Recent reads : Under the Banner of Heaven

Jon Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven will no doubt be raptly appreciated by those who are already inclined to think the worst of religious organizations and people, and ignored by those who do not wish to entertain skeptical thoughts about them. In other words, it won't reach the people who need to read it the most, and will reinforce the prejudices of those who already fail to understand any variety of religious thinking.

Most obviously, the book is about the Lafferty brothers, a clan of polygamist fundamentalist Mormons who claimed to receive direct revelation from God, and -- most importantly for purposes of the narrative -- took it upon themselves to murder a recalcitrant wife and her infant child when she refused to go along with their ultra-patriarchial group madness. This was, of course, duly justified by a "revelation" scrawled in pencil on a piece of yellow note paper.

Krakauer goes beyond this grisly tale, though, by showing that the phenomenon of extremist religious beliefs based on authoritarian patriarchial ideas is not solely the province of lone kooks, but instead is deeply ingrained, particularly in Mormon history, but also in present-day groups like the ill-fated Branch Davidians and in communities of people living by such beliefs in the present day, most notably the polygamist Mormon communities of Short Creek, Arizona, Bountiful, B.C., and various villages in Mexico. One could also draw parallels to radical Islamist groups, the racist nuts of the so-called "Christian Identity" groups, et cetera, ad infinitum.

To no reasonable person's surprise, disputes in and between such groups, whether they be over power, women, or between spatting family members, quickly turn into feuds between competing "prophets", all brandishing purportedly-infallible "prophecies" supporting their own desires. And, all too frequently, sending their followers out to wreak "divinely sanctioned" mayhem or murder.

Krakauer does a good job of showing how the thought of being a "prophet" or divinely-sanctioned dictator works like an addictive drug on someone, like Ron Lafferty, who's already prone to be self-centered and eager to exert power over others. Whether he really believes that the "revelations" come from God or not is almost irrelevant, because the ability to use them to bludgeon others into doing one's will eventually becomes not only a temptation, but a habit and a psychological crutch. In the end, even a deceiver can end up deceiving himself. The elder Lafferty brother's bizarre courtroom antics, and his lawyer's desperate attempts to save his life by trying to convince a jury that he's insane, provide the only note of comedy in an otherwise grim tale. At one point, Krakauer points out that under certain psychological theories, anyone who believes in the existence of God, or gods, or angels or any other supernatural beings, is automatically considered insane. (These theories were apparently quickly abandoned as legal guides when the decidedly theistic population of Utah heard them discussed in court.)

It's difficult to know what to say in conclusion. On the one hand, any religion which teaches that present-day private "revelation" can supercede or contradict earlier teachings or scriptures leaves the intellectual path wide open for egomaniacs like Lafferty to concoct whatever "revelations" they please. On the other hand, renouncing the validity of all present-day "revelation" sounds uncomfortably like an announcement that God is dead, or at any rate that the religion in question has lost touch with him/her/it/them. Such implied statements don't make for enthusiastic converts.

Teaching that present-day revelations can be valid insofar as they are consistent with prior scriptures seems like the obvious answer. And yet this can simply fossilize prior human errors in the recording or understanding of those same scriptures. It also presupposes a consistent God, which not all religions necessarily assume. I once had an interesting discussion with a Mormon who allowed that she considered it possible that God continued to learn and mature over time, an idea which is anathema to most orthodox Christian churches, and can appear utterly terrifying if one extends it to the logical extreme of a capricious God arbitrarily changing the "rules" of the universe, or of morality, in mid-stream.