God’s Perfect Child: Living and Dying in the Christian Science Church
Founded by Mary Baker Eddy in 1879, Christian Science has affected the lives of millions of Americans. In this unflinching investigation, Caroline Fraser, herself raised in a Scientist household, traces the growth of the Church from a small, eccentric sect into a politically powerful and socially respectable religion that has gained extraordinary legal and congressional sanction for its practices. Fraser takes us into the closed world of Christian Scientists, who refuse to acknowledge the existence of illness and death even at the expense of their children’s lives. And she explores the human cost of Christian Science's remarkable rise.
"New...Startling...Fraser has an eye and ear for the kind of detail that can help readers make up their own minds about an always-controversial American religious expression."--Martin Marty, The Boston Globe
"Penetrating...A work of compelling skepticism and scholarship."--The New Yorker
"Splendid."--Philip Zaleski, The New York Times Book Review
"A work of impassioned rationality...Important and profoundly disturbing."--Susan Jacoby, Newsday