Though I am a Caucasion adopted by Caucasions, I found in reading this book myself a number of correlaries to my own adoption. Raised by extremely conservative Christians, I never did “measure up to [their] bloodline”. My adoptive parents’ biological daughter could do no wrong, despite having a closet drinking and marijuana problem all throughout high school and at least until I left the house my sophomore year of college. I was eventually literally struck from their Will because I didn’t turn out to be a minister, youth minister, or other formative contributor to their religious beliefs and association. Finding my natural parents didn’t help in that regard.

Ever since my first forays into the “real” world, upon which I was intimately aware that my insular upbringing was by no means a sufficient preparation for adulthood, I have wondered what life must have been like for children such as David and Jerome. It is frightening, the force and control we hold over our own children. But the exercise of that control in the ways described in Jesus Land and in my own life goes well beyond the pale.

An ironic side-note: New Horizons is a group that the previous nominee to the Supreme Court, Harriet Miers (spelling optional, sorry), voluntarily supports as a board member. Scary, isn’t it?