Note, November 26, 2011: I placed this page online in August, including at the bottom, a response from the Board to me and my reply to them. There have since occurred two more sets of response and reply, and they are also now included, following the first set.

Letter from
Paul Kautz
to
The Christian Science Board of Directors
June 2011

I am making the following letter available to individual earnest students of Christian Science for their prayerful consideration because the Board has, in effect, denied that it has any validity (will not hear), whereas I believe it is based throughout on self-evident truth and a faithful adherence to our Leader's guidance as found in all her writings.

Note: If anyone can show me where any part of the following is not adequately true or valid or faithful in respect to the criteria stated just above, or contrariwise, why these criteria are not valid or adequate, I would deeply value hearing your reasons at paul@duncansbeemers.com.

And if you value this content, please feel entirely free to refer this site to any earnest student of Christian Science you feel would be interested.

I have come to believe that the following is

The Most Fundamental Question facing our movement today.

Is the Christian Science movement in a state of obedience to our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy?
or
Is it in a state of passive acceptance of multiple disobediences to our Leader,
persisted in by the transactors of the business of her Church?

My letter closes referring to "the important truth that if we become aware of or are a party to a wrongness, and do not do what we are able to do to correct it, we are complicit in that wrongness." This truth poses an opportunity and a challenge of great moment to every member, practitioner, teacher, officer, branch, and faithful follower of our Science and our Leader. Will we, or won't we, do something to correct disobediences occurring in the administration of our church?

My letter which follows deals with these questions. At its close, I have included three sets of Board responses, and my replies to them, including why, to me, their responses are disappointing from the point of view of the needs of the movement, and why I feel their responses release me from the confidentiality of the first step of the Matthew 18:15-17 Christly code.

*****

June 2011

Dear Members of the Board of Directors

This is a letter written under the shelter of Article 1 Section 9 paragraph 3 of our Church Manual, but it is also a letter to friends.  I say friends, because even though I feel you have taken many actions and positions which I feel are grievously mistaken in the light of our Leader's guidance in all her writings, including our Church Manual, and this is what this letter is about -- still, the office of Director, which each of you hold, is important in the Christian Science movement, and I must believe each of you is endeavoring to fulfill the responsibilities of your office honorably.

Consequently, although I feel I must speak of grievous things, I must do so in a manner that heart can understand heart, because not otherwise can true communication occur, nor that communication bless our movement.

I believe I should begin by recalling to your attention my previous letter to you (with attachments) dated August 7, 2005.  I have reviewed that letter in its entirety with its attachments many times, and continue to feel it to be as pertinent today as six years ago.  Therefore, it serves as a base for this letter.  It can be found in its entirety on my web site mentioned two paragraphs below, as well as, of course, in your records.

At the time of my previous letter, your only response was a telephone call.  The substance of the message was that the Board had heard similar views from others, and differing  views from still others. This was stated in a number of different ways, but there was no substantive response to any of the issues or questions (over 40) contained in the letter and attachments. Although not directly stated, I was left with the impression that in the Board's view all of the issues and questions contained in my letter and attachments are human opinion, and on all of them, there are opinions on both sides. My strong conviction, however, is that our church is founded not on opinion, but on Science. 

In January 2007, I informed the same member of the Board that "other things remaining unchanged, I expect to make the analysis contained in my August 7, 2005 letter to the Board available to individual Christian Scientists who may express an interest in seeing it."  I have done so by means of a web site called "Spiritual resources for re-establishing unity, prosperity and obedience in the Christian Science movement."  The site is currently available only to those who learn of it from others who value the content therein and recommend it to sincere followers of our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, for their prayerful consideration.  Its web address, presently, is -- 

http://www.duncansbeemers. com/dialcs.html

Before I go further, I need to assure you that I also see good things occurring in the movement and being done by the Board, for which we can all only be grateful.  If needful corrections are accomplished, these will add to the rejoicing.

Unity, Prosperity, Obedience

These three aspects of our movement are fundamentally interconnected. Without obedience, there can be no true, adequate, nor lasting unity or prosperity in our movement. Obedience to what or whom? To God, His Christ, His Word as found in the Bible spiritually understood, and to Mary Baker Eddy, our forever Leader in our church and movement, the divinely established revelator to this age of the Comforter, divine Science. She makes the priority of this obedience very clear in her Article 8 Section 6 of her  Church Manual, the word 'his' referring to "every member of this Church" -- "...his duty to God, to his Leader, and to mankind."  This provision also reminds us that we will not be able to fulfill our mission to heal and save the world (including mankind) from sin and death (see Manual p.19), until we first are obedient to God and His Christ, and to our Leader.

To prosper our church we don't need to be humanly clever, but we do need to be divinely reliable.

For more than one hundred  years, ever since our Leader left this experience (but not her Leadership), each successive Board has apparently (perhaps debatably), to lesser or greater extent, felt it necessary or desirable to take our Leader's place as Leader, or at least, to provide the leadership of the Board of Directors in addition to her Leadership.. This has been the first and greatest disobedience, from which all other disobediences flow, for a careful (and prayerful) study of our Leader's writings will show that she established a church to be governed not by persons, but by the Christ.  We do not need a church of the led, but a church governed by the Christ. To the extent that the disobedience has been willful, it has been sinful, for the essence of sin is willful disobedience. And the sum of these disobediences has denied our Church its destiny these hundred years plus.

Mistakes

Disobedience results in mistakes and sin. A careful study of our textbooks and our Leader's other writings reveals that mistakes must be corrected, and sin must be destroyed, the latter involving uncovering and "the moral sense be[ing] aroused to reject the sense of error," so that the destruction (of sin) can occur (see Mis 352). So long as they continue uncorrected or undestroyed, deleterious results continue. This is why neither can be simply forgiven or forgotten. They don't ever just go away, until they are corrected.

