Jeffs’ control over his congregation is directly tied into their loyalty, and “Prophet’s Prey” chronicles how, by increasing control over his people (forcing various financial demands on them, stripping them of basic freedoms), they feel compelled to stay still more loyal. It didn’t, of course, but that hasn’t stopped him from continually predicting the apocalypse. The Short Creek move was immediately indicative of Jeffs’ stranglehold on his members, as such a sudden upheaval was punctuated by his demands that his congregation suffer great financial hardship (abandoning homes and businesses, spending exorbitant amounts of money to relocate, and donating hefty cash to the church’s coffers), all in service to what he was convinced was the correct decision.Įven better, Jeffs thought the world was about to end. Although the Short Creek area has long housed splinter members of the LDS, Jeffs himself was responsible for a population explosion that took place in 2002, when thousands of the faithful picked up stakes and fled Salt Lake City for the small town (Jeffs predicted a nuclear attack at the Olympics). (Smith himself is reported to have called it “the most holy” of all the ideals he received from God.) Smith died in 1844, but despite his dedication to this particular cause, by 1890, the Church had outlawed polygamy, a decision that eventually led to the split that gave us the pro-polygamy FLDS outcropping.Ī large portion of the country’s FLDS population currently live in and around the so-called Short Creek Community, technically two towns (Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Arizona) that purposely straddle state lines (clever, right?). The film opens with an animated history lesson that briefly lays out the origins of the LDS - Joseph Smith receiving revelation in the forest in the eighteenth century and such - with an emphasis on the doctrines that decreed that LDS men should take more than one wife for maximum holiness and success. ‘Book Club: The Next Chapter’ Review: You’re Going to Need a Lot of Wine to Enjoy This Sloppy Sequel
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