A Fundamental Question:

Can any conscientious member of The Mother Church legitimately put obedience to The Christian Science Board of Directors (Board) above obedience to our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy?

The following letter to the Board may be helpful to see this question more clearly.

Dear Board members:

I extend warm and friendly greetings to each one of you.

I know that the subject themes have been much in your thoughts in recent months, inherently by the nature of your office, and directly by the fact that you have rightly been inviting the field to deeply and prayerfully consider the true nature of unity and how to bring it about in human manifestation in our movement.

I have been praying on these themes for decades, but quite recently certain aspects have come more clearly. Incidentally, I've been a member for 57 years, I realized the other day, and year by year I'm loving more and more the inspiration this Science brings us on a daily basis. I'm currently first reader in Acton Mass., and in the 70's I was an employee serving in close support of the Boards of that time.

May I reason with you quietly and respectfully on certain aspects of these themes, with the hope that I might bring to light some aspect or aspects in a way that had not as yet been presented to you, or that may in some degree be of help in your considerations?

Unity and Obedience

An essential component of unity in the field as a whole is a unified support for your Board. Both are very important to the field and to the fulfilling of Mary Baker Eddy's vision for her church and movement. But unified support for the Board would appear to have been lacking in recent years to at least some significant degree.

Do you recognize that a conscientious member cannot in good conscience put obedience to you before obedience to our Leader? Are you aware that it appears from a number of contexts, that you have been implicitly asking members, perhaps without full intention or awareness, to do that very thing? This is deeply fundamental to the question of unity in our movement.

Implicit: involved in the nature or being of something, though not shown, expressed, or realized.

Whether it is fact or mere appearance, I believe this is an issue you must address if you are to achieve unified support in the field. I find this implicitness in a number of contexts.

1.

In the editorial, for one example, Mr. Bort states that "under that Section [Art. 1 Sect. 9], the Board is the judge of its own conduct."

• I believe the whole spirit and letter of the four paragraphs of the section as well as of her other writings indicate this statement to be a misinterpretation of our Leader's intent. Must we not follow the spirit as well as the letter of our Leader's guidance to us?

• One indication that it is a misinterpretation is in the following. In the 3rd paragraph of this section, our Leader places a duty with every member of her Church (when applicable) to inform the Board of the failure of any officer "to perform his official duties." In the 4th paragraph, she goes on to provide that if the Board "fails to fulfill the requirements of this By-Law", (in other words, in the sequence of the Section up to this point), a member of the Church may take the complaint to the Clerk. Is there not a presumption here that the member would have been obligated, by the previous provisions of the Section, to have already taken the matter to the Board, and to have then concluded that the matter required further follow-through in obedience to these Section 9 provisions?

By providing this further mechanism after the Board has already considered the complaint, is not our Leader in effect saying that the Board's judgment is not necessarily superior to that of the individual member, and that if the member prayerfully concludes further consideration is needful, provision for that has been provided by her?

Is she not saying also, in effect, that each individual member of the church must watch, for the purpose of assuring that the officers of the church are obedient to the laws of The Mother Church?

I recognize that this interpretation differs from the stance successive Boards have taken over the years, but will you not prayerfully evaluate whether this is actually what our Leader intended? In support of this, please consider my Attachment A to this e-mail which is an e-mail letter I sent to Daniel Bort in April 2002 regarding his editorial, with a copy to Mary Trammell as editor and Board member. In it I spoke to issues of unity and authority and accountability and obedience to our Leader, and I also included a thorough analysis of Article 1 Section 9, the first I have seen in my decades of study of our church.

As an e-mail it may have been overlooked at that time, and not have come to the awareness of your Board, but I believe it continues to be timely and worthy of your review.

2.

Have you considered the fact that a steward transacts business for someone else? That his authority is defined by his contractual relationship to those for whom he transacts business? And that he is accountable to those for whom he transacts business? In other words, that he is not an authority unto himself?

Does not this description come very close to what Mrs. Eddy established? The Board transacts the business of The Mother Church on behalf of the members. Its authority is defined by the spirit and letter of the Manual, our Leader's writings, and the Bible, all of which, I think, could be summed up in two words: "Be Christly". And is not the Board essentially accountable to the members to be obedient to the laws of The Mother Church, such accountability to be called into play only in case of need by the duty she places with individual members in paragraphs 3 and 4 of Art. 1, Sect. 9 of the Church Manual?