So that's what this letter is about -- specific mistakes and sins which must be corrected and destroyed if we are to regain obedience, and thereby unity and prosperity, and the ability of our movement to fulfill its mission.  Without obedience, and in the last analysis, this obedience is to the Christ, all our other efforts are vain.  This obedience includes and applies to every student, member,  practitioner, teacher, officer, and faithful follower of our Science and our Leader.  Many faithful followers of our Science and our Leader have been excommunicated (supposedly)--cast out--shunned--for no other reason than that they were faithful and obedient to our Leader and to the Christ rather than to the Board of Directors, right or wrong..  This is abomination and it is sin, and it must be corrected, and the errors involved be seen and repudiated -- and, those so shunned must be welcomed back into full fellowship.   Otherwise, we have the spectacle of too many in the movement being suborned into passing by, uncaring, or not caring enough, as in the parable of the good Samaritan.   It is fortunate, however, that no one can separate a faithful follower of our Leader from her or from her Church.  Still, there is a great need for the Directors' church and our Leader's church to be one and the same.

Consider the following passages on mistakes from our Leader's writings.  I find they carry a considerable cumulative impact.  Click on the following web address for a convenient and accessible way to review them -- 

http://www.duncansbeemers.com/ mistak.html

Mis 109:12-13 (to ;)
Mis 264:29
Mis 118:12-16
My 211:6-9(to ;)
Un 20:1
Mis 298:28
Mis 10:12
My 213:15-24 (to ,)
My 210:19-11
S&H 11:12-18

And here is a set of passages on the handling of sin, also carrying a considerable cumulative impact, and with an accessible way to review them --

http://www.duncansbeemers.com/ csvqs.html

I am aware that there are differing views on the things I am and will be talking about. But as we go forward, let us seek to keep in our awareness that we are mutual students of a divine Science, and that Science is not comprised of human opinions. We should be able to find a meeting place in thought and feeling on the basis of Science and self-evident truth, and not of mere human opinion.

Any student or member can speak with the authority of self-evident truth.

Self-evident truths and facts can be humanly contradicted, but they cannot be changed. Untruths can be believed to be true, and may be made to appear plausibly true by sophistical reasoning, but nothing can for even a moment make an untruth true, or an invalid principle or mode of action valid.

Consider the following definitions relating to the word sophistical (not exhaustive, but suitable for our purposes) --

sophism--specious reasoning, sophistry

specious--apparently fair, just, or correct; appearing well at first view; plausible

sophistry--deceptively subtle reasoning or argumentation; plausible but fallacious argumentation; sophism  

sophistic, sophistical-- of the nature of sophistry; fallacious.

It is worthy of note also, that legalistic reasoning, while it may be appropriate for determining what is legal or not legal in terms of humanly legislated or interpreted statute and precedent law, can all too easily fall into sophistry when used to address questions of legitimacy, truth, and validity in a system of spiritually developed church governance.

Consider the following passages from our Leader's writings on the above described types of thinking -- 

no 11:23
  Ancient and modern human philosophy are inadequate to grasp the Principle of Christian Science, or to demonstrate it.  Revelation shows this Principle, and will rescue reason from the thrall of error.  Revelation must subdue the sophistry of intellect, and spiritualize consciousness with the dictum and the demonstration of Truth and Love. Christian Science Mind- healing can only be gained by working from a purely Christian standpoint. Then it heals the sick and exalts the race.  The essence of this Science is right thinking and right acting--leading us to see spirituality and to be spiritual, to understand and to demonstrate God.

mis 363:22
  We must avoid the shoals of a sensual religion or philosophy that misguides reason and affection, and hold fast to the Principle of Christian Science as the Word that is God, Spirit, and Truth.  This Word corrects the philosopher, confutes the astronomer, exposes the subtle sophist, and drives diviners mad.  The Bible is the learned man's masterpiece, the ignorant man's dictionary, the wise man's directory.

mis 366:31
  The false theories whose names are legion, gilded with sophistry and what Jesus had not, namely, mere booklearning,--letter without law, gospel, or demonstration,--have no place in Christian Science.  This Science requires man to be honest, just, pure; to love his neighbor as himself, and to love God supremely.

And this further passage on the opposite of deficient types of reasoning --

Mis. 264:24-29
[Students'] knowledge of Mind-healing may be right theoretically, but the moral and spiritual status of thought must be right also. The tone of the teacher's mind must be pure, grand, true to aid the mental development of the student; for the tint of the instructor's mind must take its hue from the divine Mind.

Our Leader said in 1899, "I reluctantly foresee great danger threatening... [including] ... a lax system of religion" (My 129).  Our Boards of Directors have been lax, in varying degree, for too long a time.  Lax -- careless or negligent.

But the sum of obedience is simple, as are all things in Christ. The sum of obedience in our Church and movement is to follow the Christ, and to follow our Leader.  To follow the Christ is to be obedient to God, for the Christ is the very spirit of God, and to follow our Leader is to be obedient to the Christ, for she admonished every follower to follow her only so far as she follows Christ, and her imperative to herself in all she did, was to follow the Christ.

Paul said, in II Corinthians 11:3, "I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ."

I have spoken about specific mistakes and sins which must be corrected and destroyed if we are to regain obedience.  To mistakes and sins, I would add misconceptions which must be uplifted, and all three of these, of course, are errors.  So let's start taking these up, one by one.

Note:  I have recently realized that my letter was getting too lengthy for one email, and have
consequently broken it into parts. This is the conclusion of Part One.

Sincerely and lovingly,
Paul Kautz

Daniel Bort's guest editorial

I start my review of specific errors with Daniel Bort's guest editorial in the April 2002 Christian Science Journal, because it purports to be the legitimate position of The Mother Church and its Board of Directors, while, as I stated in my earlier letter, here, it "is deeply flawed in its reasoning and assertions regarding Mrs. Eddy's intent."  Its errors are many and fundamental, but its basic problem is, arguably, that it is an agenda driven article, and that agenda is not to elucidate our Leader's intended meaning, but to forward the Board's self-perceived interests.  At the  time of my earlier letter, I only dealt specifically with one error--that one  relating to Article 1, Section 9 of the Manual, where Mr. Bort says that "...under that Section, the Board is the judge of its own conduct."  I will go farther now.

