Word: churches
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...many of the children surrounding them. Recently the Portland exurb of Oregon City has been shaken by what appears to be an ongoing horror in its midst. In June, Oregon state medical examiner Larry Lewman stated suspicions about the cemetery's owners, the 1,200-member Followers of Christ church. Over 10 years, he alleges, the faith-healing congregation's avoidance of doctors and hospitals may have cost the lives of 25 children, some under excruciating circumstances. A series by the Oregonian newspaper announced that of 78 minors buried in the graveyard over 35 years, 21 "probably would have lived...
...problematic laws have defenders. The First Church of Christ, Scientist, the largest U.S. religious body favoring spiritual healing over medical attention, has long argued for them. Christian Science spokesman Gary Jones describes as "terrible" the prospect that public rage at the Oregon deaths might "stop the inquiry into more effective means of treatment" by spiritual means. Champions of repeal, of course, feel otherwise. A report in the April issue of the professional journal Pediatrics documented 140 child deaths "from religion-motivated medical neglect" between 1975 and 1995, attributed to 23 religious denominations in 34 states. Its co-author, Texas critical...
...Followers of Christ Church seems to have originated in Kansas in the early 1900s. Its breakaway Oregon City branch was led by Walter White, an authoritarian, apocalypse-preaching pastor known as the Apostle, who died in 1969. After finishing their schooling, church members try to avoid socializing with the outsiders, but several own local businesses. "These are law-abiding people with a good work ethic," says a prosecutor's investigator. "The only way they really differ is in their faith healing...
...mortal difference. Like many fellow Pentecostals, the Followers believe the Bible prescribes prayer and the laying on of hands to cure physical ills. Unlike most, however, Followers reportedly refuse medical treatment--for themselves or for their children. Emergency workers recall face-offs with church members who tried to persuade them not to take injured fellow worshippers to the hospital; the Oregonian found a state legislator's complaint about Followers children arriving at school with home-set bone breaks. After Lewman took the medical examiner's job in 1986, he encountered far worse and began recording what he calls "painful, torturous...
...death Gustafson considered prosecuting was of Bo Phillips, 11, last February. Bo suffered a diabetic crisis and was treated with liquids, prayer and anointings. County sheriff's detective Jeff Green recalls arriving at the Phillips house to find 200 or more church members. Bo's body "was lying in bed, covered with a sheet. His eyes were sunk into his head, and his face was completely yellow. The suffering that boy must have endured..." Bo's parents, says Green, were devastated, but "I kept asking the father why he let the boy die, and the answer boiled down to what...