Zion’s Dystopia: The FLDS in Eldorado, Texas (Part 2)

FLDS prophet Warren Jeffs likely succeeded his father Rulon T. Jeffs in 2002; this information is disputed, and Warren recently claimed that he was not the true prophet, but rather had been deceived by evil powers into believing this heresy. The Eldorado Success newspaper, however, has tracked both the development of the YFZ compound and the power struggle within the FLDS, and offers the view that Warren fought off challengers to assume his father’s preeminent position. Dying of natural causes … Read on…

Zion’s Dystopia: The FLDS in Eldorado, Texas (Part 1)

The temple of the Yearning for Zion (YFZ) compound gleams, pure and white, in the sunshine of West Texas. I pull over on the side of Rudd Road, a bumpy asphalt strip that divides ranch land and homes, some as simple as singlewide trailers where laundry hangs on clotheslines beneath which pass young goats and other small livestock. In late April, mesquite and cedar trees are greening, and yellow flowers bloom beside the growing, sprouting prairie grass. This rolling land … Read on…

Mormon Heaven Part 3 (of four)

The Mormon Belief System Now let’s examine the basics of the Mormon belief system: First things first: Mormons belief that discorporated individual souls float in the ether somewhere above Earth, and when a woman’s egg is fertilized, one of those souls immediately flies into it and endows it with Heavenly Grace, making it a human being, despite its being too small to see with the naked eye! In our family, when I was a child and a teenager, we used … Read on…

Mormon Heaven Part 2 (of four)

The History of the LDS Church Let’s begin with a capsule history of the Church. The founder, Joseph Smith, was born on a farm in upstate New York in the early nineteenth century. That area later became known as The Burned-Over District, a nickname alluding to the many fire-and-brimstone preachers who roamed the area delivering jeremiads to the local residents in tent shows and so-called camp meetings, urging them to repent their sinful ways lest they burn eternally in Hell. … Read on…

Mormon Heaven Part 1 (of four)

Author’s Note: I hope readers will forgive the somewhat ironic tone. I thought skeptical readers might allow some latitude, enabling me to get by with a slight tinge of irony; in any case, it’s the way I both think and write, and there’s little I can do about it. If I have offended, however unintentionally, anyone’s sober sensibilities, I apologize in advance. My Background I don’t claim to be an authority on Mormon theology, but having grown up in a … Read on…