It is appropriate that Mr. Bort referred us to our Leader's kindly and gentle counsel at Mis 130:17, which recognizes that all mistakes or errors are not equal in significance, and all do not require scrutiny or remembrance.. 

In the following I will quote from the editorial.

1. "...The Manual ... does not provide for members forming themselves into special interest groups."

a. This implies that members are allowed to do only what the Manual says they can do; all else is prohibited.  That, of course, is ludicrous.

b. The term 'special interest groups' is a pejorative term, as used here, and its use does not follow the Golden Rule. The members or groups being referred to would think of themselves as alerting and informing other members of things needful for them to know to be obedient to our Leader's repeated admonitions to watch and inform.  In one place she uses the words, "...of error that is damning men."

c. The opposite of what the statement implies is actually true--that nowhere in the Manual nor anywhere in her other writings does our Leader deny freedom of speech or thought or communication to the members. She does require us to avoid thinking or acting erroneously (Article 8, Section 1).  She requires all our proceedings to be characterized by "wisdom, economy, and brotherly love" (Article 24, Section 5).  And she indicates that by our works we "shall be judged,--and justified or condemned" (Article 8, Section 6).  And the sixth tenet enjoins six promises on each of us, while the first tenet places us in fundamental relationship to Truth and to the Bible..  All of these things apply to all members.  And all officers, of course, are members and thus are also subject to these requirements.

2. "It does not authorize such groups ... to publish criticisms ... of those who are charged, under the Manual, with transacting that business."

a. More precisely and accurately, the Manual neither authorizes nor prohibits members or groups of members to speak or communicate with other members.

b. Re criticisms.  The Board has tended 1. to deny any accountability on their part to criticism from the members, 2. to penalize discussion of such criticism among members, and 3. to refuse to discuss specifics of such criticisms with members. I believe each of these three tendencies are mistaken positions, and I will come back to them, at least indirectly.

c. Re transacting the business.  It is important to determine carefully what the business of The Mother Church is, and perhaps equally important, what is not. the business of The Mother Church.  I'll come back to this also (in Part Three), because I think it is tremendously important to all we are talking about.

d. The quoted sentence (at 2. above) includes these words--"...that seek to persuade and rally the membership to demand..."  This is an assumption of motivation not merited by the words or deeds of the individuals or groups themselves, who have repeatedly indicated that they inform so that those informed can, in the sanctity of prayer evaluate the information and what to do about the information, if anything.  Therefore the assumption identified above in this paragraph is not accurate; it involves dissimulation (see Romans 12:9); and it judges erroneously (see Article 8, Section 1).

3. "In fact, the Manual was revised during our Leader's lifetime to reduce and then eliminate from The Mother Church any elements of congregational government."  This statement is self-evidently untrue for a number of reasons.

a. The content of the sentence following the words, 'In fact,' is not fact, but assumption and interpretation.

b. Since The Mother Church includes both its members and its branches, the provision in Article 23, Section 10, that "...each branch church shall be distinctly democratic in its government..." is a clear similarity to 'congregational government.'

c. It is obvious from our Leader's writings and from historical data that our Leader neither emulated nor avoided the modes of governance of other churches.  Rather she sought divine guidance in developing unique modes of governance which would come closest to the divine, and which would best enable the fulfilling of the purposes of her church.

d. Such a sweeping assertion of our Leader's alleged intention to "eliminate from The Mother Church any elements of congregational government" must be based on more than just the Manual, but even Mr. Bort's Manual evidence is based on misinterpretation of Article 1, Sections 6 and 9. I shall return to these two Sections.

e. Our Leader's Magna Charta of Christian Science (My 246, 254) includes several principles which totally contravene any sense that she was seeking to "eliminate ... any elements of congregational government."  The words 'congregational' and 'hierarchical' have opposite meanings.  Each of the following seven phrases or clauses denote a non-hierarchical principle of church governance--

"inalienable, universal rights of men"
"essentially democratic"
"its government is administered by the common consent of the governed"
"wherein and whereby man governed by his creator is self-governed"
"its [referring to the church] law and gospel are according to Christ Jesus"
"equal rights and privileges"
"rotation in office." 

Following is the full text of the statement, which she penned in 1904, and gave branches permission to include in their by-laws in 1909,  the very period in which she was finalizing her last edition of the Manual.  The by-laws of branches are obviously part of the overall governance of The Mother Church.

The Magna Charta of Christian Science means much, multum in parvo,--all- in-one and one-in-all.  It stands for the inalienable, universal rights of men.  Essentially democratic, its government is administered by the common consent of the governed, wherein and whereby man governed by his creator is self-governed.  The church is the mouthpiece of Christian Science,--its law and gospel are according to Christ Jesus; its rules are health, holiness, and immortality,--equal rights and privileges, equality of the sexes, rotation in office.

Are not the Magna Charta statement and the Church Manual complementary, and a unity?  Every provision in the Magna Charta suffuses and enriches every provision in the Manual, which was not written from a standpoint of human legality but from a standpoint of divine law governing human governance with divine Science, which is itself replete with divine Love.

