This book was an Oprah’s Book Club Selection in 1997. It is the story of a girl named Ninah whose grandfather had founded a church called The Church of Fire and Brimstone and God’s Almighty Baptizing Wind. This is a very small, close knit community that lives simply, works hard, and worships the Lord waiting for the time of the Rapture.
The members are kept under very strict rules and watch by the community and they are punished for their sins by different methods such as nettles, being forced to sleep in a grave, and dunking. For Ninah she knows nothing else and all of her family is part of this community.
Ninah and her same aged cousin James get paired together to be prayer partners once they reach their teenage years. They pray together for the Lord to communicate and move through their bodies and in this way begin a physical relationship with each other and Ninah becomes pregnant. Several things happen after this point but the main idea (without ruining anything) is that Ninah insists to the community that the baby is born through God and a special trait that the baby is born with leads some people in the community to believe that it is true.
This is the story of Ninah learning about her own individual faith. She challenges certain members and rules and grows closer to some in her family while creating divides with others. Even though a lot of the ideas and methods that are talking about within this church are extreme it seems that many of the characters are sincere and struggling to do what is right by God. It was a very interesting book.
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