The United Effort Plan also known as the UEP Trust is a charitable organization that was originally formed in 1942 as a subsidiary organization of the FLDS church. [1] The organization is based in the Short Creek Community, comprised of Hilldale, Utah and Colorado City, Arizona, which was primarily the base of the FLDS church until church leader Warren Jeffs was arrested in 2007. In 2005 the trust was seized after the Attorney General of Utah filed a lawsuit against the church. [2]
The United Effort Plan was founded in 1942 under the leadership of FLDS church founder John Y. Barlow. The church viewed this "United Order" as a means of living the traditional Latter Day Saint doctrine of the "Law of Consecration". This involved donating land, homes and businesses into a single trust with church leaders controlling and being able to distribute and seize properties to and from church members. [3]
In 2005, the UEP was seized by the state of Utah following a lawsuit by the Attorney General. [4] [5] At the time, the UEP was worth $100 million. [6] State control of the UEP ended in 2019, with the trust reformed into a "religiously neutral" entity benefiting the original donors and their heirs, including those who had left the FLDS Church. [7]
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Apostolic United Brethren (AUB) is a Mormon fundamentalist group that practices polygamy. The AUB has had a temple in Mexico, since at least the 1990s, an endowment house in Utah since the early 1980s and several other locations of worship to accommodate their members in the US States of Wyoming, Arizona, and Montana.
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.
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."
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.
William Roy Jessop is a former leader and spokesman for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Jessop should not be confused with William E. Jessop, the person Warren Jeffs designated as his successor to the presidency of the FLDS Church.
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.
Stolen Innocence: My Story of Growing Up in a Polygamous Sect, Becoming a Teenage Bride, and Breaking Free of Warren Jeffs is an autobiography by American author Elissa Wall detailing her childhood in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) and subsequent later life outside of the church. It was first published by William Morrow and Company in 2008.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Kingdom of God is a Mormon fundamentalist church in the Latter Day Saint movement. The sect was founded by Frank Naylor and Ivan Nielsen, who split from the Centennial Park group, another fundamentalist church over issues with another prominent polygamous family. The church is estimated to have 200–300 members, most of whom reside in the Salt Lake Valley. The group is also known as the Neilsen Naylor Group or the Third Ward.
Lyle Jeffs is the brother of Warren Jeffs and a bishop in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, commonly referred to as the FLDS Church. He has been referred to as his brother's "special counselor" in some church documents.
Nephi Jeffs is an American Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints leader. He is the bishop of the Short Creek Stake, and is his brother Warren Jeffs's personal secretary.
Lynn A. Thompson was the President of the Priesthood of the Apostolic United Brethren (AUB), a fundamentalist Mormon sect, from September 2, 2014, until October 5, 2021.
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.
Seth Jeffs is an American high-ranking official in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He is known for harboring his brother Warren Jeffs during the federal manhunt to arrest him.
Benjamin "Ben" Granger Bistline was an American historian of Mormon fundamentalism in Short Creek, a community of which he was a part.
The Leroy S. Johnson Meetinghouse was the meetinghouse of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) located in Colorado City, Arizona, serving the Short Creek Community which includes Hilldale, Utah.