The full title is:

An American Fraud. One Lawyer’s Case Against Mormonism.

Burningham does not just deliver a death punch to Mormonism, the religion, the doctrine and the lifestyle. Instead, she picks it up like one would a ragdoll and slams it over the pavement, beating the dead body to a pulp, until no more bones are intact and the flesh is hanging off in shreds. Burningham obliterates our happy and content picture of Mormons. She makes a case so solid, graphic and lasting, it’s difficult to imagine that the reader can ever get back some semblance of respect for this religion.

Many years ago I read Jon Krakauer’s book Under the Banner of Heaven, and I remember it was a brutal indictment of the Mormon religion and lifestyle, focusing more on the fundamental branches of the church, following the tracks of a group of deceiving and murderous individuals in their quest of never-ending treachery, abusing everyone they come across, all in the name of God. In contrast, An American Fraud deals more with mainstream Mormon society and the challenges its members face in today’s world.

Kay Burningham was born into Mormonism and struggled most of her life with coming to terms with the religion and the lifestyle. She did not follow the traditional path of Mormon women, getting married early and being wife and mother, forever submissive to her husband and lord. Instead, she became a lawyer. Her two marriages to Mormon men failed, mostly due to their inability to deal with a woman of substance who was not willing to submit to senseless rules, deceitful practices and abusive behavior.

She meticulously tells the story of Mormonism from the very start to today, when for the second time in history a Mormon is running for President of the United States. The first time was when Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, announced his candidacy in January 1844, not long before he was killed in jail by an angry mob of men who he had swindled, abused and whose daughters he had seduced.

Here is an excerpt:

Brigham Young’s nineteenth wife Ann Eliza, described and distinguished two classes of Mormons, the leaders from the followers, in this way:

Mind you, I am not upholding the Mormon faith; I consider it the falsest, most hypocritical, and most cruel belief under the sun. Although its founder arrogated to it the title of “church of Jesus Christ” there is nothing Christ like in its teachings or in its practice. Its leaders always have been and still are, supremely selfish, caring only for their personal aggrandizement, disloyal to the government under which they live, treacherous to their friends, revengeful to their foes; insincere, believing nothing which they teach, and tyrannical and grasping in the extreme, taking everything that their lustful eyes may desire, and greedy, grasping hands can clutch, no matter at whose expense it maybe taken, or what suffering the appropriation may cause. But the people them selves have no part in the treachery, revengefulness, hypocrisy, or cupidity of their leaders, and should be judged from an entirely different standpoint. (Kindle Locations 5951-5954).

The Mormon Church will denounce this book and forbid its members to read it. It’s obviously the work of the devil.

Anyone even remotely considering joining Mormonism, however, must read this. If Mormonism is really the only true religion and the Church is the only way to heaven and God, well, what harm could a little vengeful book by a vicious apostate do? Surely God’s word and will must be stronger than that of one little worldly female ex-Mormon.

Burningham does a masterful job of exposing the religion for what it really is: a concoction of an egotistical, licentious, lying and scamming boor of a man, Joseph Smith, kept up at any cost. Mormonism is the grandest Ponzi scheme ever pulled off, masquerading as a business and proliferating because it is such a successful money maker, all under the banner of heaven.