Author not anti-Mormon

Last night, I attended the book signing for "Under the Banner of Heaven" by Jon Krakauer, and I have to say I was very impressed. Krakauer is not anti-Mormon and, in fact, he devoted much of the evening to praising Mormons, Mormon historian D. Michael Quinn and Joseph Smith. To the disappointment of a crowd anticipating an hour of Mormon-bashing, Krakauer admitted a great respect for Joseph Smith and even compared him to the likes of Buddha, Mohammed and Jesus Christ.

Mormons like to downplay Joseph Smith's natural ability so they can trump up the claim that his achievements were only possible through divine intervention; non-Mormons tend to have an a priori negative bias against Joseph Smith simply because they resent contemporary Mormon culture. Krakauer strikes a much better balance, and he is not alone. Recently, Pulitzer Prize-winning, non-Mormon historian Robert Remini called Joseph Smith the most important religious figure in American history. If Krakauer and Remini can divorce personal emotion from historical evidence, why can't we?

Jonathan Marshall

Salt Lake City