April 7, 2017 ▸ People, Religion

Episode 186: Warren Jeffs: Religious Prophet or Rapist?

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On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we look at the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) and their prophet and leader, Warren Jeffs. Not to be confused with the Mormon church, this fundamentalist offshoot is a cult that practices polygamy and any number of nasty things designed to let the guys at top live like kings and everyone else to live like a peasant. Warren Jeffs was the son of Rulon Jeffs, the previous prophet and leader of the FLDS.

He had 50 wives, and Warren was his 14^th son, born several months premature. Since Warren Jeffs survived against all odds as a baby, Rulon considered Warren to be special and raised him to be second in command. Eventually, decades later, Rulon’s health failed, and after he had a stroke and died, Warren Jeffs appointed himself the new leader of the “church” and the new prophet who got word directly from The Lord.

This word included a lot of sex. Jeffs married at least 70 girls (maybe more than 80), most of whom were underage. He’d have them engage in what he called “heavenly comfort sessions” sanctioned by the sect’s “Higher Law of Sarah.” These are fancy terms for underage rape. Other than that, Jeffs started to run a series of compounds which did millions of dollars in welfare fraud, hoarded all the wealth of its members, and only let a ruling elite class eat regularly or have any creature comforts.

Life on the compounds meant no television, no internet, and even in recent years, no sex between a husband and a wife unless given the word by the prophet. Oh, and the word means one of the prophet’s 15 friends gets to be the one having sex with the woman, not her husband. FLDS life even includes children taken from mothers at any age to be sent to another compound, most likely for an underage marriage.

So, how did Jeffs get caught and what crimes is he arrested for? How does he still manage to run the cult from behind bars? How much worse did it get for the FLDS members after Jeffs went away? What does Jeffs think of black people? Listen, laugh, learn.

Great Story on the FLDS and Warren Jeffs: http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/05/us/flds-secrets-warren-jeffs/