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Leaving the Witness
- Exiting a Religion and Finding a Life
- Narrated by: Amber Scorah
- Length: 6 hrs and 56 mins
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Leaving the Witness
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Publisher's Summary
"À la Tara Westover's Educated, Scorah's pensive, ultimately liberating memoir chronicles her formative years as a Jehovah's Witness...and captures the bewilderment of belief and the bliss of self-discovery...[Leaving the Witness] is a suture for anyone searching to reconcile their past and present selves." (O, The Oprah Magazine - named one of "The Best Books by Women of Summer 2019")
"Scorah's book, the bravery of which cannot be overstated, is an earnest one, fueled by a plucky humor and a can-do spirit that endears. Her tale, though an exploration of extremity, is highly readable and warm." (The New York Times Book Review)
A riveting memoir of losing faith and finding freedom while a covert missionary in one of the world's most restrictive countries.
A third-generation Jehovah's Witness, Amber Scorah had devoted her life to sounding God's warning of impending Armageddon. She volunteered to take the message to China, where the preaching she did was illegal and could result in her expulsion or worse. Here, she had some distance from her community for the first time. Immersion in a foreign language and culture - and a whole new way of thinking - turned her world upside down, and eventually led her to lose all that she had been sure was true.
As a proselytizer in Shanghai, using fake names and secret codes to evade the authorities' notice, Scorah discreetly looked for targets in public parks and stores. To support herself, she found work at a Chinese language learning podcast, hiding her real purpose from her coworkers. Now with a creative outlet, getting to know worldly people for the first time, she began to understand that there were other ways of seeing the world and living a fulfilling life. When one of these relationships became an "escape hatch", Scorah's loss of faith culminated in her own personal apocalypse, the only kind of ending possible for a Jehovah's Witness.
Shunned by family and friends as an apostate, Scorah was alone in Shanghai and thrown into a world she had only known from the periphery - with no education or support system. A coming of age story of a woman already in her 30s, this unforgettable memoir examines what it's like to start one's life over again with an entirely new identity. It follows Scorah to New York City, where a personal tragedy forces her to look for new ways to find meaning in the absence of religion. With compelling, spare prose, Leaving the Witness traces the bittersweet process of starting over, when everything one's life was built around is gone.
Critic Reviews
“In her impressive debut, Scorah recounts her years as a Jehovah’s Witness in China, her decision to leave the faith, and her ongoing spiritual questioning...Scorah’s prose is straightforward, and she has a winning sense of humor about how much she’s changed...Scorah provides a rare glimpse into the insular world of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and her accounts of expat life and leaving her faith should give this candid memoir wide appeal.” (Publishers Weekly)
"Scorah’s book, the bravery of which cannot be overstated, is an earnest one, fueled by a plucky humor and a can-do spirit that endears. Her tale, though an exploration of extremity, is highly readable and warm.... She teaches us how integrity is determined not by assenting to the juvenile claims of fundamentalism, but by enduring the universe as we find it - breathtaking in its ecstasies and vicious in its losses - without recourse to a God. Given the enormity of her grief and the wholesale collapse of her previous belief system, the intellectual integrity that Scorah displays is nothing short of a miracle.” (The New York Times Book Review)
“À la Tara Westover’s Educated, Scorah’s pensive, ultimately liberating memoir chronicles her formative years as a Jehovah’s Witness - a 'life in waiting' that included a sham marriage, covert missionary work in China, and eventual shunning by her religious community - and captures the bewilderment of belief and the bliss of self-discovery. Writing 'stitched the narrative arc of my life back together', Scorah says; her book is a suture for anyone searching to reconcile their past and present selves.” (O, The Oprah Magazine)
What listeners say about Leaving the Witness
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Elissa Groen
- 17-06-2023
Insightful, beautiful and utterly human
Moving, thorough recount of a young woman’s experience growing beyond the confines of a high control, whole life encompassing religion.
Informative, moving, and philosophical…
I learned a lot; the kind of learning that softens the heart and bridges oceans.. thank you for this treasure.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Regina Watt
- 17-05-2020
couldn't stop listening
As someone also born into the JW religion.... and leading an almost identical life, (except for the pioneering missionary!!) I found this book scarily true for me. It felt as though i were listening to my own life story being read to me by another. Grateful to know I'm not alone in my life after a cult thoughts and feelings.
Brilliant book.... highly recommended
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- David Schmid
- 10-06-2019
Brilliant in every way
This is beautifully written and narrated. Completely accurate depiction of the JW life (ex elder here) and the way Amber describes her awakening and subsequent faith crisis is expertly related. She took me back to my own awakening from the cult and the sacrifices we made to grasp our freedom and real self. Thank you Amber for this wonderful, touching and at times heartbreaking account.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Micah
- 05-06-2019
A wonderful story.
A great story wonderfully told. Really enjoyed listening to the lifes story told by the Author.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Anonymous User
- 25-06-2019
A rare insight - truly remarkable
Amber Scorah has approached the topic of leaving the Jehovah’s Witness faith with an inept understanding of what it is like to wake from an indoctrination that pervades your whole being and leaves you lost and bewildered and alone. Her telling of these personal events in life is done with such insight, honesty and wry humour that you cannot stop listening until the final closing words of the last chapter. It’s a rare insight because Jehovah’s Witnesses are not allowed to speak against the leaders or the teachings and so many stay silent. A must read!
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