Mormonism's Jon Krakauer Problem

Jon Krakauer got lucky. When Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith first went on sale in the summer of 2003, Krakauer hoped that the many sins of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) he set out to expose would not go unpunished forever. And he certainly believed that his own bookâ??framed as muckraking of faith gone badâ??would help bring this day of reckoning forward. Yet Krakauer couldnâ??t have imagined the FLDS Church would soon become headline news for much of the next decade. In 2004, child sexual molestation charges against the FLDS Churchâ??s reclusive prophet Warren Jeffs made him one of the most notorious men in America. Krakauer also could not have foreseen that Jeffsâ?? subsequent trials and police raids of FLDS communities in Utah and Texas would overlap with Mitt Romneyâ??s two presidential campaigns, not to mention with the hit Broadway musical, The Book of Mormon. The fact that the â??Mormon fundamentalist momentâ? of the aughts intersected with the latest â??Mormon momentâ? in American history helped make Under the Banner of Heaven the bestselling book on Mormon history in recent memory.