No Man is an Island, but Some are Planets

Excerpt powerhouse Good Morning America has posted a long selection from Brent Jeffs' memoir Lost Boy. Jeffs is the nephew of Warren Jeffs, the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose compound in Texas was raided in April of 2008. Lost Boy tells of his expulsion from the FLDS.

I'd known about the oldschool Mormon idea of multiple marriage, but it turns out that they also hold the idea of multiple afterlives. Jeffs writes, "The FLDS conception of heaven is complicated, too. In our religion, it's not getting into heaven that counts--it's getting into the right heaven. There are three realms. The highest and most "glorious" is the "celestial," 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 reason that FLDS members have so many children, in fact, is to populate their personal planets."

It's a very interesting read. The entire excerpt is here.--David E