalism an unfair smear on their religion. Both Dan and Ron Lafferty were excommunicated by the mainstream Mormons well before their fanaticism grew homicidal, the church can point out. But Krakauer argues that the church’s cultivation of pious obedience, combined with its unwillingness to openly face the darker points of its idiosyncratic past, has fueled fundamentalist fervor.

Since 1890, when the Latter-Day Saints, under heavy pressure from the federal government, disavowed the practice of polygamy, extremist believers have charged the church with abandoning sacred teachings in its desire to be accepted in American society. Although still a tiny minority when compared to the 11 million Mormons worldwide, the tens of thousands who have joined fundamentalist splinter sects have endowed a handful of purported modern-day prophets with extraordinary power over their cloistered communities.

Describing the prohibition on watching television or reading magazines in a prominent polygamist community in Arizona, Krakauer explains that “life in Colorado City under Rulon Jeffs,” the long-ruling patriarch, “bears more than a passing resemblance to life in Kabul under the Taliban. Uncle Rulon’s word carries the weight of law. The mayor and every other city employee answers to him, as do the entire police force and the superintendent of public schools.” Dan and Ron Lafferty are perhaps the most famous criminals to emerge out of such American theocracies, but they are definitely not the only ones.

* * * * *

IT WOULD be too crass an analogy to compare Dan Lafferty’s belief that he “was doing God’s will” with President Bush’s June 24 statement, reported in Israel’s Ha’aretz newspaper, that “God told me to strike at al-Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did.” Nevertheless, it would barely be worth considering religious fundamentalism in the United States without making the trip from Utah to Washington, D.C.

In one of his few mentions of the White House, Krakauer reminds us that, “This, after all, is a country led by a born-again Christian … who 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— … 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.”

Krakauer is not the first to note, in the wake of 9/11, that our country is plenty adept at producing fanatics. Accounting for our Laffertys provides an important means of grasping the malevolence of Osama bin Laden. At the same time, a preoccupation with horrific acts of religiously inspired violence can distract from the more prevalent dangers of religious conservatism. While polygamy earned them scorn and persecution, other extreme views only gained the Mormons an honored place within the Republican Party.

Today, virulent homophobia, determined anti-feminism, and a continuing legacy of racism hardly disqualify prospective public servants. Krakauer recounts in a footnote how the Latter-Day Saints can be credited with single-handedly defeating the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s. And, while official prohibitions on the “dark-skinned” entering the Mormon priesthood were reversed in 1978, the church still shuns miscegenation. With sociologists predicting that there will be some 300 million Mormons worldwide by 2080, the American right’s already prodigious alliance between stalwart capitalists and religious conservatives may well become more fruitful in the decades to come.

Two years before the murders, when he was still an upstanding member of his local Mormon ward, Ron Lafferty was described by his neighbors as “clean, All-American.” It is this respectable, reactionary figure, more than the universally abhorred monster that he would become, that poses the real threat to tolerance in the United States.

* * * * *

FOR THOSE NOT lodged in the most politically conservative quadrants of our society, it brings no small pleasure to see right-wing Mormons on the defensive. How is it, then, that many readers will finish Krakauer’s account feeling sympathetic to the Latter-Day Saints’ claim that the book does not treat them fairly?

It can be fun to scoff at fundamentalist leaders who, after incorrectly predicting that Y2K would bring Armageddon, blame their followers’ insufficient piety for forestalling the end. Likewise, it is easy to marvel at a woman who, through a complicated series of polygamous intermarriages, becomes her own step-grandmother. But taking note of these sensationalistic details tells us little about ordinary Mormon life. Any given religion, and certainly secular society itself, has its share of kooks and fanatics, pedophiles and murderers. In Under the Banner of Heaven the fundamentalist minority becomes a straw dummy for the author’s critical view of faith in general.

Throughout the book, Krakauer depicts religious conviction as essentially irrational and deluded. “Faith is the very antithesis of reason, injudiciousness a crucial component of spiritual devotion,” he writes. And in reviving religion and science as mutually exclusive options, he dredges up a long-stale debate that has lately produced few insights into questions of ethics and meaning. Krakauer’s own religious search would be more compelling had he not ignored the vast swaths of modern theology that have proposed more subtle accommodations between reason and faith.

His distance from the world of belief also hurts Krakauer’s narrative. At least since Orwell, the ability to implicate one’s self in the subject at hand, and to sustain a tone of moderate self-impugning, has served as a key mark of the essayist’s credibility. Krakauer knows this. Intense personal investment—be it his close identification with the wayward young idealist in Into the Wild or his guilt over his inability to save others on his Everest expedition from dying of exposure—is what made his previous books succeed. Holding religion at arm’s length, Under the Banner of Heaven becomes voyeuristic. It is hard to blame the Mormons for objecting.

In a world situation aptly described as a “clash of fundamentalisms,” many have recoiled at siding with either the Taliban’s fanaticism or Washington’s. It is equally despairing to pick between self-righteous absolutism and the abandonment of faith that Krakauer positions as the alternative. In religion as in politics, we do well to accept neither.

Mark Engler

Mark Engler is a writer based in Philadelphia and an editorial board member at Dissent magazine. His latest book, written with Paul Engler, is entitled This Is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century.

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Mark Engler is a writer based in Philadelphia and an editorial board member at Dissent magazine. His latest book, written with Paul Engler, is entitled This Is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century (Nation Books). Mark’s full bio is available here.

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