4. Since I have touched on  the Magna Charta statement, I'll skip on here to where Mr. Bort speaks of it, where he says,   "...Mrs. Eddy is speaking of  the 'Magna Charta of Christian Science,' not the Magna Charta of The Mother Church... and [it] is not found in the  Manual."

a. The first point here is to recognize that our Leader not only used the term Christian Science to refer to the many aspects of the Science, but also to refer to Christian Science as a religious denomination, that is, a church denomination, that is, a church.  Robert Peel recognized this when he said, on page 91 of his book,  Mary Baker Eddy, the Years of Authority, " The difference between the 'distinctly' democratic government of the branches and the 'essentially' democratic government she posited for the denomination as a whole was crucial."  This also reveals he understood that her intention was for the Magna Charta statement to apply to the church as well as to the Science, even though she did not place the statement in the Manual.

b. The next point we must consider here  are these inter-related  questions:  Did our Leader see the Science of Christ and the church which communicates and protects and demonstrates that Science as compartmentalized from each other, or did she see them as a unity?  And:  Did our Leader consciously draw into the Manual all in her writings that had anything to do with the governance of her church, and exclude all such from her other writings?  She herself supplied an answer to this second question in the Extract which appears on p.3 of the Manual:  "The Rules and Bylaws in the Manual ... were written at different dates, and as the occasion required.  They sprang from necessity, the logic of events,--from the immediate demand for them as a help that must be supplied to maintain the dignity and defense of our Cause;..."  In other words, they were not written at one point in time, nor were they a pulling together of all she wrote on the subject of church government. Therefore it is not legitimate to  hold that only the Manual speaks to matters of church governance.

c. Mr. Bort goes on to present his view that the Magna Charta statement applies to our lives as Christian Scientists, but not to church governance.  But consider the following thirteen phrases, words or clauses from the statement:

Magna Charta
inalienable, universal rights of men
essentially democratic 
its government 
administered 
common consent of the governed 
wherein and whereby man governed by his creator is self-governed 
the church 
its law and gospel are according to Christ Jesus 
its rules 
equal rights and privileges 
equality of the sexes
rotation in office.

Each one of these relates to law, government and/or church, and it thus appears self-evident that our Leader had in mind principles of governance for her church when she wrote her Magna Charta of Christian Science.

d. In this context, consider Article 1, Section 9, paragraph 1, sentence 1 of the Manual:

Law constitutes government, and disobedience to the laws of The Mother Church must ultimate in annulling its Tenets and By-Laws.

Is it not likely that our Leader's intended meaning in this sentence might go something like this -- "The officers, as well as all other members of The Mother Church, must obey all the laws of The Mother Church, including those principles to be found in the Magna Charta of Christian Science.and the commandments and admonitions to be found in the Bible, or else the Tenets and By-Laws found in the Church Manual will in effect be annulled."

This view of her meaning would be in harmony with the view that all of her writings and the Bible understood in its spiritual meaning constitute a unity.

On the other hand, would we find it convincing to assert that her intended meaning in the sentence would merely go like this:  "...disobedience to the Tenets and By-Laws of The Mother Church as found in the Church Manual must ultimate in annulling its Tenets and By-Laws as found in the Church Manual"?

e. Consider the correlation between the Article 8, Section 1, statement, "In Science, divine Love alone governs man,..." and the Magna Charta statement, "its government is administered by the common consent of the governed, wherein and whereby man governed by his creator is self-governed."  Do not these two statements complement each other, and comprise, once again, a unity?

I will return now to dealing with erroneous statements as they occur sequentially in the course of the editorial.

a. This is a ludicrous, as well as a malicious, straw man, made up version of the supposed intent of those who call for obedience to Matthew 18:15-17.

b  When this Christly code is initiated with a healing motivation (how else could it be Christly?), most of the time it will not go beyond the first of the three steps, because either the fault or the allegation (or both) will be put in the way of healing.  And of course, this first step is completely private ("between thee and him alone".).

c. The second step is also essentially private, with the addition only of a witness.  Only if the second step fails of loving resolution, does the possibility open of wider dissemination.

d. As I have been allowing this letter to unfold, I became aware that my understanding of Articles 11 and 12 on Complaints and Teachers was inadequate, and so I undertook a new and careful analysis.  The results, including the Matthew verses, have been illuminating.  They are available online at
http://www.duncansbeemers.com/ A11-12.html

The errors in the Guest Editorial need to be disavowed as continuing positions of the Board. 

They are corroding to a sense of rightness and integrity in the movement.

This is the conclusion of Part Two of my 2011 letter to you.

Sincerely and lovingly,
Paul Kautz

The business of The Mother Church

Article 1, Section 6, of the Church Manual states, "The business of The Mother Church shall be transacted by its Christian Science Board of Directors."

What can we determine as to what is, and what isn't, the business of The Mother Church?

An appropriate dictionary definition of business is:  "something with which a person [in this instance, The Mother Church and its Board of Directors] is rightfully concerned."

In this regard,  we might say the business of The Mother Church to be transacted by its Christian Science Board of Directors includes the proper and prudent conduct of all the activities and functions of The Mother Church which are specified in the Manual, as well as all the specific duties given to the Board in the Manual, plus of course necessary activities in support of both of these.  It is certainly also the business of The Mother Church to nurture the field through these legitimate activities and functions, but not to dominate, dictate, nor penalize.

The above includes of course, the Board's administration of the discipline provisions of the Manual in accordance with the requirements and procedures specified especially in Articles 11 and 12. (See my study of those Articles, as mentioned earlier, at
http://www.duncansbeemers.com/ A11-12.html

It is not the business of The Mother Church or of its Board of Directors: 

To provide personal leadership to the movement, in lieu of or supplemental to our Leader's leadership.  The Christian Science church and movement and its students and members are obedient to God and his Christ, to divine Science, and to our Leader as found in her writings, not to leaders in the form of persons.  We honor and respect the offices of The Mother Church, and those holding those offices, so long as those persons are obedient to the requirements of their office. Such statements as these are not conducive to anarchy, as has on occasion been suggested, but rather lead to a church characterized by the strength of the Christ, individually expressed by every member,  officer, student, and branch.

