Informative

Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey

The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

Zoey Jones, Staff Reporter • October 2, 2024

A picture of almost every wife of Warren Jeffs’s. 24 of them were under 17 years old. The pastel colors they wear indicate they are all married to the same man.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the FLDS, better known as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, is a religious, white supremacist, homophobic, totalitarian cult of the Mormons, who practice the act of polygamy, which was outlawed in the year 1882. State laws prohibit polygamy by invalidating marriage with more than 2 spouses. Despite the legal action of polygamy, the FLDS practice it in secrecy. After being hidden from the world and taking small refuge all over the globe (mostly inhabiting near the Utah-Arizona border), the cult came from below the radar when fast spread allegations occurred in the early 2000’s about the prophet Warren Jeffs. The prophet of the church Warren Jeffs is currently serving life in jail from his sentence in 2007. Evidence against him shows two counts of sexual assault from 2011 and accomplice with rape as well as taking place on the FBI’s Top 10 most wanted list. Jeffs currently serves his sentence in the Louis C. Powledge Unit in Palestine, TX. Jeffs will be eligible for parole on July 22,2028.

In this Warrant from 2006, Jeffs was 51 and on the run hiding under the public eye since 2004. This poster was posted and projected on 05/06/06 by the Arizona FBI office. Jeffs was a federal criminal, having a $100,000 reward for his arrest and was also noted to be possibly guarded and armed.

The FLDS has at least 10,000 members across Northern America in Utah, Colorado, Arizona, Texas, British Columbia, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Minnesota. In 1986, Rulon Jeffs, the original prophet and president of the cult was diagnosed with declining health issues, and, in 2002, passed away. Quickly after his father’s passing, Warren Jeffs took over as the new prophet and by then he had wed most of his father’s wives and had been said to have married an estimated 90 women. During Warren Jeffs’s admission to the prophet he outlawed such things as swimming and television. Jeff was in charge of assigning wives to husbands from the path of oath. Stated from the Lost boys, many older men felt competitive towards the younger boys because of their social marriage status. Jeffs believed that to reduce the be-wed competition for wives he would throw out the youngest boys of the cult and leave them to be forgotten; these future known lost boys were left without money or resources, leaving them homeless and consumed with drugs.

The FLDS compound in Eldorado, TX, was built by Warren Jeffs. He called the space ZION or “Heaven on earth”. Many members were handpicked to be sent here. They were seen as “honored”.

According to the Netflix film Documenting Mormonism’s Darkest Hour, the FLDs were also involved with stealing money from their members and other organizations. Many members sign over their wealth to their leader as a type of united order functioned by the church: authorities quote, “Keeping it for needs and wants”. The FLDS women are also subsequently encouraged to apply for benefits to carryover to the church in order to maintain money flow.

The FLDS is still currently standing from the benefit of the few thousand standing members as they wait for their prophet to return. The FLDS is still one of the biggest standing polygamy groups in history and it continues to unfortunately stand.

Works Cited:

CBS News. (2008, April 18). Why Do They Dress That Way? CBS News. Retrieved September 12, 2024, from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-do-they-dress-that-way/
Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. (n.d.). Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved September 12, 2024, from https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/fundamentalist-church-jesus-christ-latter-day-saints
Netflix (Executive Producer). (6/08/22). Documenting Mormonism’s Darkest Hour (Documentary and true crime, 4th ed.) [TV series; Four part docuseries]. https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/keep-sweet-warren-jeffs-documentary (Original work published 6/08/22)
Office, A. F. (2006, August 29). Most Wanted Capture. FBI — Fugitive Warren Jeffs Captured. Retrieved September 12, 2024, from https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/stories/2006/august/jeffs082906
Splinter Group: Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) – Mormonism Research Ministry. (n.d.). Mormonism Research Ministry. Retrieved September 25, 2024, from https://www.mrm.org/flds
Fox13. (2022, August 1). New edict purportedly from FLDS leader Warren Jeffs raises alarm. Fox 13. https://www.fox13now.com/news/local-news/new-edict-purportedly-from-flds-leader-warren-jeffs-raises-alarm
Borger, J. (2005, June 13). The lost boys, thrown out of the US sect so that older men can marry more wives. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/jun/14/usa.julianborger

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About the Contributor

Zoey Jones, Staff Reporter

Hi, I'm Zoey Jones and I'm a freshman at EPHS. I'm interested in true crime, horror, and mystery. I plan on participating in track and dance this year. I don’t currently have any colleges in mind, but in the future I would like to be a journalist or an attorney. My goals are to graduate with a 3.0-4.0 GPA, get a good scholarship, and have a good career.