Stephanie Griswold is a PhD student in History and Religious Studies at Claremont Graduate University and the research assistant for the Howard W. Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies. Her research focuses on new religious movements in the Americas, including the Fundamentalist Mormonism in the southwestern United States and indigenous and mestizo communities in the Mormon Colonies.

With the continued popularity of Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith (UBH), Mormonism’s vast range of expressions brings into question an author’s responsibility to nuance and accuracy. Being a journalist and not a historian nor a religion scholar, Jon Krakauer set out to write a story about gruesome killings to understand “Lafferty and his ilk,” but what does he mean by Lafferty’s ilk? (xxiii) Among many other things, Ron and Dan Lafferty were brothers, excommunicated mainstream Latter-Day Saints, husbands, fathers, Utahns, co-conspirators, etc. Krakauer’s focus is on the Laffertys’ identities as “Fundamentalist Mormons.” In UBH, the many expressions of Joseph’s Restoration become conflated, at least apparently for Krakauer.[i] There are many valid criticisms of UBH. In this essay, I address the problem of painting all Mormons with the same brush.

Mormonism was born out of the religious revivals in the Burned-Over District of New York during the Second Great Awakening. Today, most groups that trace their religious heritage to Joseph Smith “believe in the same holy texts and the same sacred history,” as Krakauer asserts. However, his preceding statement is misleading, insisting that “Mormon Fundamentalists” are “FLDS” (5). Though many Fundamentalist Mormons have shared Fundamentalist Mormon leaders in their lines of succession, there have been several succession crises that mark the groups as discrete. While all FLDS are Fundamentalist Mormons, not all Fundamentalist Mormons are or have ever been members of or even loosely associated with the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. With the sprinkling in of the religious slur “polyg,” there are several parts of the book where groups are conflated and then later made somewhat discrete without any clarification.[ii] (5) Considering the derogatory nature of his use of polyg, Krakauer shows his distain for religion, in this case all forms of Mormonism, and turns the lack of nuance between the many Mormon groups he mentions more pointed, rather than a simple misunderstanding of Mormonism’s complexities. Krakauer does little to explain how these many groups with a shared religious lineage are as different as they are similar, nor does it seem he cares to make these distinctions.

Religious schisms can be complicated for people to understand. The origins of the Fundamentalist Mormon movement typically trace their religious lineage back to supposed “lost” revelations, particularly one from 1886, when some Fundamentalist Mormons believe that LDS Church prophet, John Taylor, had a revelation and subsequent eight-hour meeting setting apart a small group of men to continue practicing polygamy on earth, as the church at that time was facing significant anti-polygamy legislation from the federal US government.[iii] Still, some Fundamentalist Mormons have claimed to receive divine visitations from Jesus, Joseph Smith, Jr., and other (dead) influential Mormon patriarchs and angels, granting them the keys of authority to begin a new dispensation. One example is James Dee Harmston, founder of the True and Living Church of Jesus Christ of the Saints of the Last Days, who reported being visited by scriptural patriarchs, such as Moses, Enoch, Abraham, and Noah, to call him to form a new dispensation.[iv] However, these groups start their branch of Joseph’s restoration, one thing tends to be the catalyst: the current LDS Church, as newly minted prophets see it, has gone into complete apostasy and the Lord had appointed them to set His house in order. 

While new dispensations can form at any time and schisms happen often, particularly when a prophet dies, there is no guarantee that any connection will remain between the groups, regardless of religious or familial connections. Even though the Laffertys spent time in British Columbia, it does not mean that they were ever part of The Priesthood Work, the FLDS, or the Blackmore group, regardless of interactions or business dealings with individuals with the same last name. To presume that interactions, religious, business, or otherwise, means that Blackmores believed as the Laffertys did is reductive at best. 

The current leader the Blackmore group, Winston Blackmore ,  was once FLDS bishop of their community in Bountiful, British Columbia, Canada. Before he, his family, and some like-minded coreligionists separated from Warren Jeffs’s group, Blackmore recalls the escalation in punishment after Rulon Jeffs’ health began to wane. A young woman, Vanessa, arrived in Bountiful to flee an undesired marriage. She sought out Blackmore’s help to both escape the marriage and be rebaptized after Warren Jeffs tried to bring her back from Canada to comply with the arranged marriage or be blood atoned. Jeffs claimed that these were his father’s orders, the ailing prophet, and informed Blackmore nothing else could be done to save her soul but to spill her blood. Blackmore refused and called both the FBI and Canadian law enforcement to keep Vanessa safe.[v] While blood atonement can be found in the texts of many variants of Mormonism, it is not often practiced in Fundamentalist Mormon groups, with the exceptions of the Laffertys and the leader of the Church of the First Born of the Lamb of God, Ervil LeBaron.