Nor is it the business of The Mother Church to govern the thinking of students of Christian Science, members of The Mother Church or branches, practitioners or teachers or Church officers or officers in the Church. It is the office of the Christ and of divine Science to govern the thinking of individual Christian Scientists, and not the business of the Board.

Nor to interpret the Bible and the writings of our Leader to the field.  However,  it is the responsibility of the Board to assure that in whatever is published or communicated by The Mother Church, "that Christian Science be stated and demonstrated in its godliness and grandeur,--that however little be taught or learned, that little shall be right" (Ret. p.61).  This includes the specific "duty of the Directors to see that these periodicals are ably edited" ( Manual p.44). "The church is the mouthpiece of Christian Science,..." (My p.247).   The Board has important duties, but being interpreter between God and membership is not one of them -- that is the office of the Christ -- which comes to each member and student individually.

Nor to require obedience to the Board of Directors, right or wrong.  Our Leader gives the students and members abundant guidance for giving love, support and respect to The Mother Church and its officers, but she also gives us specific guidance in the event that the laws of The Mother Church might be disobeyed.  It can never be legitimate to require obedience to the Board, as taking precedence over obedience to our Leader and to the Christ.

Are these statements simply the views of one individual? Or do they give a deep sense of reflecting the intent of our Leader as found in all her writings?  And would they be worthy of the governance of a church "built on the Rock, Christ?"

.**************************
A vision of Board and Field 
embracing each other
in a spiritual bond of mutual affection and trust,
a seamless unity,
in which is no fear nor dismay
nor exclusion of anyone who loves Christian Science

Conscience  vs  Anarchy

A number of times in recent years statements have been made on this subject, in official letters, or in meetings, or in periodical articles or forums, that are not tenable, that is, not in harmony with the guidance we find in our Leader's writings.

I'll refer to one instance in particular, as being adequately representative.  The March 2007 Journal included a discussion on questions relating to discipline of teachers of Christian Science, by then Board of Education President Olga Chaffee (a former member of the Board of Directors ), Vice President Tom Black (then a member of the Board of Directors), and then Normal Class Teacher Karl Sandberg..

On page 32 of that issue, Olga said:  "If everyone were at liberty to completely follow their own conscience,  we would have anarchy."  This view has been the stated view of the Board of Directors on a number of occasions.  But is this a valid view?

There are four important words in this sentence, conscience, liberty, completely, and anarchy, but the most important, in my view, is conscience.

Conscience.  Here's a definition I like:  " the inner sense of what is right or wrong in one's conduct or motives, impelling one toward right action."

Do we not find the guidance of the Christ in our inner sense? And is not our Church to be " built on the Rock, Christ?" Manual, p.19.

Consider the following eight passages from our Leader's writings on the subject of conscience, together with an accessible way of reviewing them:  http://www.duncansbeemers.com/ conscience.html

Mis 176:23
Mis 236:10
S&H 106:6-14
S&H 405:22-29
Mis 228:13
Mis 147:1-6 np (to 1895)
Mis 237:13-16 (to :),19
Mis 246:15

In these passages, is not our Leader telling us repeatedly to always, without exception, follow our conscience, and does she not place great stress upon the importance of doing so?

Liberty.  The way this word is used by Olga raises the question--Is the Christian Science Church a church  in which there is liberty?  Indeed, the augmented question -- Does that Scriptural clarion call, "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" -- apply in the Christian Science Church?  Would it be true liberty, where the mere opinion and human will of persons in church positions can limit and constrain the liberty and conscience of the members of the church , including teachers of Christian Science?

Completely. This word (in Olga's statement) indicates that Christian Scientists, and especially teachers of Christian Science, are not free to consistently follow their conscience--that sometimes they must not do so.  This is in direct contradiction to our Leader's guidance.  It is a mistaken position.  It needs to be corrected..  

Anarchy. Definition--confusion, chaos, disorder.

The statement that--"If everyone were at liberty to completely follow their own conscience,  we would have anarchy"--is an example of sophistical reasoning. It sounds plausible, but does not follow, is not valid--for the simple reason that a community, or a church, or a movement, self-governed under God, consistently guided by conscience, in which the ultimate guide is the Christ, will self-evidently be the most orderly, loving, and harmonious community to be found anywhere.

Let us notice here that human opinion--an unruly, disruptive element--is not to be found in God, or the Christ, or in an inner sense guided by the Christ.  Of course, a human being may call a given human opinion the voice of conscience, and another human being may call a genuine plea of conscience mere human opinion, but error has not the stature nor the status of truth, and one guided by the Christ has the Science-given ability to distinguish between error and truth.

It is needful also to look at the immediate context of the statement we have been reviewing, namely, Olga's preceding sentence, which reads, "It's not surprising that there are differences of opinion about what By-Laws mean, but someone has to arbitrate those differences, and the Manual gives that responsibility to the Christian Science Board of Directors."

This sentence divides naturally into three parts, each of which involves errors of fact.

1. "It's not surprising that there are differences of opinion about what By-Laws mean,..."
Not so.  Our Leader wrote with clarity and precision, and her intended meaning is not difficult to determine for those willing to put aside both preconceived notions and willful misinterpretations.

2. "...someone has to arbitrate those differences,..." 
Not so.  Our Leader intended no interpreters between her and her readers.  She trusted her readers' ability to understand her writings, sufficiently that she enjoined them to follow her only so far as she followed Christ.

3. "...the Manual gives that responsibility to the Christian Science Board of Directors." 
Not so.  No such assignment of responsibility is to be found in the Manual.  The Board may believe they find such an assignment in the assigned responsibility "to transact the business of The Mother Church," but only if they take that phrase 'transact the business' to mean they can do whatever they choose to do, and they can interpret our Leader's writings in any way they choose to interpret them, regardless of our Leader's clearly intended meanings.

This is the conclusion of Part Three of five.

