BuzzFlash Reviews

BUZZFLASH REVIEWS

This memoir by a California journalist of her childhood with cruel, brutal Christian fundamentalist parents is profoundly revealing and moving on many levels. It's not meant as a political commentary, but one can't help continually comparing the public hypocrisy of the Christian right with the private Hell that Julia Scheeres endured, along with her adopted brothers, at the hands of "Jesus loving" parents who were -- in effect -- "God fearing" child abusers.

The cumulative result of living in a world where devotion to Jesus was best evidenced by wanton cruelty would have been devastating to us at BuzzFlash. But Julia Sheeres survived to become a San-Francisco based journalist and to write this remarkable recollection of her upbringing. Her soulmate in this horrifying rite of passage was her adopted black brother, David, who her white (natural) parents brought into the family because they thought it was the "Christian" thing to do. Unfortunately for David, his adoptive father also thought beating him with a 2 x 4 -- and other acts of abuse -- was also the "Christian" thing to do.

Julia's voice in the book is one of a survivor who has come to terms, as best she can, with the unfathomable dichotomy of being reared in a home that was devoutly pious and unbearably violent and unforgiving. The book is true, she assures us at the beginning. But after reading it, you would sleep more comfortably if it were fiction.

For quite some time, BuzzFlash has been honoring a Republican as the "GOP Hypocrite of the Week." We had contemplated also developing an award for "Religious Hypocrite of the Week." At times -- it is true -- the categories overlap. But it is rare to find a Bushevik-associated fundamentalist who is not a hypocrite. Not all of them are guilty of the physical cruelty that Julia and her brothers endured in the name of Jesus, but most of them are dysfunctional sinners and hypocrites who believe in absolutism in concept, while deviating from the religious ideals they preach in their own personal behavior. And they are mostly mean, nasty, psychologically abusive dogmatics.

Julia Scheeres offers us a fearless and undeviatingly riveting glimpse into the inside of a "devout Christian" hellhole. And every mistreatment she endured was done in the name of God and his Son, Jesus. It was criminal behavior with a religious justification.

On another website, a reviewer noted: "'Life may not be fair,' says Scheeres toward the end of this marvelous remembrance of her adopted brother, David, 'but when you have someone to believe in, life can be managed, and sometimes, even miraculous.' What a miracle that Jesus Land's lovable duo - bound together by the pain of childhood in an Indiana home ruled by loveless religious zealots - survived their grueling stint at Escuela Caribe, a Dominican Republic reform school/holy-rolling nuthouse that nearly sucked dry their fragile teenage souls. In a spare voice teeming with furious dignity, Scheeres recounts that awful period as she honors David, a gentle, goofy black youngster whose restraint in the face of racism and religious bigotry both inspired and humbled her. Jesus Land will break your heart and mend it again, but it won't! stop haunting you. Grade: A"

As we said, this is a skillfully written and edited memoir, not a political tract. But it is impossible not to move from the shameful and inexplicable brutality of Julia's experience to the larger question of what is really going on in Bush's "base." It's a question that needs to be asked and explored, without the media and elected officials backing off every time some right wing zealot invokes the name of Jesus.

Scheeres is unflinchingly courageous and candid in artfully allowing us into the nightmare of her childhood and teen years. It is an invitation that every BuzzFlash reader who wants to witness what goes on inside some fundamentalist homes should accept. Scheeres knows how to keep the book from being so horrifying that you can't read it, because she never stops believing in the power of living for and connecting with good people who she cares for, particularly her doomed brother David, to whom the book is dedicated.

BUZZFLASH REVIEWS