I thought that nothing could seem more ridiculous than a “religion” made up by a hack science fiction writer, until I read a little bit about the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Days Saints, or FLDS. Secret ceremonies, special undergarments, temples that only members could enter, heavens available only to men with at least 3 wives (who actually get their own planet to rule)… you couldn’t sell a script like this to the most desperate movie exec. So it has always amazed me that people — women in particular — were willing to stay in such a crazy and demeaning situation. There have been a number of books about the FLDS, but none of them has been as clear in its explanations as Lost Boy by Brent W. Jeffs.

Brent grew up in the FLDS — he is the nephew of Warren Jeffs, former prophet, currently serving 10 years to life for rape (as an accomplice). If Brent’s story is true, there are even more serious charges he should have been facing.

One thing that I found interesting about Lost Boy is all the mundane detail about day-to-day life in the FLDS compound.  He talks at length about the difficulties in his family. His father, Ward Jeffs, had three wives; two of his wives were siblings who hadn’t gotten along as sisters and had even more trouble getting along as sister-wives. His third wife was only 16 when they married. There were 20 children in the family, finances and even space for all the children was tight. There was a lot of conflict. But he also recalls a lot of happy memories — fishing with his father and brothers, being close to his enormous extended family, big community gatherings, the happy assurance that there was a place for him in the community and that he was destined for the “highest levels” of heaven (more on that in a bit). The logistics were complicated, but I have not doubt that these people loved their children and tried very hard to love their spouses.

Brent also talks a lot about the details of his religion. Heaven, in the FLDS, has several levels. The Telestial heaven is for people who refused to worship God: “It’s not hell, it’s just a kind of mediocre heaven.” Then there is the Terrestrial heaven, for people who never knew the teachings of Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon church. Not the best of all possible heavens, but still “pretty glorious.”

The most glorious heaven is the Celestial heaven:

“…which can be entered only by men who have had at least three wives in polygamy. Here, men become godlike and rule over their own planets.”

The women in Celestial heaven become queens, who get stuck bearing the Celestial children. Even as a kid, Brent had figured out that this was a raw deal for the womenfolk.

As an outsider, looking in, the tenets of this religion make it a breeding ground for abuse:

• The primary tenet is obedience. The people must be obedient to the prophet in all things.
• Questioning the prophet and any of his teachings is considered blasphemy.
• Their motto was “keep sweet,” in other words, put on a happy face. It was not enough to obey the prophet (or your husband or your parents), you had to be happy about it.
• The church frequently owned the homes that families lived in and the businesses they worked for. This meant that if you or any member of your family displeased the prophet in some way, you could find yourself homeless and unemployed.
• The prophet also had total control over marriages and families. He had to agree that you were ready for marriage and personally approve the person you married. If you — or again, any member of your family — displeased him in some way, the family could be broken up. Wives would be seperated from their husbands and assigned to new husbands, children could be taken away and placed with other families.
• Girls got married young. If they were rebellious in any way, they would be married off to a much older man, someone who could control them. The goal was to get them pregnant right away, multiple times, and bind them to their husband and the community through their children.

All of this was drilled into their heads in school, in church, through various church meetings and functions. Over and over, day after day, the same messages: obey and keep sweet. Rebellion might be possible — Brent talks a lot about his youthful rebellion — but if you have been taught your entire life that the prophet controls the fate of your immortal soul, how much defiance can you really manage? Their education was spotty, they were taught that anyone outside the church was evil and not to be trusted, so they had very little contact with the outside world. Making any sort of life outside of the church must have been difficult and terrifying.

Ward Jeff eventually chooses his family over the church, taking his wives and leaving behind those children who wanted to stay with relatives, including Brent. He was about 14 at the time and found that even though he had chosen to remain in the church, he was no longer really accepted by his community. Eventually, he rejoined his family, living with his four older brothers in a two-bedroom apartment. They all struggled with drugs and alcohol; tragically, he lost two of his brothers to suicide and addiction. They also struggled with memories of abuse: Brent, his brother Brandon, and his brother Clayne had all been sexually abused by their uncle, Warren Jeffs. Brent’s lawsuit against the church, along with another lawsuit filed by a group of Lost Boys, pointed the legal spotlight on Warren Jeffs and the church, leading, in part, to his eventual arrest and imprisonment.

Brent Jeffs isn’t a typical Lost Boy. Most of the Lost Boys I’ve read about have been forced out of the church by their families — after all, if every old man gets a dozen wives, you are going to have to do something about all the young men who will want wives of their own. I have always wondered how a mother could abandon her child that way, but the explanation seems to be in the numbers. You may be abandoning one child, but you still have eight or ten or more at home, and you live with the real fear that those children and you husband could be “assigned” a new mother. So who do you sacrifice? Leaving the church with ten kids, no money, job skills or support system is really not an option.

Lost Boy is an emotional story, with a lot of people in bad situations trying to do the right thing. Brent doesn’t downplay his drug abuse and rebellion; he remembers the good and the bad, and presents one of the clearest pictures of the FLDS that I have read. I would have liked to know more about his sisters; he tells the story of his older brothers after their excommunication, but has much less to say about his mother and nothing at all about his sisters. It is heart-breaking to know how this family has suffered. Matters of religion are always difficult to deal with legally, but that shouldn’t stop us from protecting these children. Hopefully, stories like this will make a difference.

 

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