Bad Faith

When Jesus said, Suffer the children,” faith healing is not what he had in mind

The Hebrew and Christian Bibles were written millennia before the invention of modern medicine, but still many people turn to them for medical advice, using their faith to fight life-threatening diseases. Though America is the most medically advanced place in the world, throughout the country Christian Scientists pray for healing instead of going to the doctor, Jehovah’s Witnesses refuse blood transfusions, and ultra-Orthodox Jewish mohels use contaminated circumcision tools. Children die every year from treatable diseases, and in most states it is legal for parents to deny their children care for religious reasons. In twenty-first century America, how could this be happening?

In Bad Faith, acclaimed physician and author Paul Offit gives readers a never-before-seen look into the minds of those who choose to medically martyr themselves, or their children, in the name of religion. Never afraid of controversy, Offit takes a stark and disturbing look at our surprising capacity to risk the health and safety of children in service of our beliefs. He tells the story of two devoted Christian Scientists who are shocked and heartbroken when their infant dies of a treatable disease; of orthodox Jewish parents who risk infecting their babies with herpes during an unsterile circumcision ritual; and of a man who believes his faith can cure his son’s diabetes and, when that tragically fails, tries to raise him from the dead. The tangled relationship between religion and medicine may appear to afflict only certain pockets of America, but this phenomenon reaches much further—whether you are seeking treatment at a Catholic hospital or trying to keep your kids safe from diseases spread by their unvaccinated peers, you’ll likely encounter these issues.

Through vivid storytelling and complex, compelling characters, Bad Faith makes a strenuous case that denying medicine to children in the name of religion isn’t just stupid and immoral, but a rejection of the very best aspects of what belief itself has to offer.