There's much that's deeply pathetic about fathermothergod: My Journey Out of Christian Science, the angry book by Lucia Greenhouse '84 ("Health Care," Arts & Culture, July/August). One's heart inevitably goes out to dysfunctional families and non-supportive children in the face of parental death. But the guilt-ridden efforts of the chain-smoking author to misrepresent Christian Science and its practice are at best dishonest and at worst patent muckraking for the purpose of making money and glorifying her own ego.

Any religion is an easy target these days to those who've dropped away. But the choices made by Greenhouse's parents were theirs to make, although they ignored the CS practice of leaving surgery "to the skillful fingers of a surgeon," utilizing painkillers, and seeking medical means if healing is not developing. The author seems to have no knowledge of these options open to Christian Scientists.

J. Denis Glover
Chatham, Mass.

The author is a former editor at the Christian Science Monitor.