Lost boys (Mormon fundamentalism)

Last updated

"Lost boys" is a term used for young men who have been excommunicated or pressured to leave polygamous Mormon fundamentalist groups, such as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS). [1] Although sometimes officially accused of apostasy or disobedience, [2] [3] it is thought that they are mainly pressured to leave by older adult men to reduce competition for wives within such sects, [2] [3] [4] usually when they are between the ages of 13 and 21. [5]

Contents

Background

Since boys and girls are born in approximately equal numbers, and women do not enter the community in large numbers, the pool of available women is not sufficient for all men to have multiple wives.

While some boys leave by their own choice, [6] many have been banished for conduct such as watching a movie, [7] watching television, [6] [8] playing football, [6] or talking to a girl. [5] [4] [6] Some boys are told not to return unless they can return with a wife.[ citation needed ] One 2004 source estimated that more than 400 teenage boys have been ostracized from the FLDS Church for violating community rules. [9] Another article from 2005 estimated that between 400 and 1,000 boys and young men had been pressured to leave for such reasons. [1] Many young women [10] also have left or been pressured to leave because they did not want to be part of polygamous marriages. [11]

Boys in these sects are commonly raised to not trust the outside world and that leaving their communities is a sin worse than murder. [12] [13] With little education or skills applicable to life outside of their community of birth, they must learn to live in a society they inherently distrust yet know little about and as a result, some lost boys become homeless or end up in the criminal justice system. [6] The families of banished boys are told that the boys are now dead to them. [8]

Specific incidences

The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (hereafter FLDS) is a particularly controversial fundamentalist sect which has repeatedly been connected with the concept of lost boys. As early as 1968, the church's home turf of Colorado City, Arizona had a peace officer whose responsibility was "to make sure that the boys would not associate with the girls.” [4] This officer's main police duties evolved over the next two decades to include "running the surplus boys out of town" so as to allow the "worthy" men of the community to live plural marriage by adding new, younger wives. [4] More recently, in the mid-1990s, a Colorado City police officer named Rodney Holm was one of a dozen men who attacked and assaulted a 17-year-old named Robert Williams because Williams had shown interest in a girl his age. The attack was organized by the girl's father, who was Officer Holm’s brother. Afterward, in February 1996, they pleaded no contest to simple assault. [4]

Some individuals, such as Dan Fischer, a dentist who left the FLDS Church, work to help young men who have left or who have been ejected from polygamist organizations in cities such as Colorado City or adjacent Hildale, Utah. [5] [14] The FLDS church was sued by six "lost boys" in August 2004 for "alleged economic and psychological injury." [15]

Brent Jeffs details his early life as the grandson to a FLDS prophet and his eventual excommunication as "very different". [16] At an early age, Jeffs' father decided to leave the church and take his family with him. [16] Upon hearing this news, Jeffs decided to return to the church to make the decision on his own. During this time, he experienced a social black-balling for his family’s history with FLDS, as well as becoming romantically intertwined with a girl his age, [16] and removed himself once again from the church. [16]

In the HBO television series Big Love (2006–2011), the main protagonist is a former lost boy, having grown up challenging the elder who drove him out of their community as a teenager. The series portrays machinations of some senior men within a fundamentalist congregation to "reserve" young unmarried women for themselves.[ citation needed ]

The documentary film Sons of Perdition (2010) depicts the struggles of three real-life lost boys. [17]

The off-Broadway play Exit 27 (2013) dramatized the story of four lost boys struggling to survive in the desert outside Colorado City. Playwright Aleks Merilo based the script on interviews conducted with lost boys living in Hurricane, Utah. [18]