Mrs. Eddy does not spell out the implied final recourse in such accountability. But has it not been put into effect by a significant number of members, by a withdrawal of support from the Board until the Board no longer asks them to put obedience to the Board before obedience to our Leader?

It is of special interest to me that Mrs. Eddy structured her church so that this accountability cannot be taken to the courts -- she had no desire for the destiny of her church to be vulnerable to court action -- the accountability can only be worked out within the membership!

And does not this view of stewardship accord with the second sentence in what Mrs. Eddy calls the Magna Charta of Christian Science: "Essentially democratic, its government is administered by the common consent of the governed, wherein and whereby man governed by his creator is self-governed."?

3.

In a letter to members and branch churches dated October 2, 2002 the then Clerk of The Mother Church, also a member of the Board of Directors, referred to "recent mailings titled 'Matters of Conscience' and 'working together'" and stated: "Those mailings attempt to subvert the governance and activities of The Mother Church and the Church Manual-based authority of The Christian Science Board of Directors." This statement is just one of many manifestations of this Board position over the years that if members invoke Article 1 Section 9 of the Church Manual, this is subversive of the governance of the church.

This is a heart-rending and tragic issue for those who love our church and movement, but it is not after all, so very complex. Will you allow me to reason with you about it?

I must believe you are sincere in your conviction of the rightness of this position. But I suspect you may feel as if you are between a rock and a hard place--like Paul when Jesus said to him, "It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks."

You may feel that if you don't defend your absolute authority as apparently given you by the duty to transact the business of The Mother Church, you will be letting our Leader down. But have you thought about the fact that our Leader never claimed absolute authority for herself? She only claimed the authority of Christliness and defended it simply by being Christly.

And of course if your role is a stewardship role, then you do not have absolute authority.

Your authority to transact the business of The Mother Church cannot be endangered or subverted, because under the Manual only the Board can transact that business, and no one else can pretend to that activity.

If any member, or any group of members, conscientiously and sincerely endeavors to be obedient to our Leader's guidance in the Manual and her writings, and to the guidance of the Bible, how can that endanger or subvert your authority or the governance of our Leader's church?

If you seek to be obedient in that same way, and if the author of "Matters of Conscience" and the signers of the "working together" letter were and are seeking to do the same, are you not all seeking a common goal, are you not all working in unity?

Does not the strength of our church reside in each individual member's earnest endeavor to be obedient to our Leader -- so far as she follows Christ? And can the strength of the church do other than strengthen the Board of Directors and the governance of our church?

If our Leader asked her members to follow her only so far as she follows Christ, can you afford to do less?

I can see that you might be concerned that if you allow the door to open, a flood might come in of complaint, criticism, suggestion. But the only legitimate complaint would be if you were not following the Christ, or our Leader, and even if there were a flood, your Board could control the processing of it by the amount of time you choose to give to it, and the order of precedence you apply to the details of it.

Unity and strength reside not in the letter nor in prerogative, but in the integrity of the spirit of obedience to Christ.

4.

It is known in the field that you have placed the author of "Matters of Conscience" on probation, removed her name from the Journal, dissolved her association, and required her students to be retaught. The reason? That she has "'so strayed' as described in Article XII, Section 1 of the Church Manual..." The Section also includes the words, "For sufficient reasons," but you have apparently not specified those reasons either publicly or to the persons disciplined.

But is it not self-evident that the reason is that you asked Mrs. Davidson not to pursue her Matters of Conscience complaint further, but that she proceeded to "tell it unto the church" in accordance with Matthew 18:17, part of a passage that our Leader called "the Scriptural demand," and "the requirements according to the Scriptures?" If our Leader described this passage in those terms, does it not follow that she thought of it as a universal Christian requirement whenever there are differences between persons or groups? Did not Mrs. Davidson take Matters of Conscience to the church in the conviction that she was being obedient to her Leader and to the Bible?

