Jesus Land: A Memoir by Julia Scheeres

So, I just finished another memoir that I found by glancing through a "Listmania" on Amazon.com. This was a very good but heart-breaking memoir. There was some unexpected foul language used in this book - however, after really getting into the book.... not so unexpected after all.

Julia Scheeres tells her story (and her brothers story) about growing up in the '70's as a white girl with two adopted black brothers, in rural Indiana, and then being sent off to a Christian reform school in the Dominican Republic when their parents didn't seem to have any tolerance for their kids. While religion was heavily pushed both at school and in their home, they rarely find themselves receiving anything that resembles Christian love. Their mother focuses more on church and missionaries then she does her children, and their father, who is never home, administers harsh beatings to her brother, David. This story tells of endless racial tauntings by schoolmates, rape by her oldest adopted brother, and a constant search for real love and a sense of family.

You can read more about this book and the author by going to http://www.juliascheeres.com/. I went to her web site to find out more about her, and to my great sadness (but no surprise), she states she is a "Devout hedonist … agnostic … secular humanist." She states she "lost her religion in degrees". It's sad to think about all the people that really get turned off toward Christians and Christianity because of all the JUNK out there that is labeled "Christian".