In Leaving the Witness, Amber Scorah takes the reader into her confidences and lays bare her sheltered experiences, religious indoctrination, societal and gender pressures, hearty evangelism, and eventual questioning and freezing out from the Jehovah’s Witnesses—meaning she was cut off permanently from almost everyone she knew.
Scorah retraces her steps from being a covert, illegal proselytizer in Shanghai through the implosion of her marriage and her realization that she is stranded--without her husband, without formal education, and without her faith any longer--and therefore without a framework of her loved ones.
Scorah is thoughtful and helps readers track her mindset as she moves from control to freedom and how jarring and cruel and wonderful and odd a “worldly” life can be.
What did you think?
I'm intrigued by stories of those who have left faith systems. Scorah tells a fascinating personal story of growth and fear and change.