I was not a big fan of Krakauer's breakthrough book
Into Thin Air. I had just finished reading
The Perfect Storm (before it got Clooney-ized) and had a hard time feeling sorry for the mountaineers stuck on Everest. The fishermen of the
Andrea Gail were trying to put food on the table in an established profession and met up with a one in a million freak storm that claimed their lives. It was a compelling and moving story. The mountaineers meanwhile were ill-equipped adventurers who thought that they could pay their way onto the ultimate E-ticket ride. As I read through
Into Thin Air, I kept thinking "you didn't have to be there, you morons."
Krakauer's latest book, however, is a different story altogether. In
Under the Banner of Heaven, he examines the origins and offshoots of the Mormon faith. For those not in the know, the Mormons (actually the Latter Day Saints Church) was established by 24 year old Joseph Smith in upstate NY in 1830. He had been receiving revelations from the angel Moroni since he was 17, and the angel had given to him golden plates that contained the sacred texts of the Church.
Krakauer's book is not, as one might expect, an attempt to defraud the LDS church and to reveal it's mythology as nonsense. His beef is not with Mormonism per se, and he makes this quite clear (emphasis mine).
All religious belief is a function of nonrational faith. And faith, by its very definition, tends to be impervious to intellectual argument or academic criticism. Polls routinely indicate, moreover, that nine out of ten Americans believe in God - most of us subscribe to one brand of religion or another. Those who would assail The Book of Mormon should bear in mind that its veracity is no more dubious than the veracity of the Bible, say, or the Qur'an, or the sacred texts of most other religions. The latter texts simply enjoy the considerable advantage of having made their public debut in the shadowy recesses of the ancient past, and are thus much harder to refute.
Instead, Krakauer wants to put a spotlight on the experience of religious mysticism in general and fundamentalism in particular. What exactly is it about being a fundamentalist (of any stripe) that is so attractive? Why would people give up rationality in favor of belief in a system that seems easy to refute? And why would they go to incredible extremes in doing so?
Extremes that might include theft, murder, and terrorism. The kind of belief system that allows a person to do great evil in the name of great good and still be able to sleep at night. Is there really such a difference between those who would kill in the name of Jesus (his section on the Fancher party massacre is particularly chilling - all the more so for the date it occured on: September 11) and those who would kill in the name of Allah, of Soviet communism, of the Nazi party? Zealous belief leads to bold action.
The zealot may be outwardly motivated by the anticipation of a great reward at the other end - wealth, fame, eternal salvation - but the real recompense is probably the obsession itself. This is no less true for the religious fanatic than for the fanatical pianist or fanatical mountain climber. As a result of his (or her) infatuation, existence overflows with purpose. Ambiguity vanishes from the fanatic's worldview; a narcissistic sense of self-assurance displaces all doubt. A delicious rage quickens his pulse, fueled by the sins and shortcomings of lesser mortals, who are soiling the world wherever he looks. His perspective narrows until the last remnants of proportion are shed from his life. Through immoderation, he experiences something akin to rapture.
Indeed, this quote from his introduction is the crux of his argument - that the acceptance of a fundamentalist viewpoint allows the individual to abrogate his own sense of responsibility and participation in the greater society of all human beings. If one truly believes that God/Allah/Zeus is speaking directly to him, then man made laws and customs are only inconveniences at best - and obstructions to God's holy purpose at worst.
Krakauer examines this in more depth in the story of the 1984 killing of Brenda Lafferty and her 15 month old baby at the hands of her husband's brothers. The killers - Ron & Dan Lafferty - insist to this day that they were given instructions by God himself to carry out these killings. Krakauer traces the evolution of the Lafferty brothers' fundamentalist beliefs - which included polygamy and the avoidance of all ties to the state such as a drivers license or paying taxes - from their days as upstanding members of the mainstream LDS church to their arrest in the buffet line at the Circus-Circus casino. Krakauer also touches on the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping (by another Mormon fundamentalist who saw himself as a new prophet) and interviews numerous individuals in and out of the church.
The book is an excellent and informative read. It is an eye-opening dissertation of how zealous faith can lead to loss of responsibility and justification of cruelty. Krakuer uses fundamentalist Mormonism as the vehicle to make his points, but it might as well be Christianity, Islam, or even blind political allegiance. It would seem the real culprit in history might be the concept of absolute certainty in one's beliefs.
Maybe the greatest gift God ever gave us was the ability to doubt.