Robert Crossfield

Robert Crossfield, known as the Prophet Onias, is an author and religious leader whose School of the Prophets drew Pamela and David Coronado into his movement in 1984. In the account of their first encounter with him, his authority rests both on revelations collected in The Book of Onias and on his claim that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has lost its spiritual life.

Identity and emergence

Crossfield’s base of operations had recently moved to the Provo area when the Coronados sought him out. His book had been printed by the Philosophical Library, a vanity press, and David wrote to the publisher to learn how to contact its author-prophet. The couple had found The Book of Onias in a used-book store and were struck by what they heard as a resemblance between its revelations and those of Joseph Smith, including the revelations in The Doctrine and Covenants.

The School of the Prophets had been established in Utah County shortly before the Coronados became followers at the beginning of 1984. Their first meeting with Crossfield took place at the Lafferty family home in Provo. Pamela later described that encounter as the point at which they entered the Work, placing Crossfield at the center of a local religious community organized around his teachings.

A new religious household

The narrative next presents Crossfield at a run-down farmhouse he had recently acquired. Pamela is stripping wallpaper in its front room; she then puts down her tools and goes to prepare lunch for her daughter, Emmylou, and Crossfield. The domestic scene locates his prophetic role within the ordinary labor and shared routines of the community, rather than apart from them.

Pamela says that plural marriage is not the principal reason for joining the Work, describing the basis of her faith as spiritual. Crossfield answers her distinction with a criticism of the established church: he says it has largely lost the spirit, and that sermons and General Conference leave most listeners feeling nothing. His intervention frames the divide not only as a disagreement over doctrine, but as a contest over who can claim genuine spiritual vitality.

Narrative role and significance

Crossfield appears through the people who seek him out and the contrast he draws with the mainstream church. The Coronados’ interest begins with revelations they consider comparable to Joseph Smith’s, then becomes personal contact and participation in the Work. His account of institutional spiritual failure gives voice to the appeal of a more fervent religious community for members dissatisfied with the direction of the church.

The farmhouse scene also makes his authority part of a continuing household and community life. Pamela’s daughter is present in that setting, and the surrounding narrative turns to the next generation of fundamentalists. Crossfield’s significance here is therefore not only that he has authored revelations and gathered followers, but that his movement offers a setting in which spiritual conviction is presented as something to be lived and passed on.