Most Helpful Customer Reviews
30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Don't they know it's the end of the world..., September 18, 2008
This review is from: The Spanking Room: A Child's Eye View of the Jehovah's Witnesses (Paperback)
"Why does the sun go on shining?
Why does the sea rush to shore?
Don't they know it's the end of the world..."
(from The End of the World - Dee/Kent)
In this heart-rending memoir, the author shares with us his experiences as a young boy growing up under the influence of the religious group known as the Jehovah's Witnesses.
His mother converted to the religion while he was a toddler, having found something in the teachings that she could identify with, and soon became totally consumed by the doctrine that Armageddon was nigh, and that only the Jehovah's Witnesses would move on to greener pastures. Although she raised her two children with uncompromising fervor that could only be classified as abuse, it can be seen that she truly believed that without her intervention, her family was marked for certain death when the time finally came.
His father resisted conversion, and tried to save the marriage, but in my understanding of the book, he did not seem to try hard enough to protect his sons from abuse, simply by not being there when they needed him.
Conflicted, confused, shunned and shamed, the author grew up in the faith hoping to earn love and compassion from his mother, but at the same time, common sense was telling him that there was something wrong with the philosophy that man's interpretation of the Holy Bible should take precedence over the actual word of the Almighty. Indeed, the concept that a religious body would condone the physical punishment of young children by actually constructing a special room for that purpose seems to indicate that they stopped reading the well known verse after the words "Suffer the little children to come unto me" (Mark 10:14)
This revealing memoir does not go into great detail about the hierarchy of the religion, and only briefly touches on "The Great Disappointment" and the various reinterpretations of the actual date for the end of the world, but instead speaks volumes on how this belief affects the lives of the faithful followers who know in their hearts that it's only a matter of time.
Amanda Richards, September 18, 2008
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Trust No One: Welcome to Armageddon, September 6, 2008
This review is from: The Spanking Room: A Child's Eye View of the Jehovah's Witnesses (Paperback)
William Coburn has written a brave memoir of his grotesque childhood at the hands of a newly converted Jehovah's Witness - his mother - whose conversion when Coburn was 4 years old not only destroyed his family, but began a fourteen year history of physical and emotional abuse all in the name of religion. His candor in writing style and his excellent judgment in not sensationalizing his story makes for not only entertaining reading, but informative investigation into a religious group known to most of us as those annoying folks who knock on our doors on weekends with their 'Awake' and 'Watchtower' pamphlets ready to intrude into our lives. This is a fascinating read, one easily digested in an evening, and one that supplies information not readily found elsewhere.
Billy Coburn lived with his father, his older brother Joe, and his mother in Redding, Connecticut, a happy and normal family until at age four Billy's mother announced 'We're never going to die!' - the indicator that she had just converted to the Watchtower Society or Jehovah's Witnesses. From that point on his life became a series of confusing beatings, restricted activity, enforced attendance at meetings in the local Kingdom Hall where mothers were encouraged to drag their children out by the hair to go to the spanking room for a beating if they so much as daydreamed or did not show complete involvement in the interminable Elders interpreting the Bible according to the Watchtower version. The doctrine that the end of the world (Armageddon) was coming any day and that ONLY members of Jehovah's Witnesses would survive Jehovah's killing of all 'worldly non-members' terrified the followers into submission and encouraged the Witnesses to spend their time trying to convert the world to their strange brand of belief in order to gain points with the Kingdom Hall. Billy's home life became a constant series of beatings from his radical mother while his non-Jehovah's Witness father tried to maintain some semblance of normalcy with his children. Jehovah's Witnesses are not allowed to celebrate holidays of any sort except the Memorial (the Last Supper) because Easter, Christmas, birthdays etc are the work of the devil and encourage demons to enter homes, trying to discourage believers in the Watchtower Society to defect. Billy suffers humiliation at school, has few friends, and finally confronts his mother, after his father has divorced her, that he refuses to buy into the religion force fed him throughout his growing years. Billy finally separates from his mother's madness and finds a wife and creates a family and it is from this safe haven that he is able to write this exposé of his direct exposure to Jehovah's Witnesses.
William Coburn writes well, using a style of friendly sharing, mixing personal vernacular with pure narrative in a manner that enhances his revelations about this sect of people and their beliefs. His ability to draw his own family's images so carefully that we feel we know them is a gift for a writer so close to the subject matter of his story. THE SPANKING ROOM (subtitled 'A Child's Eye View of the Jehovah's Witnesses') is an excellent book, especially for those many of us who know so little about this group. Recommended reading. Grady Harp, September 08
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Cruelty in the name of love and faith, September 1, 2008
This review is from: The Spanking Room: A Child's Eye View of the Jehovah's Witnesses (Paperback)
Here's a memoir about a boy raised by a definitely psychotic or at least deeply neurotic woman who used her religion as a cudgel to treat her son with unspeakable mental and physical cruelty. She was extremely devious in the ways she abused her son (lying to the father, who was all to glad to be hands-off in his raising of his son.)
The sad thing is how the son keeps waiting for his "fairy real-mother" to show up, you know, the nice one, the reasonable one, and for his "real" father to show up and rescue him. But the predictable happens instead (father absents himself further and Mom is still the everyday evil one.)
The book is not primarily a diatribe against Jehovah's Witnesses. The author does discuss briefly the principles as he was taught, about the 144,000 chosen ones and "the great crowd", and "The Great Disappointment." This is more a memoir about child abuse and how one boy managed to find his own way out of it and into his own family and learned how to love his own children in a way he never was able to be loved. So it's about salvation in a way, the salvation of finding what you need in giving it to others.
I'm recommending the book not only for a memoir about child abuse (which could help some survivors) but also for the last chapter, the epilogue, which describes how Coburn found his way out of his nightmare early years. I think this could be very helpful to a number of people as well as merely an interesting, if horrific memoir.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
