Keep Sweet Pray and Obey is a true-crime Netflix documentary series about the notorious cult called “Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints” (FLDS) and its leader, Warren Jeffs. The Netflix limited docu-series was released on 8 June 2022 and it is directed by Rachel Dretzin, co-directed and produced by Grace Mcnally.
There are four parts to the docu-series and each episode has a runtime of about 46-53 minutes respectively. The series covers the rise of self-professed prophet Warren Jeffs and his tyrannical control hiding numerous criminal activities happening in the cult.
-Keep Sweet Pray and Obey Review contains mild spoilers-
Start of The Fundamentalists and Warren Jeffs as The Prophet
Before attaining the name, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) was actually called the Fundamentalists and initiated by the believers of the Mormon religion. While the Mormons banned polygamy, the Mormon Fundamentalists still practised polygamy in secret. Out of that splinter sect, Rulon Jeffs, the son of a first-generation Mormon fundamentalist has ordained a High Priest Apostle. From then on began the expansion of the now called ‘cult’.
The leader was called Prophet and was considered equivalent to God. Polygamy was considered to be a core concept of the religion as it was believed the more women a man married, the closer he would get to God. If you wanted to attain the highest degree then you would have to have 3 wives. And if you reach the highest degree, you will be able to create spirit children, world, galaxies, universe or ultimately a God in oneself.
Rulon Jeffs was made the president of the church in 1986 and it was believed that he would never die since he is the prophet. But as all humans do, he died of old age in 2002. That’s when the known criminal and disgraced leader Warren Jeffs comes into the picture, who took over the role of the prophet through some strategic deception, claiming to have been possessed by his father’s spirit. Surprisingly, the religion had really flourished under Rulon’s leadership but drastically went downhill within a few years since Warren took power.
Keep Sweet Pray and Obey, No Matter What
One of the key sayings by the prophet Rulon was, keep sweet no matter what as that’s the road to perfection. He would repeatedly say ‘keep sweet’ to all the young girls and 65 of his wives. ‘Keep sweet and pray’ was engraved on all the official buildings and even on the sole of his shoes. The words essentially meant to remain in control of your emotions at all times. FLDS expected women to act in a certain way, essentially docile, obedient and ready to serve the prophet in whatever way he saw fit.
Women within the religion were seen as an object of possession or commodity. They were raised only with the purpose of them becoming wives and mothers. In fact, the followers didn’t even have the authority to marry on their own accord. It was arranged by the prophet as he would decide who will marry whom and even swap wives from one man to another.
In the first episode, we are introduced to the Wall family, who converted to FLDS. Lloyd Wall, the father of the family had two wives, Sharon and Myrna and collectively they had 23 children. One of the daughters, Rebecca Walls was married off to Rulon Jeffs (who was 83 years old) at 19 and became one of his 65 wives. And in exchange for handing over his daughter to Jeffs, Lloyd was gifted with a third wife.
When Warren Jeffs took over the cult, he even married all of his father’s wives except two. That’s an extreme case of mama’s boy. He even formulated new rules like uniform dressing for everyone, what kind of hairstyle they should have, what they should study and others, in order to gain complete authority over everyone. Warren was made prophet in 2002 but soon after in 2006 he was declared a fugitive and arrested on account of sexually assaulting minors.
Like Rebecca Walls, a few ex-members who left the cult tell their side of the story either being involved with Warren Jeffs or being in the cult under his leadership and what went down during that period. The biggest reason for his downfall was marrying off 12-13-year-old minor girls to older men and exploiting them. Jeffs himself had 78 wives, 24 of whom were underage.
Final Thoughts: A Gruesome Reality That Still Exists
Watching the documentary Keep Sweet Pray and Obey on Netflix might feel like something that had happened in the past until you reach the last part and realise that FLDS is still going strong with its leader, Warren Jeffs (who has been given life imprisonment), still disseminating his sermons and words from prison. Even the ex-members giving interviews left the religion quite recently in 2015 or 2018 which makes it even more surreal and horrifying.
The series is a definite watch and a testimony that such things can happen in the modern era. The story stitched together by its creators through old photographs, archival footage and re-enactment are commendable. The re-enacted parts don’t seem overly dramatic or different from the archives and perfectly blend together.
But one question comes to my mind, maybe this documentary wouldn’t exist if only some people haven’t decided to leave or be removed from the community. Most of the members are in the outside world due to unfavourable situations they encountered. If things had been up to their standard then maybe even they would still be in FLDS.
Keep Sweet Pray and Obey is streaming on Netflix.
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