Krakauer contends, on a few occasions, that the mainline LDS Church recoils at any conflation between them and any Fundamentalist Mormon group. Several LDS leaders have asserted that there are no “Fundamentalist” Latter-Day Saints.[vi] Of course, it is not possible for an institution of any size, even as big as the LDS Church, to erase a sect that claims a shared spiritual heritage. However, conflating FLDS and all Fundamentalists does something akin to this erasure. Like Latter-day Saints, many Fundamentalist and independent Mormon groups reject any association with the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), once headquartered in Short Creek. The FLDS name did not become a legal entity until 1991 with some unofficial use of the name found only a few years before its official incorporation.[vii]

There have been certain instances, in the early movement and now, when distinct Fundamentalist Mormon groups interact and, in the past, they have also intermarried. Reasons have varied as to why groups have mingled in the past. At times it is to merge groups or form community with those who share beliefs and heritage to form fellowship. Recently groups have worked together to support legislation like the polygamy decriminalization bill that passed the Utah State Legislature in early 2020.[viii] This is the breadth of “Lafferty’s ilk.” A significant number of similarly minded groups, with complicated structures and pasts and members that live in a sometimes-isolated socio-economic structure, unique to their particular expression of Fundamentalist Mormonism. 

While we can find violence and abuse among many of these groups, we also find that members are most often the victims of their own leaders and blood atonement, as in the Lafferty case, has not been the main or even a common source of violence among Fundamentalist Mormons, even among those groups or individuals who crossed paths with Dan and Ron Lafferty. 

Conflating and collapsing groups under the same name and banner, as it were, adds to the sensational and sideshow nature of his portrayal of Fundamentalist Mormons, generally, and causes both further isolation and misunderstanding of the structure in which these people live. In perpetuating the spectacle, groups become more isolated, allowing for violence to continue within groups as lay members distrust outsiders and leaders do not fear consequences from society. When outsiders are desensitized to their underinformed opinions of Fundamentalist Mormons it also leads to types of violence, like yelling plig out the window of their cars as prairie dress-clad women walk toward a store. Mistreatment from the outside leads to that continued and heightening isolation which allows for a range of violent intent to have violent ends. One hopes would be clarified in a TV version of the book.

[i] For further description of the many Mormon sects see Steven L. Shields, Divergent Paths of the Restoration: A History of the Latter Day Saint Movement (Los Angeles: Restoration Research, 1990).

[ii] For further description of the many Mormon sects see Steven L. Shields, Divergent Paths of the Restoration: A History of the Latter Day Saint Movement (Los Angeles: Restoration Research, 1990).

[iii] John Taylor, “1886 Revelation,” Truth Magazine 4, no. 84 (October 1838).

[iv] Sanjiv Bhattacharya, Secrets and Wives: The Hidden World of Mormon Polygamy (Berkeley: Soft Skull Press/Counterpoint, 2011), 261.

[v] Winston Blackmore, “Roots of the Mormon Family Tree,” presentation at the 2016 Sunstone Summer Symposium: Many Mormonisms, Salt Lake City, Utah, July 27-30, 2016. The recording of this presentation can be found HERE with the story of Vanessa starting at 35:16 and ending at 38:16 of that recording. Blackmore separated from the group headquartered in Short Creek around the time on Rulon Jeffs’s death in the fall of 2002, when Warren Jeffs was moving to take over the group.

[vi] Ken Driggs, “‘This Will Someday Be the Head and Not the Tail of the Church’: A History of the Mormon Fundamentalists at Short Creek,” Journal of Church and State 43, no 1 (2001): 49-80.

[vii] Benjamin G. Bistline, The Polygamists: A History of Colorado City, Arizona (Scottsdale, AZ: Agreka,

2004), 329; Frederick M. Jessop, “Deposition of Fred Jessop transcript,” deposed by “Mr. Swinton,” June 13, 1989, 36; Independent Fundamentalist Mormons usually consist of small family groups who maintain Fundamentalist Mormon beliefs while not belonging to any particular group or following a particular leader; While Short Creek was largely settled by polygamous families in the 1920s and 1930s, not all members of the Priesthood Work, nor the FLDS homesteaded Short Creek and some of the early settlers were not polygamists at all.

[viii] Andrea Smardon, “Polygamy is about the be decriminalized in Utah. Is it good news for women?” The Guardian, March 5, 2020. This fraternization is not usually a power play, though, I have witnessed it at places like Sunstone Symposia, where many Fundamentalist Mormons have felt safe talking about their faith and lifestyle, and famous (sometimes infamous men) begin engaging other leaders or lay members of other groups, especially in times of crisis.