Leaving the witness Exiting a religion and finding a life

Review by New York Times Review

THOUGH RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM has surged globally in recent decades, the anti-intellectualism of these authoritarian movements, their staunch refusal to cede ground to reason and empiricism, often confounds nonbelievers. How can people devote the totality of their lives to the unseen, the unevidenced? How can faith subsume thinking? But reason is a poor weapon against the believer whose very religious identity springs from an embrace of the unreasonable. Many fundamentalists are conscious of the seeming absurdity of their position, but it is precisely the stridency of their faith, their ability to withstand the irrational, that confirms for them their exceptionalism and salvation. They reject modernity's demystification project and instead construct meaning in the supernatural. Their faith becomes very thick armor indeed, one that even the sharpest Enlightenment rationalism won't penetrate. But the stunted psychology of those raised in extreme religion is another problem altogether. For these children, there is no obvious forfeiture of common sense or flight from existential chaos that informs adult conversion. Rather, they experience a totalizing indoctrination that so severely limits the formation of an adult psychology that many don't ever achieve maturity in the way secular society conceives of it, a state of empowered capability that permits complex life choices, a state in which contradictory ideas can be held in tension without psychic recoil. Instead, the fundamentalist child, raised on fear and limitation, lives a life of diminished options, constrained by strict dualisms: black and white, good and bad, God and Satan, and (perhaps most alarmingly for the broader culture) us and them. Amber Scorah's memoir, "Leaving the Witness," is the account of a third-generation Jehovah's Witness finally able to muster the emotional and intellectual resources necessary to leave the sect once she reaches her 30s. As a freedom story, hers is of particular note and value because the Jehovah's Witnesses are a secretive and self-contained organization, known to most only as cheerful proselytizers who knock on doors and refuse to celebrate birthdays. Established in the 1870s by Charles Taze Russell, this millenarian movement rejected Christian doctrines it deemed extratextual, including trinitarianism and hell, instead preaching a dubious return to apostolic Christianity. Like many 19th-century Christian denominations, it reacted to the scientific age with intensified literalism and supernatural faith claims, granting Scripture the ultimate authority. As the Witnesses consolidated and organized, they formed a strict hierarchy topped by an eight-member, allmale governing body; a prolific and wealthy publishing empire; and a following of eight million members who actively proselytize, warning of an imminent Armageddon. Witnesses are forbidden to socialize outside the organization; higher education is discouraged; and questioning doctrine is an offense punishable by disfellowshipping, or shunning. Understandably, given the hermetically sealed nature of the sect and the shattering designation of apostate applied to those who dare question the organization, memoirs of departure have been few. A Witness who leaves the cult stands to lose everything. And, as Scorah makes exceedingly clear, she did survive a cult. Growing up in Vancouver, she was the child of an alcoholic father and distant mother, both of whom were Jehovah's Witnesses. Scorah's grandmother was the agent of indoctrination, bringing the author and her sister to the Kingdom Hall for services. There, Scorah was repeatedly warned that the end of the world was nigh, that Witnesses alone would survive on an earthly paradise, and that all others would be consigned to what's called the common grave - extinction, or nonbeing. Though unusual in that she "strayed" sexually and experienced disfellowshipping at a young age, Scorah was reinstated when deemed properly repentant, and fell quickly in step with established doctrine, ultimately marrying a devout Witness for whom she felt little romantic or sexual interest. When she and her husband eventually journeyed to China as missionaries, Scorah was fully indoctrinated, "as confident in my mission as a suicide bomber." ironically, given the primacy of love in most religious doctrines, it is often love - destabilizing, transformative and messily human - that represents the greatest threat to extremist indoctrination. Knowing this, authoritarian organizations like the Jehovah's Witnesses exert tremendous effort to curtail the intermingling of believer with nonbeliever. After all, religious absolutism is no match for the handshake, the shared meal, the neighborly conversation, the kiss. So it was with Scorah. In China, where the denomination is outlawed, she cultivated secular friendships for the first time in order to secretly proselytize. She went to dinners, invited people out for excursions and gradually began to ask questions that come naturally to those not born into cults: How do you live your life? What is your religion about? Do you even believe in God? Ultimately, it was through an email correspondence with a man that Scorah found the courage to court apostasy, focusing on the contradictions in Witness doctrine, its misogyny, and how its promotion of ignorance and lack of education undermines any sense of personal choice, rendering the word almost meaningless. When this email affair turned physical, Scorah was finally able to extricate herself from both a loveless marriage and a life-consuming cult. Her memoir, most valuable as an artifact of how one individual can escape mind control, tracks this transformation from zealous believer to apostate. Scorah's book, the bravery of which cannot be overstated, is an earnest one, fueled by a plucky humor and a can-do spirit that endears. Her tale, though an exploration of extremity, is highly readable and warm. However, her straightforward, unadorned prose, which many will admire, feels not so much intentionally accessible as the product of a mind still forming the ability to see the secular world, one not trained in the speculative that is the foundation of poetry and lyricism. Given the painfully restricted life she led until her 30s, this is entirely understandable, yet remains artistically limiting. Likewise, there are unfortunate ellipses in the text, especially at moments of particular heat - the death of her father, the tryst with her lover, the argument that ends her marriage - that seem a product of two problems equally: a young writer's struggle to consistently sculpt narrative movement, and the remnants of a Christian modesty not well suited to the task of memoir. While too many memoirists appear willing to fling anyone under the publishing bus, reticence can be equally troubling. Scorah would do well in her next literary outing to occupy a bolder space between ethic and revelation, perhaps the memoirist's trickiest task. And, hopefully, there will be another memoir. Many readers know Scorah through her viral article in The New York Times about the death of her son on his first day of day care. Though the introduction of this material in the final chapter conflicts tonally with what precedes it, her description of that loss in terse, blunted prose is deeply moving. Suddenly, we see an emerging writer come into full emotional expression. This, one senses, is her brutal but beautiful route into a new book - a shorter, wiser one, sharp and devastating. Here she reveals a chastened existence, steeped in grief and unknowing without recourse to pacifying religious answers. It is precisely through this unknowing, and her ability to bear it alongside the loss of her son, that Scorah most effectively accomplishes what her book sets out to do. She teaches us how integrity is determined not by assenting to the juvenile claims of fundamentalism, but by enduring the universe as we find it - breathtaking in its ecstasies and vicious in its losses - without recourse to a God. Given the enormity of her grief and the wholesale collapse of her previous belief system, the intellectual integrity that Scorah displays is nothing short of a miracle. C.E. MORGAN is the author of "The Sport of Kings," which was a finalist for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize. She teaches at Harvard Divinity School.

