When Prayer Fails: Faith Healing, Children, and the Law
"What happens when strong commitments to religious freedom and child protection clash?  In this carefully researched and gracefully written book, Shawn Peters tells the tragic stories of children whose parents and spiritual leaders sacrificed them in the name of God.  Drawing on a wide range of examples--from Christian Scientists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Pentecostals to the little-known Peculiar People--Peters empathetically shows how the legal system has struggled to adjudicate the conflicting claims of believers and prosecutors." --Ronald L. Numbers, University of Wisconsin-Madison"For more than a century, prosecutors have tried to bring to justice those who honestly believed that only God can heal, who rejected any recourse to doctors, and whose children died tragically and painfully as a result.  Peters' wonderful narrative is scrupulously fair to both the faithful and the forces of law and medicine.  This is a fascinating, thorough, and beautifully written story of the clash between the way of life of a religious minority, and the legal order of the society in which they lived."  --Lawrence Friedman, Stanford University"As Shawn Peters demonstrates with vivid and disturbing detail, the relationship between religion and child welfare in America is hardly straightforward. Examining the history of how judges and juries have decided between parents' rights to religious freedom and their responsibility for medical neglect of their dead children, Peters argues that such extreme cases may be only the tip of the iceberg of religiously based rejection of medicine in the U.S. Historians of American culture will welcome this carefully balanced and well-researched history, and its portrayal of the enormous respect for religion that pervades the American judicial system." --Amanda Porterfield, author ofHealing in the History of Christianity"Peters' accounts of the legal battles in numerous states present an incisive analysis of the extent to which the "universal" rights of parents and children are contingent on local politics and the power of lobbying.  In this way, he provides a vivid, almost anthropological account of the juridification of US Society."--Times Higher Education"A concise book on a compelling topic... Peter's lucid examination of the cases makes for fascinating reading.  Not of least importance, the young and vulnerable victims at the center of the heart-wrenching stories he relates should compel our concern with this topic." --Journal of AmericanHistory"Peter's book is...an excellent resource on faith-based healing, or lack thereof, and the law.  It is expertly written and will be of interest both to First Amendment scholars as well as to non-academic readers with an interest in religious liberties, the care of children and the law. ...[S]tudents will also be drawn into Peters' excellent writing and storytelling throughout his account.  I highly recommend the book." --Law and Politics Book Review"[An] important book." --The Humanist"Peters presents a compelling portrait of the tragic extremeties of faith healing with more persistence." --Church History