Sincerely and lovingly,
Paul Kautz

The abomination of excommunicating teachers 
for their loyalty to our Leader and to the Christ
due to the the Board following
the false god of Board supremacy

In the case of two teachers in particular who have been excommunicated in this decade, there is in both cases a full documentation available to the field of the correspondence and communication from the Board to the teacher, and from the teacher to the Board, in each case, over a period of many years.  1. Chronological Historical Record of Betty Ann Ridley, CSB, 1987-2006.  2. An Open Letter to All Members of The Mother Church, April 2009, from Elaine Natale Davidson, CSB.

I will take them up in turn.

1. Betty Ann Ridley
Her Historical Record referenced above is huge, and a commentary on it is too extensive to be included in this email, but is readily accessible at this online site: http://www.duncansbeemers.com/bar.html, including a link to my study of  Articles 11 and 12 on Complaints and Teachers in our Church Manual, which I have found to be greatly illuminating. Until I undertook the study of these two articles in the course of examining Mrs. Ridley's Historical Record, my understanding of our Leader's intent in these articles was woefully inadequate. This has been my experience in many studies I have undertaken over the years. Until one delves deeply into a given aspect of our Leader's writings, one has little idea what is there to be discovered, and even then one has to reserve the recognition that there is more still to be discovered. This is true if for no other reason than that her writings engage with an infinite Science--a Science she discovered and elucidated, but did not create.

The online commentary on Mrs. Ridley's Historical record referenced above is an integral part of this Part Four of my  letter.  Without a thoughtful review of it, one cannot gain a clear sense of what actually occurred. (Except, of course, by making a careful and prayerful analysis oneself.)

This detailed examination of the Board's correspondence and communication with Mrs. Ridley over an eighteen year period (see the site referenced above) led to three inescapable and fundamental conclusions.

1. In their 'discipline' of Mrs. Ridley over this period, successive Boards were consistently disobedient to the Church Manual requirements for discipline, rather following a flawed 'informal' methodology of their own which yielded abominable results, and deprived their disciplinary actions of legitimacy.  Indeed, the written record conveys an overwhelming sense of Mrs. Ridley's innocence of any wrongdoing.

2. The fundamental importance and necessity of Matthew 18:15-17 in our Leader's concept of Christly discipline, is brought to one's attention again and again and again in the above referenced detailed commentary, as well as the Boards' consistent avoidance of obedience to those verses, and thereby to the Manual requirements for discipline.

3. The Board's letters and communications reveal a Board communication posture which is deeply deficient when viewed against the criterion of the spirit of the Christ.  The online commentary identified above includes a listing of eighteen categories of deficiency, supported by detailed references to Board communications. I will repeat just the categories here:

Categories of deficiencies in Board communications
as revealed in the letters, meetings and calls of the Board of Directors
as recorded in the Historical Record of Betty Ann Ridley

1. Lack of obedience to Matt 18:15-17 results inevitably in hurtfulness, dishonesty, dissimulation, miscommunication, and injustice

2. Entrapment interrogation
3. Ambiguity, innuendo and implicit presumption of guilt
4. No mother nurturing nor caring
5. Self-aggrandizing and dissimulating speech
6. Veiled threat
7. Hypocrisy
8. Inappropriate and intrusive questions
9. Attempted intimidation
10 .Confusion, arbitrariness, unreasonableness, lack of respect and common compassion
11. The Board claim that they are The Mother Church
12. Board equating of love of The Mother Church with support of Board positions
13. Threat of penalty to pupils
14. Erroneous judgment of motivation, character assassination
15. Arrogant, contemptuous, accusatory
16. "Unconcern for well-being or morale of branches or association members, coupled with Board dishonesty and a demand that the teacher act dishonorably

17. Ignoring (not giving respect to) answers to Board questions
18. Disconnect from any attempt to communicate with Mrs. Ridley where she is in her thinking

In sum, the so-called disciplinary actions and communications of successive Boards over a period of eighteen years (including three current Board members in the final flurry of events in 2005), appear, on careful examination of the record, to be completely lacking in loving-kindness, righteousness, obedience and integrity. This is abominable, and although it may have been until now inadequately recognized, it needs to be corrected.

This is the conclusion of Part Four.

In Part Five, which may not be complete for some time, I will address the record of Elaine Davidson, and the important truth that if we become aware of or are a party to a wrongness, and do not do what we are able to do to correct it, we are complicit in that wrongness.

Sincerely and lovingly,
Paul Kautz

***********************

Following is the Board's first response to my 2011 letter to them and my reply.

July 19, 2011
Dear Mr . Kautz:

The Christian Science Board of Directors received your letter of June 29, which you identified as written under the third paragraph of Article I, Section 9 of the Church Manual. In accordance with this Manual provision, the Board has read and carefully thought through the points raised in your complaint. In fact we have discussed--and prayed earnestly over--many of these issues for several years. We share your valuing of unity, prosperity, and obedience, as described in your letter, but we do not agree with your assessment that the Board's role and actions with respect to Church governance and discipline have been in error.

Therefore with all due diligence in our responsibilities under the Manual and with respect for you as a class-taught member of The Mother Church, we find that the complaints you raise are not valid in terms of Manual violations. And with respect to Part Four of your letter regarding Ms. Betty Ann Ridley and Ms. Elaine Natale Davidson, the Board is not able to share any information as our discussions are not to be reported per Article I, Section 5 of the Manual.

Having said that, we would also like to reply to you from our hearts as friends, brothers and sisters in Christ. We appreciate your acknowledgement of good things occurring in the movement - we share your view -- and we acknowledge your letter's thoughtful approach and contribution our movement is having where diverse views are being respected. In addition we honor and share your deep love for the revelation of Christian Science and our Leader. Though we may differ in approach, we join you in desire and prayer to see the continuing fulfillment for Mrs. Eddy's vision for her Church and the presentation of the Comforter in its natural purity, clarity and vitality to all seekers of Truth.