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [July 21, 2019]

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

In her impressive debut, Scorah recounts her years as a Jehovah's Witness in China, her decision to leave the faith, and her ongoing spiritual questioning. In 2005, Scorah and her husband left Vancouver for Taipei before volunteering to move to Shanghai, where being a Jehovah's Witness could get them deported. There, they worked as English teachers and private tutors, covertly preaching their doctrines of impending apocalypse to Chinese citizens and expats they meet. Eventually, Scorah found a job working on a podcast, and through her work and interactions with a man she met online, she began to question her religion. After revealing the intimate friendship to her husband, Scorah decided she needed to leave him and was shunned by her family and friends. Scorah's prose is straightforward, and she has a winning sense of humor about how much she's changed: "We gave up any hope of a career all for the sake of saving these people, and goddammit-no pun intended-we were very concerned about their destruction." Scorah provides a rare glimpse into the insular world of the Jehovah's Witnesses, and her accounts of expat life and leaving her faith should give this candid memoir wide appeal. (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

Scorah, an essayist and editor for Scholastic, pens a debut chronicling her experiences as a Jehovah's Witness. The author describes her tumultuous beginnings, from an unstable home life with an alcoholic father to being ostracized as a teen for an inappropriate relationship. Along the way, she offers valuable insight into the psychosocial structure of Witness life. Scorah, influenced heavily by extended family pressure, fails to flee the institution and, instead, embraces its safety through a convenient marriage and travel to China as a missionary. Scorah finds Witnessing in China to be secretive and isolating, yet she thrives after finding employment as a podcaster. Her religious convictions falter after an involved online correspondence with a fan intensifies. Life unravels, and Scorah walks away from her loveless marriage and the Jehovah's Witnesses community, apologetically. The author's life slowly evolves, but not without further heartbreak. Scorah's closing pages fast forward to the unimaginable--the tragic death of her infant son and the pain of trying to find solace when one's faith has gone quiet. VERDICT A compelling story offering insight into the Jehovah's Witnesses, their mission work, and the hardships a former believer faces as an apostate.--Angela Forret, Clive, IA

