'Under the Banner of Heaven' dramatizes the real-life 1984 murder of Brenda Lafferty and her 15-month-old child in a Mormon community. The show links the brutal crime to the history of the church — and some Mormons take issue with that.
feel the show mischaracterizes the faith. She’s senior columnist for Religion News Service and author of “The Next Mormons: How Millennials are Changing the LDS Church.”that if you simply scratch under the surface of a seemingly respectable religion, all sorts of violent acts and thoughts are going to come pouring out,” Riess says. “I just don't think that that's true of my people.
"I really don't [think that's fair]. And it's not because I am incapable of being critical of my church. In my column, I do take the church to task sometimes for various things like the role of women, like the history that denied African-Americans the right to be blessed in the temple. There are things that I criticize about the church.”