Deadly Doctrine: Health, Illness, and Christian God-Talk

Watters, a former professor of psychiatry in Canada, hopes this broad-brush indictment of Christianity will encourage wavering believers to pursue ``humanistic'' alternatives. Rather than attack any specific branch of Christianity, Watters simply asserts that Christian teachings ``are incompatible . . . with sound health.'' He bases his insight on his 25-year psychiatric career, but, disappointingly, includes few studies in the book. Instead, he delves into the history of Christianity and its doctrines, citing critics who support his thesis. He maintains that prayer and meditation retard human communications skills, that Christian guilt has little influence on behavior, and that authoritarian Christian attitudes toward sexuality lead to phobic responses. His argument would have been more powerful had he concentrated on clinical examples; some of these--such as Watters's accounts of a mother who prayed rather than comforting her distraught son at a family therapy session, and of a man who considers rape less sinful than masturbation--are chilling. (Feb.)