Laake wrote of her marriage at the age of nineteen and the reasons she and other Mormon women often feel pressured into such early unions. While its methods of worship and most of its doctrines vary only slightly from those of other Christian faiths, it is reported that some adherents still practice polygamy and there are secret church ceremonies that members are foresworn not to reveal.įormer Mormon Deborah Laake broke that rule in her 1993 book, Secret Ceremonies: A Mormon Woman's Intimate Diary of Marriage and Beyond. Since its inception in the first half of the nineteenth century, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has been surrounded by controversy. Jami Carpenter is a freelance editor for Stephens Press, former host of Vegas PBS Book Club talk show and co-author of “Education in the Neon Shadow.Deborah Laake was raised as a member of the LDS Church. Though “fathermothergod” is Greenhouse’s story, it resonates with anyone wanting to understand another’s beliefs, or trying to understand his or her own.

Finally, faced with their own mother’s “error in thinking” (the Christian Science explanation for illness), Lucia and her siblings rebel against their parents in an attempt, though futile, to save their mother’s life, and in the process, lose their father’s acceptance. Yet internally, Lucia struggles to accept her parents’ belief system, confronted time and again with information contrary to the teachings.

The family is well-dressed, well-fed, well-mannered. To onlookers, the Greenhouse family is “normal”: The children attend school, birthday parties, sleepovers, summer camp. Greenhouse explains to us and tries to understand herself, first through a child’s eyes, and then as a young woman, why her own parents - both educated and intelligent - not only condoned the tenets of the religion, but dedicated their lives, and the lives of their three children, to its practice. Like many, I had heard that Christian Scientists do not believe in medicine they do not visit doctors or take any prescriptions, even over-the-counter pain relievers.

I had not, however, read anything - fiction or non - involving Christian Science, until “fathermothergod,” Lucia Greenhouse’s very painful and very personal account of growing up within this lesser-known faith. In Geraldine Brooks’ “People of the Book,” we are taken on a journey in search of a rare book of Judaism. Barbara Kingsolver’s “The Poisonwood Bible” tells the story of a Baptist preacher and his family spreading the word in the Congo jungle. Anne Lamott’s “Traveling Mercies” and “Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith” explore Christianity. In “Secret Ceremonies,” Deborah Laake tries to makes sense of herself and her Mormon faith. I’ve read many books about people finding themselves through religion or breaking free from their religious upbringing.

Secret ceremonies by deborah laake