Under The Banner of Heaven

by Jon Krakauer

[ibeforem]

I read this book as a matter of curiosity. It was actually recommended to us by my husband's brother, who is married to an ex-Mormon. And really, I’ve learned more about Mormonism in the last 5 years that I’ve known my whole live. And not just from my sister-in-law — my sister also married a Mormon. So, I feel like I came into the book with a little bit of information.

When my husband read the book, he thought it was about how Mormonism as a whole is a bad faith. That wasn’t the impression I got from it. The impression I got was that Krakauer was pointing out the bad in fundamentalism. And fundamentalism is bad in *any* religion. The Mormons are certainly not the first faithful to spill blood in the name of their god. I was a little disappointed that the book didn’t really address today’s mainstream Mormonism at all, which is an entirely different animal. I felt he was a little disengenous by leaving that out, because most people are going to read the book and come out with the equation “Mormons = EVIL!!”, which really is not true. Not unless “Catholics = EVIL!!” because the Crusades happened x number of years ago, or “Protestents = EVIL!!” because they burned a bunch of women they thought were witches x number of years ago.