fathermothergod: My Journey Out of Christian Science

Greenhouse, Lucia. fathermothergod: My Journey Out of Christian Science. New York: Broadway Paperbacks, 2011.

Lucia Greenhouse’s memoir is her sad story of her mother’s death at age 50 from what she thinks might have been medically treatable cancer. Her father, a Christian Science practitioner and authorized teacher, supported her mother’s decision to have Christian Science treatment and to keep her illness a secret from their families, church, and friends. Admittedly, Lucia never understood her parents’ faith, but their practice of Christian Science from a literal, absolute basis where radical reliance for healing could not be questioned, frustrated and angered her.  During her mother’s illness, both parents feared the “mental malpractice” (a Christian Science teaching that the negative thoughts of others can be harmful) of their relatives. Even their three children were excluded from all but the necessary awareness of their mother’s suffering. The tragedy of her mother’s illness and death was compounded by the spin the children had to live with. Lucia was never able to reconcile their perfect Spirit-world and the world of her childhood diseases, her need for glasses, and being different from others. Her father persisted in his extremist views and moved to Colorado, Lucia surmises, to be involved with the Endtime Center (a non-Church sanctioned organization) shortly before his death in 2001.

ISBN-10: 0307720926
ISBN-13 (softcover): 9780307720931
ISBN-13 (hardcover): 9780307720924