SOURCE: “How I Got Over,” in Nation, Vol. 228, No. 1, January 6, 1979, pp. 22, 24.

In the following positive assessment of Visions of Glory, Gubernick calls the work “both scholarly and theologically impressive.”

The subtitle of Visions of Glory is “A History and a Memory of Jehovah's Witnesses.” The thorough history—both scholarly and theologically impressive—has a personal edge: Harrison spent twelve years (ages 9 to 21) as a Witness. Her memories do not make her history suspect; instead, the autobiographical fragments give the book balance and weight. Through them she can convey what this peculiar theology feels like, and we sense everywhere the fallout from a youth derailed by proselytizing, spiritual arrogance and an astonishing ignorance of “the world.” (The Witnesses only concern themselves with the “New World” which will replace this one after a bloody Armageddon.) Indeed, the tremendous success of the Witnesses—there are at present more than two million...