Leaving the Saints

Book excerpt: Growing up within the narrow confines of the Mormon Church, bestselling author Martha Beck was raised in a home frequented by the Church's high elders. After Adam, her second child, was born with Down's syndrome, she and her husband left their graduate programmes at Harvard to return to Martha's hometown of Provo, Utah, where they knew the supportive Mormon community would embrace them. But after Martha began teaching at Brigham Young University, she began to recall horrific memories of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of one of the Church's most respected leaders. This book chronicles her difficult decision to sever her relationship with the faith that had raised her, and to confront and forgive the person who betrayed her so deeply.