In other words, was she not disciplined because she put conscientious obedience to her Leader and to the Bible before obedience to you? Is this sufficient reason for discipline? You have apparently also indicated that she will not be accepted back into the fold until she repents of having been disobedient to you in preference to being disobedient to her Leader.

Do you feel your authority extends to being able to tell every member of the church how to, or how not to, follow the Christ? Are you not, however, yourselves under Mrs. Eddy's guidance to invite the members to follow you only so far as you follow Christ?

The book of Romans requires of us that our "love be without dissimulation." Is your love without dissimulation if you discipline members simply for putting obedience to our Leader before obedience to you?

Do you feel you have authority to act contrary to the guidance of our Leader and of the Bible?

5.

Your reported comments relating to Matters of Conscience issues during the 2005 Annual Meeting afternoon session also include such implicitness. To wit:

Tom's comments about black lists would appear to indicate that the important issues in Board thinking in this regard are 1. whether members "would prevent and stand in the way of what we feel is most constructive for the movement" and 2. what would be "wisdom" and "very common practice in society." There is no mention whether the members in question are following our Leader's and the Bible's guidance, or that the Board's obedience to the laws of The Mother Church is being questioned by these members in accordance with a Manual duty.

Nathan's comments on reviewing and praying about Matters of Conscience and on "the obligation now of working through the [discipline] process" include no recognition that the author of Matters of Conscience and her students were disciplined and penalized, in effect, for putting obedience to our Leader in front of obedience to the Board, and are being asked to repent of being obedient to our Leader. When he says "I think there are those in the field who would like to sort of vote on how this discipline works itself out," he apparently does not recognize that a significant segment of the field would simply like assurance that the Board in its handling of discipline, does not penalize obedience to our Leader, which would most assuredly not be in accordance with the laws of The Mother Church.

In speaking and thinking about voting, do you, the Board, recognize that when individual members "inform the Board" in accordance with their duty under paragraph 3 of Article 1 Section 9, or "complain ... to the Clerk" in accordance with paragraph 4, or withdraw support because they feel the Board is not "perform[ing its] official duties" after the foregoing steps have been taken, do you recognize that that is a form of members voting, one member at a time, as they are led to do so by their prayers and their conscience? Has not our Leader provided for this possible contingency, and for this form of voting, even though it's not called by that name?

Mary is reported to have said, "...the Board is also enjoined by the Manual not to share the details or the discussion subjects of their deliberations so that we can't talk about it." However, isn't it self-evident that the Board has full ability to share, to talk about, its conclusions and the reasons for them, on any matter, to the extent they conclude is good and right for the awareness of the field, or individuals in the field? Otherwise there could be no communication at all between the Board and the field.

Prosperity of the Christian Science movement

Many years ago I asked myself the question, What might I find if I searched our Leader's writings for the essence of her matured vision of the mission of her church and movement. What I found were the words, "Healing and saving the world from sin and death," on p. 19 of our Church Manual, which words I later found Robert Peel had called "the designated purpose of the church."

In subsequent years, I have come to feel more and more strongly the importance of our recognition of this mandate in all that we do, and to feel that our movement will not prosper adequately until we do recognize it and are obedient to it.

I submitted an article to the periodicals some years ago called The Mission of The Mother Church. Although it was not accepted for publication, I recommend it for your consideration in present contexts as Attachment B.

If our goal is to simply be nice people, good people, that is one thing. If it is to promote and extend Christian Science, that is another thing. If it is to "reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing" that is something more, and has been frequently stressed in recent years in our periodicals and in communications from headquarters. But if our mission is to heal and save the world from sin and death, that is something tremendously more challenging and demanding, while at the same time inclusive of each of the preceding lesser statements of purpose, and one wonders why we so seldom see it mentioned.

If we do not recognize our mission as being to heal and save the world from sin and death, then we will not ask ourselves any number of crucial questions, such as: What do we need to be doing if we are to be about healing and saving the world from sin and death--with realistic expectation of accomplishing the task? What is sin in the context of our Leader's behest that we be about healing and saving the world from sin and death? What is sin in the context of our Leader's demand (in a number of different wordings, direct and indirect) that we keep abreast of the times? What must The Christian Science Monitor be and do if it is to accomplish its part in healing and saving the world from sin and death? What is its role in this context? If, as our Leader tells us in a number of different ways, "sin must be uncovered before it can be destroyed," what import does this have for our periodicals, including the Monitor? Does sin in these contexts include "error that is damning men" (Miscellany, p. 210)? Might national governmental and economic policies that condemn whole peoples to poverty and starvation be considered "sins of the nations" in these contexts?

