BOISE, Idaho — Linda Martin grew up with death. As a child, she would see friends at church one week and then never again, she said. When the community’s elders gathered at someone’s home, she assumed the worst: another loss.
Martin, who now lives in Oregon, was raised in Boise as a member of the Followers of Christ Church, a small religious group with congregations in parts of rural Idaho. For years, the church has been in the public spotlight over its controversial faith healing beliefs of using prayer or spiritual healing in place of medical care.
Martin said the practice was at the root of deaths she witnessed as a child: cousins who died days after being born, a nephew who “drowned in his own fluids” with pneumonia at 2 years old. Though she left the church when she was 16, at 68 years old she still tracks each child death connected to the church.
