fathermothergod: My Journey Out of Christian Science

UPDATE: This book was wonderfully written, honest, gripping and painful at times. My interest in it was sparked by the fact that my husband's aunt and his maternal grandfather were Christian Scientists. Another relative of his, though identifying himself as a Chrisian, shares some of the same

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bizarre beliefs about illness - that it only exists in the spiritual realm and can only be rid of through prayer. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in what it is like to grow up in different religions.




I brought this book home from the library the other day, set it on the kitchen table and it disappeared. My son was reading it.. then my daughter grabbed it.. When I finally got to open the book myself (!) I knew why they'd grabbed it from me. Right from the 1st page, the author draws you into her life. Fascinating memoir, though painful to read at times.... Very well written true story. Will update more later...

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I didn’t know much about Christian Science when I started this book except for the fact that they don’t believe in going to doctors that the Lord will heal them however, I did not realize it is the symptoms of an illness or sickness itself that they don’t believe in.

I also don’t understand

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when they say things like have you tried science when referring to Lucia who wants to get her eyes checked, isn’t medicine science? So, I do not understand the name Christian Science when they don’t use Science like going to the doctor.

This book was a rare and fascinating look into a religion that I had little previous knowledge of and Lucia’s narrative on her family and upbringing alternately makes your heartbreak, makes you angry and makes you shake your head in disbelief that anyone could believe some of the things after going through what they went through in the latter part of the book. I felt so bad for Lucia and her siblings but also even through it all, her parents.

What was amazing is how her parent’s belief in this religion impacted the extended family too and how her parents virtually cut themselves off from any non-believer so no one could see what was really happening. Also Lucia confused feelings of wanting to get help for her mother and wanting to protect her parents must have been so hard I don’t know how she stayed sane through it all.

This was a great read and was very hard to put down, if you like memoirs about different religions or dysfunctional families I highly recommend this book it is a fascinating read.

4 Stars

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I did learn quite a bit about Christian Science, how they don't believe in germs or bacteria, Illness means you are not perfect in your faith, there is no death only passing on to a different plane. The author Lucia starts questioning this when she is in middle school and decides not to follow this

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faith but when her mother becomes very ill she is told that it is her fault because of her doubts, when her mother does'nt get well from praying Lucia pushes for her to go to a hospital but she is caught in the middle between respecting her mother and fathers faith and getting her mother the help she needs.

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This is such a sad story! Lucia tells of her childhood and how her parents raised her and her brother and sister in the Christian Science religion. Her father was a Christian Science "Practitioner" and the family moved to London for a few years where the children went to Christian Science boarding

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schools. Most of the book, however, deals with Lucia's mother's illness - which according to Christian Science, does not exist, and the way her family dealt with her illness and death.
I do not understand why anyone would forgo medical care when they are dying just for the sake of a religious belief. It just goes to show that there is a very fine line between religious belief and stupidity - a thought that came to me today when I read about the Tibetan monks who self-immolated as a form of protest.
My favorite quote from the book is from a Presbyterian minister who Lucia spoke to about her mother's illness and Christian Science beliefs and her refusal of medical treatment. He told her "When someone is drowning, he - or she - will grab on to the closest thing in reach. And they will hold on for dear life..., even if that thing doesn't float."

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This book is a great introduction to Christian Science for those who know little about it. Lucia Greenhouse's parents are more extreme in their religion than many others who practice it, but the great majority of this stuff is the norm. I couldn't put it down, but it was also incredibly emotional

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and hard to get through.

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This book is a great introduction to Christian Science for those who know little about it. Lucia Greenhouse's parents are more extreme in their religion than many others who practice it, but the great majority of this stuff is the norm. I couldn't put it down, but it was also incredibly emotional

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and hard to get through.

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This book is a great introduction to Christian Science for those who know little about it. Lucia Greenhouse's parents are more extreme in their religion than many others who practice it, but the great majority of this stuff is the norm. I couldn't put it down, but it was also incredibly emotional

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and hard to get through.

