Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon
Krakauer, 2003, Excerpts
Mormons and Mormon Fundamentalists are each convinced that
God regards them, and them alone, as his favored children. Both believe that
Joseph Smith, who founded Mormonism in 1830, played a vital role in God’s plan
for mankind. Mormon Fundamentalists passionately believe that Saints have a
divine obligation to take multiple wives. Joseph Smith married at least
thirty-three women, and probably as many as forty-eight.
Polygamy was, in fact, one of the most sacred credos of
Joseph’s church – a tenet important enough to be canonized for the ages as
Section 132 of The Doctrine and Covenants, one of Mormonism’s primary
scriptural texts. Mormons esteem three books of scripture above all others: The
Book of Mormon, The Doctrine and Covenants, and The Pearl of Great Price.
But even as LDS leaders publicly claimed, in 1890, to have
relinquished the practice, they quietly dispatched bands of Mormons to
establish polygamous colonies in Mexico and Canada, and some of the
highest-ranking LDS authorities secretly continued to take multiple wives and
perform plural marriages well into the twentieth century. Eventually they
adopted a more pragmatic approach to American politics, emphatically rejected
the practice, and actually began urging government agencies to prosecute
polygamists. Having jettisoned polygamy, Mormons gradually ceased to be
regarded as a crackpot sect. The LDS Church acquired the trappings of a
conventional faith so successfully that it is now widely regarded to be the quintessential
American religion.
Mormon Fundamentalists, however, believe that acceptance
into the American mainstream came at way too high a price. They contend that
the Mormon leaders made an unforgivable compromise by capitulating to the U.S.
government on polygamy over a century ago.
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