Book Reviews
Readers share their thoughts, reactions, and reflections.
(Upcoming Book "Leaving the Faith oof our Fathers" coming soon.
Reviews on "Leaving the Faith of our Fathers."
By Lois Kazakoff, deputy editor of San Francisco Chronicle, retired:
The day one recognizes beliefs learned at home no longer make sense is often painful, lonely, even sorrowful. Lois Requist chronicles her journey from believer to non-believer in a memoir about growing up in rural Idaho.
Now in her 80s, Requist recounts how religion was central to her family’s social activities and community life. When Requist was 12, her mother moved the family from a church that preached sin and damnation to a church that promised heaven on earth. Requist readily embraced the “kingdom message,” relieved she could put aside constant fear of roasting in hell.
When she married and moved away from her small town and hard-working family, the “kingdom message” gradually was revealed as flawed, even harmful. She began questioning her beliefs. She asked her mother and four siblings about why they believed as they did. An emotional chasm opened up and annual visits home ended in tears.
She had left the faith. She never had wanted to leave her family.
Requist’s personal story resonates as our nation grapples with deeply divisive political views that leave many Americans wondering: What do we believe and how do we move forward as a nation?
By Anne Grodin
Leaving the Faith of Our Fathers is one woman’s discovery of self worth and independent thinking.
As a small-town girl she grew up in a life that revolved around a very conservative church-going Christian family. This is the life-long journey of an 80+year-old woman who in childhood was fearful of burning in hell forever, and how she became a businesswoman, corporate wife, mother, college graduate, community volunteer, and creative writer.
Leaving one’s roots is never easy, but do we really leave or just change as each new experience is added to our life’s journey? Requist’s story is a modern day treatise of womanhood. She admits that “I’ve moved away from the faith of our fathers to a broader, more open, spacious, and free world. It had to be”.
Honest and thought-provoking, this story starts with her parents and siblings in lock step to the Christian Right way of thinking. It travels through her husband’s traditional view of marriage, and along the way it is shaped by circumstance, “troubles,” and by feminism. With rare insights into her family history, Requist’s memoir is a voyage of self discovery.
She tells of her intellectual awakening in discovering and writing poetry — while achieving her college and masters degree . Yet as she describes it, the simple lessons taught by her mother long ago to recognize, “the good in people that you don’t agree with is the beginning of respect. The basics of what mother taught us about goodness still exists,” even in today’s polarized society. The lesson that can be learned is that if there is simple respect for one another, even though one cannot understand or abide by their decisions, with respect, there can still be harmony.
By Gayle Vasser
“I was eleven the night I pulled my sin-ridden body toward the altar to once again beg for God’s forgiveness and mercy.”
Thus begins Lois Requist’s memoir, “Leaving the Faith of Our Fathers” Requist captures the reader’s attention with her clear-eyed depiction of her early years in small town Idaho in the 1940s and 1950s, part of a large family of meager means.
Her memories first appear to be simple ones, a sepia-toned account of Sunday dinners with extended family, and a child yearning for an extra nickel so she, too, could buy candy at the corner store.
But there was a darkness at the edge of Requist’s childhood - an angry father who raged in the face of his failures, a music instructor who molested young Lois under the guise of checking her breathing during clarinet lessons.
When her family left the Nazarene Church with its focus on sin and suffering for one that embraced a “Kingdom Message,” young Lois was at first relieved. She was no longer destined for Hell. Over time, she learned that her family’s new religion was based on the idea that the White Europeans who came to America in the 1800s were destined to settle the land and start a Christian nation. The enemy was no longer sin – it was the government, that sought to control these true believers. More troubling was the movement’s belief that Jews controlled centers of power – the media, banks, money and much of the government – and none of those institutions were to be trusted.
Requist is clear she finds the tenets of the Kingdom Message abhorrent. At the same time, she provides insight into why others embrace the message as they find comfort in believing they are part of something destined and special, especially when they feel left behind by society.
For Requist, travel and higher education provided the pathway to a broader life. She continues to visit her family in Idaho but acknowledges that they have little in common besides their shared childhood memories. There is a touch of wistfulness in addressing the divide between her and her siblings, but a satisfaction also in forging her own way.
“Leaving the Faith of Our Fathers – A Lifetime Journey” is a memoir for our divisive times. Requist illustrates that it is possible to distance oneself from beliefs that are anathema without abandoning the people who hold those beliefs. And she encourages the reader to continue their own journey toward understanding those who may believe differently, by listening, reading and experiencing life.
By James W. White - author of Giants, The First State, and other stories.
Leaving The Faith of our Fathers chronicles a life story of resilience undeterred by traditions and obligations. Author Lois Requist writes in a clear and honest style that doesn’t take herself too seriously. Requist’s journey starts from a childhood built on unquestioning faith in her small rural town and follows her unique path that led to a fulfilling life as an emancipated mother, author, poet, and civic leader. Her story’s challenges and accomplishments make this memoir hard to put down, inspiring us at the end, when Requist encourages us “…to keep learning, by listening, reading, and experiencing life.”