With sincere appreciation.

THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Michael Pabst
Chair 2011

***********************

August 18, 2011
Dear members of the Board of Directors:

Although you use many gentle words in your July 19, 2011 response to my letter -- including "respect, friends, appreciate, acknowledge, thoughtful approach, honor & share your deep love, sincere appreciation" -- and I appreciate your care in doing so -- there are fundamental and important differences between us, and regarding these, your response is, to me, disappointing. Let me explain.

1. You do not acknowledge any Board positions or actions as meriting correction or amelioration..

"...we do not agree with your assessment that the Board's role and actions with respect to Church governance and discipline have been in error."

2. You give no recognition to self-evident truth and a faithful adherence to our Leader's guidance as found in all her writings, as criteria for evaluating obedience in the governance of the church, or in evaluating the fitness of a teacher to teach.

"...we find that the complaints you raise are not valid in terms of Manual violations. "

"Though we may differ in approach..."

3. Regarding two removal-from-membership discipline cases, where a combined total of 25 years of Board correspondence is in the public domain (within the field), you say you cannot discuss these cases because of a disingenuous misinterpretation of a Manual By-Law.

"...the Board is not able to share any information as our discussions are not to be reported per Article I, Section 5 of the Manual."

The Manual sentence in question reads, "Members shall neither report the discussions of this Board, nor those with Mrs. Eddy."

If our Leader had intended that the Board could not report those discussions. nor the actions, decisions nor consequences resulting from those discussions, would she not have used the word "Board" instead of the word "members?" If the meaning you convey was the meaning she had intended, would not this have meant that the Board could not communicate at all with the field?

But is it not self-evident that our Leader's intended meaning was that individual members cannot report on those discussions without the authorization of the full Board? Obviously, she would expect the Board as a whole to endeavor to use wise discretion on just how much or how little it will communicate of its discussions or their results.

4. You continue to imply that matters of Church governance lie in the realm of personal human opinion.

"...where diverse views are being respected."

Obviously, respect for diverse views is good, especially when those views are conscientiously held on more than one side of an issue. Respect is needful, but must not the goal be to go beyond respect to agreement on the foundation of Science and obedience to our Leader and to the Christ in these matters?

As I said in my 2011 letter, "we are mutual students of a divine Science, and that Science is not comprised of human opinions. We should be able to find a meeting place in thought and feeling on the basis of Science and self-evident truth, and not of mere human opinion." We may not accomplish this on every issue, but must we not strive to accomplish this kind of meeting of thought on as many issues, and to the greatest extent, possible? Consider what our Leader says at Misc. 265:

"Diverse opinions in Science are stultifying. All must have one Principle and the same rule; and all who follow the Principle and rule have but one opinion of it."

5. In net effect, your letter communicates that you do not agree that there have been any Board errors in governance, and that the complaints raised in my letter, every one, are not valid. There is no discussion of any specific points, no communication of any reasons, no substantiation. In spite of the gentle words referenced above, the overall tone conveyed by your letter is adamantine, obdurate, unresponsive, uncommunicative on all substantive issues.

If I continue to believe in the truthfulness of what I have written, and I do, I feel I must go to the third step of the Matthew 18:15-17 Christly verses, conclude that the Board "neglect[s] to hear," and thus I must "tell it unto [the members of] the church" for their prayerful consideration, and this is to inform you that I will be doing so.

Sincerely and lovingly,
Paul Kautz

***********************

And the second response and reply:

September 22, 2011

Dear Mr. Kautz,

The Board of Directors received your reply message of August 18, and we have been considering it together.

The softness in our language is genuine. We care about you as a member and genuinely appreciate that you have expressed your concerns to us, even though we disagree.  We also understand your disappointment that the Board did not agree with your ongoing complaint or engage in a more detailed debate on the points you raise. However, from our experience, we have not found such a debate to be productive or to bring resolution to the different view of church governance you present.

We did want to mention that, although you characterize several of your points as self-evident truth, thoughtful members have expressed their views on both sides of the question of the Board's role. For instance, we hear from some that the Board of Directors has controlled church business too tightly, while others have said that the Board should do more to control and shape various church activities (and sometimes the same individual says both!).  Given that reasonable people don't always agree on these points, might there be another credible point of view other than the one you espouse?

It might be worth considering, too, if it is possible that Mrs. Eddy established a system where the Board of Directors, rather than individual members, is authorized to make decisions on behalf of the church organization according to its highest sense of right under the Church Manual.  This is our understanding of the Board's role under the Manual, and it includes, for example, the duty to transact the various business activities of The Mother Church (Article I, Section 6) as well as the rare need to discipline teachers (Article XII) and other members (Article XI), and to review and decide on complaints against Directors and other officers (Article I, Section 9). We understand that Mrs. Eddy trusted this Board to follow her Church Manual and other writings faithfully and to make decisions as Truth points out to us.  Not everyone may agree with a decision or choice the Board makes, but since we all believe in the effectiveness of prayer, there is some logic in trusting God to make any needed adjustments.

You also said you next plan to share your concerns “unto the church,” as described in Matthew 18:15-17.  While the decision whether or not to take this step is certainly your own, we have found that such an approach of airing complaints through mass mailings or other means has done more harm than good for our movement.  It tends to cause divisiveness and alienates one from his or her fellow church members.

Therefore, we hope you will consider the value of brotherhood, sisterhood, and the power of prayer to bring unity and direction as you listen to Mind for your next steps.

Sincerely,

THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

October 30, 2011

Dear members of the Board of Directors:

I appreciate the fact that in your September 22 letter you hold the door open to at least a degree of further communication or dialog, and for the respect your letter shows. I think it very important that there be mutual respect between the Board and all the field.

I accept that the softness in your language is genuine.

You say, "...from our experience, we have not found such a [more detailed] debate to be productive..." -- I feel there can be benefit to the degree of rapport between your Board and the field as a whole, in a further consideration of this statement.

