Stolen Innocence by Elissa Wall & Lisa Pulitzer

Author:Elissa Wall & Lisa Pulitzer [Wall, Elissa & Pulitzer, Lisa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780061752841
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2011-10-23T22:12:45+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

FALSE PROPHET

Your only real family are [sic] the members of the priesthood who are faithful to our prophet.

—WARREN JEFFS

The weeks after the prophet’s passing were an uneasy time for the FLDS. The prophet was never supposed to die, and now that he had, Warren did his best to maintain control. Confused and desperate to know what was next, everybody attended all three of our weekly church meetings. In the past, only the Sunday service was mandatory, with Saturday’s work project attended mostly by the men of the community and the Monday-morning meeting, a lighter service of song and prayer, attracting fewer people.

Even I attended the Saturday meeting on September 22, hoping to gain new information that might help to restore my sense of security. Warren was at the pulpit as he’d been for several years, but on this day, his message subtly started to change.

“I pray the Lord will honor our prophet’s prayer,” he began. “This is the word of God, and I yearn to give Father’s message.”

He started preaching that his father actually had been “lifted up and renewed,” but that it hadn’t happened in the physical sense as it had always been predicted. It had been a spiritual renewal. As the weeks went on, Warren continued to imply that the prophet was always around even though his body was nowhere to be seen.

“Can you feel the prophet’s love?” Warren asked us at another meeting. “Father is just in the next room,” he again assured us. “I can feel him close. He is speaking through me. Live as though he is still walking among us. He is among the people and working with us still.” To these words of comfort he added: “There are experiences ahead of us. Tests and judgments that only the pure in heart will be able to endure.”

At the time, I was far too indoctrinated to recognize that Uncle Warren was priming us for his formal succession. Although he had always vehemently taught the beliefs of our faith and the prophecies of our future, I think he must have known the truth: his father was a mortal man who would remain buried just like everyone else. Thus he had to reprogram the people to accept a new interpretation of the prophet’s death, an interpretation that would allow him to take full control of everything. Looking back on it now, I see that the crazy explanation of the prophet’s renewal should have shown us that he was manipulating the situation to serve his own purposes. But none of us who had been born and raised in the FLDS Church could see his actions objectively. The repetition of Warren’s extreme ideas had effectively conditioned us, and fear had rendered us unable to express any feelings of doubt.

At the October 13 meeting, Uncle Warren offered us our first glimpse into the plan he had been crafting behind the scenes. In order to receive our full trust and attention, he continuously reminded us throughout the speech that he was serving as a conduit of his dead father’s wishes.

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