God

In Under the Banner of Heaven, God is less a directly depicted character than the supreme authority through whom religious teachings and commands are justified. The book follows that authority across very different settings: Joseph Smith’s doctrinal revelations, the strict order imposed in Colorado City, and Ron Lafferty’s claims to receive messages directing action against other people. Its central distinction is between God as the object of sincere belief and the human beings who claim to interpret or transmit God’s will. The consequences of those claims depend on who is accepted as a prophet, which revelations a community validates, and whether doubt is allowed to interrupt obedience.

Divine Authority and Religious Teaching

In the account of Joseph Smith’s teachings in Nauvoo, revelation attributed to God reshapes the boundaries of religious life. Joseph introduced proxy baptism for the dead, allowing living members to be baptized on behalf of deceased ancestors, and developed temple endowment ceremonies. He also taught that God had once been a man and that men could become gods. These doctrines present divine authority as a source not only of commandments but of an expansive account of salvation, human potential, and the relationship between the living and the dead.

Plural marriage occupies a particularly fraught place in this history. The Peace Maker argues that plural marriage regulated by divine law could not produce crime, and urges readers to restore that law. Joseph Smith’s name appeared on the book’s title page as printer, its arguments reflected some of his teachings, and its closing discussion deemphasized the importance of identifying its author. Dan Lafferty became convinced through study and prayer that Joseph had written it, though he acknowledged uncertainty. That belief made the book’s defense of plural marriage especially persuasive to him, and he applied its strictures to his household. The episode shows how an uncertain attribution could acquire religious force when read as an extension of prophetic authority.

Prophetic Authority and Community Life

In the United Effort Plan community around Colorado City, the right to interpret God’s will is concentrated in the prophet and priesthood. Residents are taught that only prophets receive revelations governing the faithful, while questioning religious authority is treated as subversive. The account describes this principle as present in both the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and fundamentalist communities, but says that the latter take obedience and control further. Women’s roles are correspondingly restricted: they are expected to serve husbands, bear children, and raise them within the faith.

God’s authority also enters everyday discipline through warnings delivered by leaders. Television, magazines, and newspapers are forbidden in Colorado City. According to DeLoy Bateman, when Rulon Jeffs preached about television, he claimed to know which residents owned satellite dishes and warned that they were endangering their eternal souls. Dishes were then discarded, although private viewing gradually resumed before a later crackdown. The pattern makes divine judgment part of a cycle of prohibition, concealment, public warning, and renewed compliance.

The community’s beliefs extend beyond personal conduct. Its members are described as believing that the earth is seven thousand years old and that the moon landing was an elaborate government deception. Government assistance, too, can be placed within a religious account of providence: Rulon Jeffs explained such aid as a way for the Lord to provide for a chosen people through a wicked government. At the same time, the United Effort Plan restricts contact with outsiders, including relatives who have left the religion. The account thus shows belief operating alongside rules that limit access to outside information and relationships.

Apostasy, Family, and the Cost of Leaving

The claim to speak for God shapes the meaning of apostasy as well as obedience. Leaders warn that people who leave the faith will face spiritual ruin; apostates are portrayed as exceptionally wicked and aligned with Lucifer. DeLoy’s experience gives these teachings a concrete family consequence. After he decided that Rulon Jeffs’s accusations against him were false and left the Work, Jeffs sent someone to take DeLoy’s wives and children, invoking the doctrine that families belonged to the priesthood rather than to individual husbands and parents.

Both wives refused to leave DeLoy, and all but the three oldest children became apostates with him. Their decision defied the hierarchy’s expected priority of priesthood over family and faith over personal attachment. The episode does not depict God issuing the order himself; it shows a leader and institution exercising authority under religious doctrine. That distinction matters to the book’s portrayal: the consequences are imposed by people, even when the system presents priesthood decisions as the means by which God’s will is carried out.

Ron Lafferty’s Revelations and Their Interpretation

The most extreme conflict over divine authority occurs when Ron Lafferty begins receiving revelations under the influence of Onias’s instruction. He records messages on a borrowed computer, sometimes as they come and sometimes after holding them in memory. One revelation, dated February 27, is directed to his wife, Dianna Lafferty. It rebukes her for resisting her husband, warns that another woman is being prepared to take her place, and threatens to remove her from her position unless she repents. The message presents marital conflict as a matter on which God has taken sides, and Ron as the channel through which that judgment is delivered.

In a later revelation, Ron is told that the title one mighty and strong can apply to multiple figures, including Moses, Jesus Christ, Onias, and Ron himself. The assertion expands a sacred title until Ron is included among those said to be appointed to order the church and kingdom. A psychiatrist, C. Jess Groesbeck, interprets Ron’s revelations as delusional and connects them to his depression and an inflated self-image. Ron rejects that account, regarding the messages as genuine communication from God. The book preserves this conflict between clinical interpretation and religious conviction rather than treating the two as the same kind of claim.

A handwritten revelation from late March marks a further turn: it names Brenda Lafferty and her baby, Chloe Low, and Richard Stowe as people who are to be removed, and presents the action as urgent. It also identifies an instrument for the work and compares that figure to Porter Rockwell. Ron shows the message to Dan Lafferty before presenting it to the School of the Prophets. Dan advises caution about acting on a commandment that might not be from God, but also warns against refusing divine work. After the brothers pray, they decide that the named people must be wicked and deserve to be murdered, and that it would be wise to act on the revelation.

The revelation does not receive the community’s usual collective evaluation. When Ron privately gives it to Bernard Brady, Brady reacts with fear and tells him he wants no part in it; neither man raises the matter when the meeting begins. The episode exposes the danger of a system in which revelations may be understood as divine commands, yet the processes meant to assess them can fail to bring them before the community. God’s authority remains absolute within the believers’ framework, but the interpretation, circulation, and enforcement of that authority are human actions—and, in this instance, they lead toward murder.