You can never completely leave a religious cult, as this strange and touching memoir demonstrates. Patterns of thinking, turns of mind, will linger with and haunt former members long after they escape.
Rebecca Stott was born in 1964 into the Brethren, a low-church sect that had broken away from the Anglican church in the early 19th century and then broken away from itself, bifurcating into factions as movements set on purity and unity usually do.
Cult is a strong word, but Stott’s branch of the Brethren really earned it. Her great grandfather, a sail-maker, joined the Brethren in Eyemouth, a fishing village not far from where I grew up in Northumberland. Back then the Brethren there was founded on frustration with the tax-collecting Kirk.
The Brethren became one of the most reclusive and savage Protestant sects in history
By the time Rebecca was born, down south in Hove, it was no longer a righteous protest movement.
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