NEWS FEATURE: `Preventable’ deaths _ where faith and medicine clash

c. 1998 Religion News Service OREGON CITY, Ore. _ Shielded by state laws that are among the most liberal in the nation at protecting faith-healing parents, the Followers of Christ Church here has amassed one of the largest clusters of child deaths recorded among the nation’s spiritual-healing churches. More than a fourth of the deaths […]

c. 1998 Religion News Service

OREGON CITY, Ore. _ Shielded by state laws that are among the most liberal in the nation at protecting faith-healing parents, the Followers of Christ Church here has amassed one of the largest clusters of child deaths recorded among the nation’s spiritual-healing churches.

More than a fourth of the deaths were likely preventable with routine medical care, medical experts say. Dozens more probably could have been prevented, but spotty death investigations make that impossible to determine.


The deaths of three Followers children this year in Oregon City have rekindled debate about whether laws protecting religious freedom should continue to override the state’s duty to protect every child’s basic right to life.

Deaths among Followers children in Oklahoma and Idaho also have attracted attention from medical experts and government officials.

An investigation by The Oregonian newspaper of child deaths among the Followers found:

_ Of the 78 children buried since 1955 in the Followers of Christ cemetery just outside Oregon City, at least 21 probably would have lived with medical intervention, often by using simple antibiotics.

_ Thirty-eight children buried in Oregon City died before reaching their first birthday, many within hours or days of birth. Little is known about most of the children’s illnesses because investigations of at least three-fourths of the deaths either have been inconclusive or no investigative records exist. _ Clackamas County (Ore.) officials list 15 infants as stillborn. But doctors don’t know whether many of the babies were dead before delivery, died during birth or took a breath and died later. They say the lack of prenatal care and trained assistance during the deliveries probably contributed to the deaths.

_ In the past 10 years, three mothers in the Oregon City church have died giving birth with only church midwives attending. That’s about 900 times Oregon’s rate of maternal deaths, according to conservative estimates by the Oregon Health Division.

Children are dying from a lack of medical care in dozens of faith-healing churches in the United States, according to Dr. Seth Asser, who co-wrote a national study on faith-healing child deaths published in the April edition of Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The Oregon City Followers have one of the worst records given the number of deaths among their 1,200 members, said Asser, a pediatric intensive care specialist in San Antonio. He said the Followers were not included in his study because they were, until recently, so obscure.


“We felt that this study was the tip of the iceberg,” Asser said. “I’m sure that there are other deaths out there and other churches that we don’t know about.”

By comparison, the Christian Science Church, which has a national membership of 170,000, had 28 child deaths between 1975 and 1995, according to Asser’s study. Because the church encourages its members to go to doctors for baby deliveries, the mortality rate among pregnant mothers and infants is comparable to the rest of the nation.

Followers churches in Oklahoma and Idaho have considerably smaller congregations and far fewer deaths than the Oregon City congregation.

Still, the Idaho group has witnessed at least 12 childhood deaths and one mother dying during childbirth in the past 20 years.

In Oklahoma, where the Followers church started in the late 19th century, three preventable childhood deaths have occurred since 1985, when the state passed a law compelling parents to treat deathly ill children. Since then, two sets of parents have gone to jail for letting their children die.

Oklahoma is one of the few states with laws limiting faith healing when a child’s life is at stake. But in more than 40 states, parents have some protection from criminal and civil prosecution.


Oregon law allows the state to take charge of a child who is known to be at risk of injury or death. But the state’s laws are so vague that no consensus exists among prosecutors about when parents can be charged.

As a result, Oregon cases are rarely prosecuted, including the February death of an 11-year-old Followers of Christ boy who died of painful complications from treatable diabetes.

For decades, Oregon officials, Clackamas County law enforcement authorities and Oregon City residents have known of preventable deaths within the church. Records show that as early as 1965, legislators were told of Followers children going to school with poorly set broken bones and in one case of a family removing their child from a hospital.

“People treated the children of religious objectors almost as throwaways,” said Terry Gustafson, Clackamas County’s district attorney. “I don’t think it was intentional on anyone’s part. It just kind of worked out that way.”

Church members in Oregon City declined to comment.

Since the 1940s, the Oregon City Followers of Christ have worshipped in a one-story, tan church complex that looks like a small school. Most outsiders who know them characterize Followers of Christ members as hard-working, honest citizens who love and care for their families and friends. Yet they live in a world apart.

The only way to become a member is to be born into the group. They socialize only among themselves and shun members who seek medical care or otherwise betray church teachings, even ostracizing members of their own families for breaking the rules or leaving the church.


Dean Nichols, 63, and a former Oregon City mayor, left the church in the early 1960s. Five of his brothers and sisters are still in the Followers, none of whom will say anything more than hello when he meets them by chance.

For Nichols, and anyone else leaving the Followers, departing the church means departing everything they have known.

“It took me 12 years to get my wife and children out of there,” he said.

The Followers believe they are the direct spiritual heirs of the Apostles and interpret the Bible literally. When a child or adult is ill, the Followers reject medical care, instead asking elders and church members to pray and anoint the sick person with oil, according to biblical practices described in James 5:14, which says: “Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up.”

Church members in Oregon City will see dentists and eye doctors, and they have been known to submit to oral surgery. Idaho church members are more liberal, saying it’s the individual’s decision whether to see a doctor.

“Faith healing works. There is no question in my mind,” said Russell Conger, an elder in the Followers of Christ congregation in Caldwell, Idaho.


The Followers’ faith, he says, is “strong to the point of death. We put our bodies as a living sacrifice upon the altar.”

DEA END LARABEE/SLEETH

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