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I really didn't know much about Christian Science when I started reading this book. What I did know was a vague understanding of no birthdays, no doctors and a some sort of cult that Tom Cruise was a part of. I was partially right - but not about the Tom Cruise part.

This is a deeply personal story

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of a daughter coming to grips with choices her parents made and the consequences that the children must pay. This is a story of a family - a close knit family that is pulled apart by religious differences. This is a story of pain and more pain and in the end mostly pain.

Lucia is the middle child of three. When she was little her parents joined the Mother Church - the Church of Christian Science. Their belief is that physical pain is not real, so illness is not real. It can be prayed away - they called it working on a problem. I find it very interesting that science is in the name - yet the deepest tenet of the faith is a complete denunciation of medical science. That was not really explained.

Lucia's father, Heff, believed that Christian Science cured his stuttering. And that was only the beginning. As children, Lucia and her siblings they went to church and went to their large family gatherings. All in this uppercrust extended family were allowed to follow their own path - but no one really addressed it. The problems in Lucia's family came as the children were growing up. When Lucia realized that her headaches were caused by poor eyesight she had a horrible fight with her father just to go to the eye doctor. And when she and her brother had chicken pox she remembered her mom taking her to grandma's for funny tasting applesauce while dad was at work. Those memories piled up and Lucia became very confused!

Even these spats were nothing compared to the all-out, family destroying brawl that was to come.

There are parts of this story that are difficult to read with out hitting someone over the head. I just couldn't understand the blind focus on anything but medicine. It just seems so obvious!!

But, I could understand the dedication they felt to their faith. Heff and Joanne, Lucia's parents, completely and totally believed and couldn't understand their children's lack of faith. It was crystal clear to each side how ridiculous the other was. That understanding was difficult for me - especially when it was the children trying to convince the parents.

Lucia is a great storyteller - her tale winds sometimes - but stays true to the focal point - Christian Science killed her parents. That isn't quite the same as the subtitle on the cover - but I think it's more the true title.

Interesting read.
I would recommend this if you are interested in faith traditions and family dynamics.

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This was heartwrenching. I've always supported a person's right to deny themselves medical care, but this was the first time I've really understood just how cruel that can be to loved ones.

This is a fast, fascinating, and incredibly frustrating read, though I mean that in a good way. I went into this book knowing nothing about Christian Science, and emerged having learned a lot about its practical applications. If you are looking for a book about Christian Science theology (which I

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was most decidedly not), this is not the book for you. It is about one woman's experience growing up in the faith and her subsequent departure from it, so most of what you learn about Christian Science is presented through the eyes of someone who was forced into it and never truly embraced it.

I read this book in about a day; I couldn't put it down. The author lived a charmed life, save for her parents' increasingly bizarre obsession with Christian Science, a religion whose defining feature is rejection of modern medicine. When she was just out of college, her mother became sick, and the author and her siblings (who at that point had all more or less rejected Christian Science) felt compelled to keep her illness a secret from the extended family. This is the basic plot of the book. As a person who is not religious and whose family is deeply indebted to modern medicine, it is at times unbelievably frustrating. The author's decisions do not seem rational (to say nothing of her parents' decisions), but you have to try to view her situation through the eyes of a 20-something who mostly saw her parents as loving, if flawed, people.

I highly recommend this book if you are interested in different religions, particularly fringe religions, and how they impact the lives of their adherents.

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Wow. This book is moving, engrossing and aggravating all at once. Let me say first that I am always astounded by people of unshakable faith, although I don't necessarily understand it, possibly because I don't share it. Christian Science falls in the category of stuff I just don't get. While there

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are CS who do dabble in modern medicine - glasses, crutches, etc. - Greenhouse's family is not one of these. Without giving anything away, I felt alternatively horrified and sympathetic for Greenhouse and her plight. How do you save someone who clearly doesn't want your help? And too, at the end, did her mother change her mind? The question remains ambiguous.

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