Posts by ignatius

New book: Love, Daddy: The True Story of Accused Con Man and Family-Killer Christian Longo. By Carlton Smith. St Martin's Paperbacks. Published October, 2003. List price $6.95.

Just came across this book yesterday. I bought it immediately and just finished it today. JWs are mentioned quite a bit. I have some trouble with the author's thesis but have to agree with some of his conclusions. The author (Carlton Smith) writes:

"In truth, there was a war going on inside of Chris Long--a sort of mini-Armageddon, not so much between the forces of darkness and light, but rather between his deep desire to be in the wordly world, and his lifelong beliefs, encompassed by the teachings of his faith, the Organization, the Watchtower Society of the Jehovah's Witnesses. Those were teachings that were hard to hear, and harder still to follow; stemming from fear, they taught too little of freedom. Focused on the next world, they failed to prepare for this one. In this sense, the Organization has some share of reponsibility for what happened in the Longo family tragedy...The Society's Elder's Guide may prescribe shunning for the likes of a Chris Longo, but in the end it was the faithful MaryJane and her children who paid the ultimate price, cut off and alone, separated from everything that MaryJane had held dear all of her life." (page 273)

He gets some facts about JWs wrong but gets most of them right. It was a book I could not put down.

Ignatius