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Scorah, an editor at Scholastic, debuts with the story of her life in, and after, the Jehovah's Witnesses.Having been born into the church, the author went on to become one of its missionaries to China; the most fascinating portions of her memoir describe her years in Shanghai. Scorah paints the picture of an innocent and unquestioning young girl who grew up to be a more independent, yet socially impaired, adult. Following a protracted teenage tryst that caused her to be ostracized from the church for a time, she married a man she did not love and found escape and meaning as a missionary, reaching out to whomever she could find to teach Jehovah's Witness doctrine. The author is adept in her portrayals of the conflict in cultures she discovered in China and in relaying the challenges she faced as a Westerner trying to convert people in a foreign country. A lengthy online affair with a man who became driven to prove her religion wrong led Scorah to have doubts and eventually begin the process of leaving her husband and then the churchand thus most everything she had ever known. The author eventually found new work and friendships in Shanghai, and she later relocated to New York. Her work is well-written, and only occasionally does the author delve too heavy-handedly into salacious tell-all territory. Mostly, she provides an eye-opening account of how Jehovah's Witnesses live and operate. Sadly, the tale lacks a happy ending, as the author would lose her 4-month-old son. "When I arrived at lunch [at daycare] to nurse him, he was dead," she writes in the heartbreaking final section. "No one could tell me why, or what had happened." The narrative ends on a note of near-despair, with only a glimmer of hope. "I have called a truce with the unknown," writes Scorah, "and I am learning to live with the disquiet."An intriguing read about a mysterious religion. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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The first thing I saw when I arrived in Shanghai was a fight on the street. People had extracted themselves from the masses on all sides to watch, standing like awkward party guests. Cyclists held up their black bicycles by the handlebars, pedestrians dallied, their hands full of thin plastic bags from the market. As the momentum of the city pushed against those who were stationary, people spilled over onto the street, like water around rocks. Our taxi driver slowed the car to look. In the center of the crowd, a man and a woman were arguing. The people who had paused to take in this (as I would come to learn) common spectacle were silent as the parties involved shouted, laying out their dispute. No fist was raised--­though fights on the street were common in Shanghai, at least in those days when tension felt so high, they rarely came to blows--­and no intervention was undertaken by the crowd. But the two piqued bodies were electric, their muscles tensed with adrenaline and the faces above them contorted in pent-­up ­anger. This restraint was more arresting than a punch or shove would have been. A slap of flesh to cheekbone would have provided a moment of relief; a blow would have forced a climax, a gasp, some kind of release, after which the paused city could transform itself back into its loud moving swarm. Bodies would move on, shopping bags would sag to rest on kitchen counters. But this simmering, unrequited tension, it was in the bones of the place. It boiled in arguments on streets, in the alleys of the hutongs sitting stubbornly in the shadows of the developers who waited to bulldoze them, and in the posture of the old men who spat at the ground as a Ferrari passed. It was a pressure that surrounded you and lodged in your head and became your own tension. If ever a place set the stage for a confrontation of any kind, Shanghai did: a theater in which you were occasionally the spectator in the crowd, or, by turns, the person in the middle, fighting. Things hadn't blown up for me yet, of course. My husband and I had just come in over the Lupu Bridge from the airport, and on the smooth white polyester backseat of a taxi we had been whisked through six lanes of light green taxis and loaded trailer trucks, over shining new bridges full of a thousand years of promise looking down at the slow-­moving, ancient brown rivers. Our car was in the old concessions of Shanghai when we came across this scene, creeping among a patchwork of crumbling European architecture bordered by bland high-­rise complexes, all skirted by the life and labor that kept twenty million people eating, moving, and surviving in a metropolis that seemed to have no end, and no discernible way out. For me, there was no excitement like that which could be generated by a move around the world. This was the third time I had done it. Swapping a life in one place for a new life in another created an energy capable of invigorating even people like us, who were tired of living with each other. I had begged my husband to move to China for years. I was not allowed to leave him, so perhaps if I left enough places with him, it would suffice. And I had longed for China. I had dreamed of being here so audibly and adamantly that the dream drove me into Chinese class and came out of my mouth contorted in the form of sounds like "zh," "xi," and "yun"--­articulations that made my cheek muscles ache with the effort. My husband wasn't one for dreaming on his own, and he was content where he was, but I yearned for China like a death drive. In the eyes of all the people I cared about, I ended up just that: dead. But my goal was not death, it was life--­other people's lives. I had been trying to save lives seventy hours a month for years as a missionary of sorts (what we called "pioneering") in my hometown of Vancouver, Canada, knocking at doors to warn people, people who didn't care, doors that opened (if they opened at all) to disdain, to anger, to apathy, and in the best cases, to a sort of bemused tolerance. I had dedicated my life to save from a fiery Armageddon the inhabitants of my self-­satisfied West Coast city, a population of people who cared very little about the impending death they faced. This unwelcomed work was made easier because I had friends who did it with me, and we went door-to-door, in all weather, drinking Starbucks coffees and noting down