1. Let us distinguish between the words 'debate' and 'communication.'

In debate there tend to be winners and losers, and the participants generally try to prove the other side wrong.

In genuine communication among persons committed to the Sixth Tenet and to a greater mutual understanding of truth and validity, there can be only winners, and a potentially enriched understanding on the part of all who become aware of the communication.

2. Regarding the word 'detailed,' without some amount of detail, communication can be neither substantive nor satisfying.

3. As for the word 'productive,' would not enriched mutual understanding be productive of good? I have sought to accurately communicate the reasons for the positions I have taken. If you have good reasons for disagreeing, why would it not be productive of good for me and the field to better understand your reasons? I put it this way because I feel a good part of the field would tend to agree with the reasons I have stated, and would consequently appreciate knowing of good reasons you may have for differing.

"... or to bring resolution to the different view of church governance you present."

The other side of this coin is the potentiality of gaining a greater understanding or acceptance on the part of the field of the view of church governance you espouse, or to put it differently, to bring about a greater degree of true unity in the movement.

1. I think we have to start by looking at the definitions of credible. To me the two most pertinent are a) believable, and b) worthy of belief. The second presents a higher threshold, but since both are at the level of belief, I feel neither is good enough as a crtierion for understanding our Leader's intended meanings. I think we need to rise to the level of knowing rather than merely believing.

So yes, there might be other credible views, but that would not mean they rise to the level of being valid views. To rise to the level of validity, they need to be able to be supported by adequate reasons. To simply register disagreement without reasons, other than that contrary opinions exist, is unconvincing and not reassuring.

2. As you note, I have used the term self-evident truth -- but only when I feel the level of evidence or reasoning I have adduced so justifies. And I have invited anyone who feels my statements are mistaken at any point to let me know so that I can make corrections if merited.

I do not believe that two opposing views can both be labeled as self-evident. Either the evidence and reasoning for one will be found inadequate, or both will have to be withdrawn from the level of being self-evident.

3. I have used two criteria in writing my letters -- a) self-evident truth (when I feel that the term is merited and that it is likely to be self-evident to others besides myself), and b) as faithful an adherence to our Leader's guidance as found in all her writings, as I can reach.

You say, "It might be worth considering, too, if it is possible that Mrs. Eddy established a system where the Board of Directors, rather than individual members, is authorized to make decisions on behalf of the church organization according to its highest sense of right under the Church Manual.

I entirely agree that Mrs. Eddy established such a system. But of course, the key words are--"under the Church Manual." And that leads me to mention a number of caveats.

1. It would not be legitimate to conclude that anything Mrs. Eddy wrote about church governance elsewhere than in the Manual would be inapplicable.

2. In the Manual phrase "the business of The Mother Church," in Article I, Section 6, it is as important to determine what is not that business as what is that business.

3. In the Article XI and XII provisions on discipline, it is important to recognize that these By-Laws are not stand alone By-Laws but interact with each other.

4. In other words, your phrase, "make decisions on behalf of the church organization," is not unconstrained by the Church Manual.

5. I feel impelled to add that I feel it self-evident that Mrs. Eddy expected each member to [be guided by the Christ in] individually interpreting our Leader's writings for himself or herself. [Note: bracketed words added January 2014.]

You say, "Not everyone may agree with a decision or choice the Board makes, but since we all believe in the effectiveness of prayer, there is some logic in trusting God to make any needed adjustments

It is true there is logic in this in all ordinary situations, but if a substantial part of the field comes to feel that the Board is operating on a regular basis outside of the spirit and letter of the Manual and our Leader's other writings, and that the Board does not really care about what much of the field thinks and feels, I feel it is in both the Board's interest and the field's interest to find ways of communication and adjustment so that mutual respect and affection between the Board and all the field can be restored.

I think that what I have said above is also sufficient response (in an indirect way) to your final two paragraphs.

Sincerely and lovingly,
Paul Kautz

***********************

And the third response and reply:

November 8, 2011

Dear Mr. Kautz,

Thank you for your reply message of October 30.  We appreciate your further thoughts and analysis and do acknowledge the importance of good communication between The Mother Church and the workers in the Field.  Although we cannot always discuss the detailed reasoning behind each decision, the Board has made efforts to increase communication and transparency with members, as evidenced by the years of town hall-style meetings in which the Board participated at branches around the world.

As we mentioned before, discipline of Christian Science teachers is one of those areas that we believe should be kept private under the  Church Manual , and, in so doing, benefits all involved.  Even though it sounds like you plan to proceed with sharing your concerns more broadly, we might also mention that we have had occasions when issues arose between the Board and the Field, and healings came as matters were discussed quietly rather than in the midst of fuss and division that tend to come from mailings intended to raise support in the Field for a particular point of view.

Sincerely,

THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Michael Pabst, Chair

***********************

November 24, 2011

Dear members of the Board of Directors.

In your September 22 email to me, you opened the door a crack to further meaningful communication, but in your November 8 email you close it again, insofar as you in effect decline to go into any detail.

As for sharing my concerns more broadly, I have no intentions for any mass mailings.  I simply make our communications available online so those who are interested may consider these views to the extent they choose.  I feel the field has a right to have this potential awareness.

I feel the greatest need of our movement is for spiritual integrity, which we can only achieve through conscientious fidelity to the Christ and to  our Leader's guidance.  This is also the only way we can restore unity to our movement, without which we are a house divided.  Without this unity and integrity, the world can dismiss us as not being worthy of serious notice, and pigeonhole us as being simply those people who don't go to doctors.  Our real purpose and identification should be "healing and saving the world from sin and death" ( Manual p.19 ), our Leader's matured vision, a purpose and mission in which every goodhearted person everywhere can join us in spirit.

Lovingly and sincerely,
Paul Kautz