Violent Faith

Violent faith is the conversion of religious certainty into permission, or even obligation, to use violence. In the book, Dan Lafferty interprets the killing of Brenda and Erica as a foreshadowing of the coming harvest, while DeLoy Bateman describes how obedience to a prophet can relieve followers of responsibility for their decisions. Together, their accounts show two related mechanisms: violence can be presented as sacred work, and the authority to judge that work can be transferred from the individual to a religious leader.

Sacred violence and the coming harvest

Dan frames the killings through an apocalyptic reading of scripture. He understands the Great and Dreadful Day as a time when Jesus Christ will send angels to remove those who do not belong to his kingdom. In Dan’s interpretation, the angels need not be supernatural beings: they may be men already on earth, carrying out what they understand as their Father’s business. He identifies himself with that role and describes the deaths of Brenda and Erica as part of the event he was anticipating. This account does not make the violence less consequential; it gives it a religious purpose within Dan’s own interpretation.

His expectation is organized around a future revelation as well as a past act. Dan believes that he has been designated as Elijah to identify Jesus Christ when he returns and thereby help begin the thousand-year reign of the Kingdom of God. He also recounts a voice heard while he paced in his prison cell, which gave him a sign: the moon would shine from noon until nine. He says he did not understand the message at first, but later concluded that it would announce Christ’s return. The specific, still-unfulfilled sign gives his expectation a concrete form: the prison sentence becomes a period of waiting for the moment when his interpretation will, in his view, be confirmed.

Dan also reads danger within the prison through this apocalyptic framework. He believes Ron remains intent on killing him and takes reports of Ron’s physical training as evidence that a final confrontation may be approaching. Rather than treating this prospect as a reason to reconsider his beliefs, Dan interprets it as a sign that the harvest is near and that Satan is preparing to prevent Christ’s return. The same interpretive system that gives his past actions a sacred meaning thus absorbs new events and recasts them as confirmation of what he already expects.

Certainty, doubt, and moral comparison

The account puts Dan’s confidence beside a question about how religious conviction can be distinguished from a dangerous mistake. It compares his willingness to act on prophetic authority with the conviction of the terrorists who flew planes into the World Trade Center on September 11. Dan acknowledges a parallel: both he and the terrorists acted in obedience to a prophet. He rejects the comparison on the ground that the terrorists followed a false prophet while he believes his own authority is true.

That distinction rests on Dan’s certainty, not on an independent test offered in the passage. He maintains that he has never intentionally done wrong and recalls feeling guided by God on July 24, 1984. When he has wondered whether the killings were a terrible mistake, he says he has returned to that memory and to his belief that faith will enable him to know the truth. For Dan, the assurance of divine guidance resolves the moral question. The account, however, leaves visible the difficulty at the center of violent faith: sincere conviction can explain why a person believes an act is right without establishing that the belief is true.

His anticipated happy ending and imminent release from maximum security extend this certainty into the future. Dan expects the trumpet to announce the Last Days and believes he will then take his rightful place in the Kingdom of God. The contrast between that expectation and his continued confinement underscores the distance between the future he imagines and his present circumstances. Yet the passage does not show that this distance weakens his faith; he interprets his imprisonment within the same religious story that gives the killings their meaning.

Prophetic authority and displaced responsibility

DeLoy Bateman offers a different perspective from outside the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Looking back on his upbringing, he says that the religion supplied its members with answers and made life feel simpler. He describes a situation in which a person facing a disputed obligation could consult the prophet and then treat the prophet’s instruction as authorization. In DeLoy’s analysis, that arrangement allows followers to regard the consequences of their actions as the prophet’s responsibility rather than their own.

His examples clarify how this transfer of responsibility can extend beyond ordinary disputes. DeLoy says that a follower who accepts prophetic direction may feel justified in refusing repayment or even in killing someone. He does not present these outcomes as equivalent in severity; his point is that the same structure of obedience can remove the burden of personal judgment across very different decisions. The danger lies not only in a command to commit violence but also in a system that encourages believers to surrender the moral decision to an authority they regard as divinely guided.

DeLoy connects that authority to what members are taught from childhood. He recalls learning racist beliefs and says that, despite having left the religion, he continued to notice those attitudes shaping his reactions. He also says that children in the community were still being taught such ideas and reports the FLDS teaching that interracial marriage is punishable by death under God’s law. His recollections show how religious instruction can make an inherited prejudice seem like a settled moral rule, while his account of his own lingering responses demonstrates that leaving a community does not instantly erase its teachings.

Agency, freedom, and the limits of obedience

DeLoy’s criticism is qualified by his recognition of the comfort the religion provides. He believes that people in Colorado City may, on the whole, be happier than those outside it. At the same time, he regards freedom to think independently as more important than that happiness. This contrast sharpens the ethical issue: a system may offer reassurance and belonging while narrowing the space in which individuals can question authority or take responsibility for their choices.

The two accounts are not interchangeable. Dan presents himself as acting under divine direction and continues to regard his actions as righteous; DeLoy, reflecting on beliefs he once held, describes the relief of allowing the prophet to bear responsibility. Read together, their experiences illuminate how violence can be sustained by more than an explicit command. Apocalyptic expectation can give an act a place in a sacred future, while hierarchical obedience can make personal judgment seem unnecessary. The book’s treatment of violent faith turns on the gap between explaining that moral logic and accepting it: religious conviction may make violence intelligible to its adherent, but it does not settle the question of responsibility or make the harm disappear.