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 Borger, Julian (2005-06-14). "The lost boys, thrown out of US sect so that older men can marry more wives". The Guardian . London. Retrieved 2007-02-14.
  2. 1 2 Bryant, Seth L. (2009). "Reviving the Millennial Kingdom: Mormons, Morrisites, and Massacre". The John Whitmer Historical Association Journal. 29: 115–139. ISSN   0739-7852. JSTOR   43200347.
  3. 1 2 Miller, Anne Catherine; Karkazis, Katrina (2013). "Health Beliefs and Practices in an Isolated Polygamist Community of Southern Utah". Journal of Religion and Health. 52 (2): 597–609. doi:10.1007/s10943-012-9593-x. ISSN   0022-4197. JSTOR   24485008. PMID   22438183. S2CID   28895834.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Kent, Stephen A. (2006). "A Matter of Principle: Fundamentalist Mormon Polygamy, Children, and Human Rights Debates". Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions. 10 (1): 7–29. doi:10.1525/nr.2006.10.1.7. ISSN   1092-6690. JSTOR   10.1525/nr.2006.10.1.7.
  5. 1 2 3 Henetz, Patty (July 31, 2004). "Krakauer still vexed by FLDS". Deseret News . AP. Archived from the original on 2010-07-31. Retrieved 2013-12-11. [...] Fischer has housed the castoff children and given them jobs in his company, Krakauer said.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 Wright, Stuart A.; Richardson, James T. (2014). "The Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints after the Texas State Raid: Assessing a Post-Raid Movement Trajectory". Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions. 17 (4): 83–97. doi:10.1525/nr.2014.17.4.83. ISSN   1092-6690. JSTOR   10.1525/nr.2014.17.4.83.
  7. ↑ Holstein, MD, MS, Ned (2008-04-15). "Texas Polygamy Case: Don't the Boys Count?". Fathers and Families. Archived from the original on 2013-06-24. Retrieved 2013-06-20.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  8. 1 2 Kelly, David (2005-06-19). "Polygamy's 'Lost Boys' expelled from only life they knew". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved 2008-04-24.
  9. ↑ Nielsen, Michael (2009). "Opinions Regarding Polygamy Among LDS Church Members: Demographic Predictors". Archiv für Religionspsychologie / Archive for the Psychology of Religion. 31 (2): 261–270. doi:10.1163/157361209X427788. ISSN   0084-6724. JSTOR   23910032. S2CID   143499720.
  10. ↑ "Man Accused Of Assaulting Kingston Polygamist Daughter Appears In Court". KSL-TV News. 2006-06-24. Retrieved 2007-02-14.
  11. ↑ "Polygamy or abuse? Utah case stirs controversy". CNN. 1998-08-18. Archived from the original on 2007-02-11. Retrieved 2007-02-14.
  12. ↑ Wagner, Angie (2004-09-04). "Religious sect's outcasts caught between worlds". Associated Press.
  13. ↑ Wagner, Angie. "Boys exiled from polygamist sect seek new life in the outside world". Associated Press . Retrieved 2007-02-14.
  14. ↑ "The Lost Boys of Polygamy". Archived from the original on 2018-03-15. Retrieved 2019-01-06.
  15. ↑ Watson, Marianne T. (2007). "The 1948 Secret Marriage of Louis J. Barlow: Origins of FLDS Placement Marriage". Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. 40 (1): 83–136. doi: 10.2307/45227157 . ISSN   0012-2157. JSTOR   45227157. S2CID   254401041.
  16. 1 2 3 4 "From Polygamist Royalty To FLDS Lost Boy". NPR.org. Retrieved 2022-11-09.
  17. ↑ Rosanne Colletti (24 April 2010). "The Sons of Perdition in Person". NBC New York. Retrieved 1 May 2010. External link in |publisher= (help)
  18. ↑ Clarke, David (2013-10-27). BWW Interviews: Aleks Merilo Talks EXIT 27. Broadway World, Wisdom Digital Media, 27 October 2013. Retrieved from http://www.broadwayworld.com/off-off-broadway/article/BWW-Interviews-Aleks-Merilo-Talks-EXIT-27-20131027#.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colorado City, Arizona</span> Town in Mohave County, Arizona, US

Colorado City is a town in Mohave County, Arizona, United States, and is located in a region known as the Arizona Strip. The population was 2,478 at the 2020 census. At least three Mormon fundamentalist sects are said to have been based there. A majority of residents and many local officials belong to the most prominent of these sects, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, whose corporation also owned much of the land within and around the town until state intervention in the 2000s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints</span> Latter-Day Saints denomination

The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is a religious sect of the fundamentalist Mormon denominations whose members practice polygamy. It is variously defined as a cult, a sect, or a new religious movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mormon fundamentalism</span> Advocates of some early Mormon doctrines

Mormon fundamentalism is a belief in the validity of selected fundamental aspects of Mormonism as taught and practiced in the nineteenth century, particularly during the administrations of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and John Taylor, the first three presidents of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Mormon fundamentalists seek to uphold tenets and practices no longer held by mainstream Mormons. The principle most often associated with Mormon fundamentalism is plural marriage, a form of polygyny first taught in the Latter Day Saint movement by the movement's founder, Smith. A second and closely associated principle is that of the United Order, a form of egalitarian communalism. Mormon fundamentalists believe that these and other principles were wrongly abandoned or changed by the LDS Church in its efforts to become reconciled with mainstream American society. Today, the LDS Church excommunicates any of its members who practice plural marriage or who otherwise closely associate themselves with Mormon fundamentalist practices.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Warren Jeffs</span> American criminal and religious leader (born 1955)

Warren Steed Jeffs is an American religious-cult leader and felon, convicted of several sex crimes and two assisted sex crimes involving children. He is the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a polygamous cult. In 2011, he was convicted of two felony counts of child sexual assault, for which he is serving a life sentence.