who was not at home on our Watchtower-­issue lined paper sheets, returning the next week to more closed doors, indulging in an occasional smugness, knowing that they would regret their apathy one day. It was work without pay but done alongside eight million people around the world who were trained week in and week out, and all believed exactly the same things I had been taught as a little girl. As futile as this work might sound, we had given up any thought of building a life in the world we had been born into, because this world was ending. Soon, we would live in paradise, on Earth, and God would bring destruction on those who were not of our faith. It was our duty to save them, or if not save, at least warn them. We were very invested in the trade-­off we had made. We gave up any hope of a career, or education, financial security, and certain relationships, all for the sake of saving these people, and goddammit--­no pun intended--­we were very concerned about their impending destruction. You wanted to save just one of these uppity, self-­satisfied people for your trouble. I can use the "we" and speak with such certitude of a collective of over eight million people because we all believed without a shadow of a doubt that this paradise would soon be ours. And thus, week by week, I took the card given to me by the elders in the congregation, on which was a map of the territory I was to cover, and was assigned a partner to work with. I went door-to-door, preaching throughout my community, giving my sermons, handing out my publications, and noting down house numbers and symbols on the lined record forms tucked into the map's plastic pouch. "NH" for not home. "B-CA" for busy, call again. "DNC" for do not call (if someone was especially threatening). Those householders who told me that they weren't interested or, worse yet, hid behind the curtain, pretending they weren't home, I simply scratched off till the next month, when they'd get another chance. In this way, I kept knocking, surprised every year that I was still here in this doomed world, and that these people in the big houses were still alive. In time, I discovered that Chinese immigrants in my city were slightly more willing to hear me out, and I began to try to learn their language so as to teach them "the truth." I derived meaning from the busy activity of my life and from my friends in the close community of fellow preachers around me. The organization and these people and this service were what held my life in place and gave it its purpose, even if no one listened. I had been trained from birth to never stray from this hub of belief, this safety. My life depended on it. Given the possibility that I might meet one interested person in these thousands of hours of preaching, I did a lot of preparation. I attended the five required meetings a week held in our congregation, where we studied the Bible and were trained in how to convert people to our interpretation of it. I read all the appointed materials and underlined the correct answers to questions cited below the paragraphs. Who the author of these materials was, I did not know, other than that the writings came from a Governing Body of men in Brooklyn who were the unquestioned leaders of us, God's people, men whose duty it was to give us our spiritual food at the proper time. Our meetings followed the same structure every week, and were the same around the world. The conductor of the meeting read out the questions from a magazine written by the Governing Body. No matter what the question--­be it: "Why does God permit suffering?"--­the paragraph had the answer. Was the question: "Why do we die?" We had all the answers to the unsettling aspects of being human, there in our literature. The brother asking the questions was so good at reading the questions he became convinced, no doubt, that he was questioning. And studying hard, we found the answers we wanted there before us. This constant study and easy answers to any and all questions was satisfying, a luxury available only to the in­doctrinated, and I won't say I don't miss it, like any luxury to which one has become accustomed. This kind of peace of mind bred a certain self-­confidence, a certainty of purpose. I did not fear leaving my home and ­moving far away, to this Communist country, a place where my religion had been banned since the 1950s, a place where those who went against the government were frequently "dis­appeared" or executed. I was doing God's will, and even if I died for doing it, I would have life everlasting on a paradise Earth after all those self-­satisfied worldly people were killed. And so I was in China on this day in 2005, riding in a taxi, our suitcases in the trunk packed with Bibles stuffed into socks and study books shoved into pairs of underwear. We knew very little about how our religion functioned here, if it did at all. The brothers in charge in Hong Kong who had approved us to come and serve here had simply told us that everything would be made clear, but not until we arrived. I knew nothing about how we would worship and preach in Shanghai, or what my life would look like, because anyone who knew was for­bidden to tell so as not to endanger the people doing the work. As we carved our way between the rows and rows of vehicles and I looked at the thousands of faces we passed, I wondered how many Jehovah's Witnesses, foreign and local, might be in this city. The taxi turned into a driveway and we found ourselves in a drop-­off area surrounded by eight massive buildings holding up the lives of thousands of people lived midair, buttressed on all sides by hundreds of other buildings that looked more or less like them. Our friends Jay and Emma had come to China a couple months before us, also to preach. Before that, the four of us had lived in Taiwan for three years; we had moved there to improve our limited Mandarin. My husband and I had arrived in Taipei at the peak of the SARS epidemic, and rented a room from a sister in the congregation who had been left the apartment by her blind parents. She and her sister lived in the dark, even though they could see--­the windows were blacked out, and the sisters rarely turned a light on. Excerpted from Leaving the Witness: Exiting a Religion and Finding a Life by Amber Scorah All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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