Ogden Wedlund Kraut (June 21, 1927 – July 17, 2002) was an American polygamist, author and publisher who became best known for his writings about Mormon fundamentalist topics. Kraut was an independent fundamentalist who never joined any fundamentalist group. He published his writings and other historical church writings through his Pioneer Press.
Biography
Early life
Ogden was born in Shelby, Montana, to Johannes Joseph Kraut (1900–1960) and Beatrice Theone Mae Nelson Kraut (1905–1984). His only sibling, Dana Joseph Kraut (1935–2001), was born in Montana on May 7, 1935.
In his late teens, Ogden converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), attended Shelby High School, and worked for the Great Northern Railway Company.
Ogden worked at the Dream (Relief) Mine in Salem, Utah, with Bishop John Hyrum Koyle Jr (1864–1949).
In 1948, Ogden was studying psychology at Brigham Young University.
In September 1948, Ogden began serving as an LDS missionary in the California Mission in southern California & Arizona, where Judge Oscar Walter McConkie Sr (1887–1966; father of Apostle Bruce Redd McConkie) was the mission president. He was one of the last LDS missionaries to serve "without purse or scrip" (financed entirely by donations from the church or from those to whom they taught), and wrote a book about those times. Reflecting on his experiences, he remarked that "there was no cookbook to go by on how to do it. We just went out there and struggled along trying to figure out how to do it the most effective way." He continued by saying that, by the end of the mission, "I felt that I could travel around the world that way... it was easy for me to do," and when asked if he missed meals, his standard response was "no but I've postponed a lot of them." Kraut believed this method of missionary activity to be a commandment, saying that the missionary program started to decline when the Elders "began to rely on the money from home instead of in the Lord. That's not the way it's supposed to be done. They changed the rules on the Lord. He didn't."
In 1952, Ogden won second place in the Rhine Military Post Special Services Photo Contest while spending two years in the U.S. Army stationed at Bad Kreuznach, Germany, as a Signal Corps photographer in the U.S. Occupation Forces.
On May 8, 1953, Ogden married Mona "Louise" McBride (1933–2003) in the LDS Mesa Arizona Temple. They held a wedding reception in her hometown of Pima, Arizona, on the following day. They eventually had five children.
Fundamentalist activities
Ogden developed a testimony of polygamy after studying LDS doctrine and church history. Kraut was set apart as a fundamentalist Seventy by Joseph White Musser (1872–1954; fundamentalist leader in Short Creek) but continued to serve as an LDS Elder.
Ogden waited until 1969 to marry a second wife, Anne B. Wilde. He also married Mildred Lorraine Stahl Nielsen (1935–2015). He had a total of around five wives, although the exact number was never made public.
Kraut wrote books, some self-published, on fundamentalist topics. His 95 Theses, named after the famous document by Martin Luther, includes specific charges against doctrinal changes in the LDS Church. His first breakthrough publication was the book Jesus Was Married in 1969, and he would go on to publish 65 books with his second wife Anne Wilde. He also published books for other people.
Kraut was known to be keeping a distance from the emerging fundamentalist groups. He believed they had no authority to build their own churches and defended his independent lifestyle:
In 1972, Kraut was excommunicated from the LDS Church by Grantsville Stake President Kenneth Clark Johnson Sr (1917–2009) for "apostasy", which included his belief in polygamy. The FBI investigated claims that the church had conducted a wiretapping operation against Kraut.
In 1977, Alex Joseph founded the polygamist group Confederate Nations of Israel, consisting of some 400 members spread throughout the United States, of which only a fourth were living in polygamous families. However, this was not an LDS fundamentalist sect, but rather a confederation of independent "patriarchs" which included Catholics, Protestants, Eastern religionists, atheists, and sexually-active homosexuals in addition to Mormon fundamentalists, the latter forming only a minority. Kraut was initially one of these patriarchs, although he later withdrew.