Bountiful is a settlement in the Creston Valley of southeastern British Columbia, Canada, near Cranbrook and Creston. The closest community is Lister, British Columbia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rulon Jeffs</span> Fundamentalist Mormon church leader (1909–2002)

Rulon Timpson Jeffs, known to followers as Uncle Rulon, was an American polygamist and religious leader who served as the president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a Mormon fundamentalist organization based in Colorado City, Arizona, United States, from 1986 until his death in 2002. He was the father of later FLDS Church leader and convicted felon Warren Jeffs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">YFZ Ranch</span> Former Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints community in Texas

The Yearning for Zion Ranch, or the YFZ Ranch, was a 1,700-acre (690-hectare) Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) community of as many as 700 people, located near Eldorado in Schleicher County, Texas, United States. In April 2014, the State of Texas took physical and legal possession of the property.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leroy S. Johnson</span> Fundamentalist Mormon leader (1888–1986)

Leroy Sunderland Johnson, known as Uncle Roy, was a leader of the Mormon fundamentalist group in Short Creek, which later evolved into the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, from the mid-1950s until his death.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Owen A. Allred</span> American religious leader

Owen Arthur Allred was the leader of the Apostolic United Brethren, a Mormon fundamentalist polygamist group centered in Bluffdale, Utah. He came to this position following the murder of his brother Rulon Allred on orders of rival polygamist leader Ervil LeBaron, in 1977.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Short Creek raid</span> 1953 mass arrest in Arizona, US

The Short Creek raid was an Arizona Department of Public Safety and Arizona National Guard action against Mormon fundamentalists that took place on the morning of July 26, 1953, at Short Creek, Arizona. The Short Creek raid was the largest mass arrest of polygamists in American history. At the time, it was described as "the largest mass arrest of men and women in modern American history."

Carolyn Jessop is an American author and former Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints member who wrote Escape, an autobiographical account of her upbringing in the polygamist sect and later flight from that community. She is the cousin, by marriage, of Flora Jessop, another former FLDS member and advocate for abused children. Carolyn Jessop now lives in the Salt Lake City area with her children.

Polygamy is the practice of having more than one spouse at the same time. Specifically, polygyny is the practice of one man taking more than one wife while polyandry is the practice of one woman taking more than one husband. Polygamy is a common marriage pattern in some parts of the world. In North America, polygamy has not been a culturally normative or legally recognized institution since the continent's colonization by Europeans.

Merril Jessop was a high-ranking bishop in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, commonly referred to as the FLDS Church. He was briefly the de facto leader of the FLDS. Jessop was also in charge of the YFZ Ranch during the 2008 raid.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Current state of polygamy in the Latter Day Saint movement</span>

Joseph Smith, the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, privately taught and practiced polygamy. After Smith's death in 1844, the church he established splintered into several competing groups. Disagreement over Smith's doctrine of "plural marriage" has been among the primary reasons for multiple church schisms.

Wendell Loy Nielsen was the president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, replacing Warren Jeffs, at that time imprisoned on charges related to sexual assaults against minors.

Brent W. Jeffs is an American author, advocate, and former member of the influential Jeffs family in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Ruby Jessop is an American former member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) and child bride known for her family connections, her 2013 escape from an FLDS-controlled polygamous community, and the criminal probe prompted by her escape.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Council of Friends (Woolley)</span> One of the original expressions of Mormon fundamentalism

The Council of Friends was one of the original expressions of Mormon fundamentalism, having its origins in the teachings of Lorin C. Woolley, a courier and bodyguard for polygamous leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who was excommunicated in 1924.

The Church of Jesus Christ Inc. is a Mormon fundamentalist denomination in the Latter Day Saint movement, and is also known as the Blackmore Group. There are approximately 700 members of this group.

Benjamin "Ben" Granger Bistline was an American historian of Mormon fundamentalism in Short Creek, a community of which he was a part.

References

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.