And one final question: in the context of healing and saving the world from sin and death, what is the business of The Mother Church?

Have you asked yourselves questions such as these?

With respect,
Paul Kautz
294 Codman Hill Road 24F
Boxborough MA 0171
[This address and phone number is no longer current.]

978-274-2148
paul@duncansbeemers.com

Attachment A to 8/7/05 email to The CS Board of Directors from Paul Kautz,

4/3/02
Dear Mr. Bort,

Your guest editorial in the April 2002 issue of The Christian Science Journal is an important one, because it impacts the profound issue of unity in our movement. Our Leader calls unity, "a great sanity, a mighty something buried in the depths of the unseen, ... this phoenix fire, ... the bond of perfectness, ... reserved wisdom and strength" (My 164). But I found the editorial saddening and disquieting, because it is likely to diminish the unified support of The Christian Science Board of Directors in the movement, rather than augment it. And yet I'm sure this was not your intention, and that you wrote the editorial in all sincerity. Unified support of the Board is needful, not only for the prosperity of the Board, but also of our movement.

Your editorial is also about authority, although you do not use the word frequently in it. Authority and unity are intimately related. When one is jealous of one's authority, it resides with him uneasily. When authority is accepted and exercised with Christliness, then all under the sway of that authority rejoice in it. Our Leader was sublimely indifferent to the retention of her authority when she declared, in two consecutive annual meetings, "Follow your Leader, only so far as she follows Christ." She recognized that her authority could only reside in her Christliness.

These points are beautifully supported in Scripture, as witness
Prov 29:2
"When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice"
Matt 20:25-27
"Jesus called them unto him, and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant"
Luke 22:27
"For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? is not he that sitteth at meat? but I am among you as he that serveth."

You speak of the duty of the Board of Directors to transact the business of The Mother Church as a profound provision. One profundity of that provision is that the officers of the Church, including the Board, must fulfill their responsibilities within the framework of a number of requirements:

• the spirit and the letter of the entire Church Manual.

• the spirit and the letter of "the inspired Word of the Bible as our sufficient guide to eternal Life."

• the spirit and the letter of the leadership of the Founder and Leader of our Church as found in all of her writings.

1. Our Leader first speaks to the great importance of obedience to the laws governing her Church.

2. She then places the duty with the Board to watch and make sure that all officers fulfill all the obligations of their respective offices. One assumes the Board must watch itself and its members in the same manner, since they are individually and collectively officers of the Church, and that this duty is a distinct part of its duty to transact the business of The Mother Church.

Consider some of the implications inherent in this duty placed on individual members of the Church. It is a duty consistent with the promise of each member in the sixth tenet to watch, and also with her request that the members follow the leadership only so far as the leadership follows Christ. One may reasonably conclude that this paragraph of Section 9 constitutes a duty for the members to hold the officers, including the Board, accountable to perform their official duties in accord with the laws of The Mother Church. Thus it may be said that, to this extent, the Board and other officers are accountable to the members for the faithful performance of their respective offices. This duty, placed by our Leader with the individual members, would appear to deny that there was "a determination by our Leader to remove all alternatives to the final authority of The Christian Science Board of Directors under the Manual."

4. She goes on to provide that if the Board "fails to fulfill the requirements of this By-Law", in other words, in the sequence up to this point, a member of the Church may take the complaint to the Clerk. The presumption is that the member would have been obligated, by the previous provisions of the Section, to have already taken the matter to the Board, and to have concluded that the matter required further follow-through in obedience to these Section 9 provisions.

Consider some of the further implications evident at this point. By providing this further mechanism after the Board has already considered the complaint, our Leader is in effect saying that the Board's judgement is not necessarily superior to that of the individual member, and that if the member prayerfully concludes further consideration is needful, provision for that is provided.

5. Consider the wording of Section 9 at this point: "...and a member of this Church or the Pastor Emeritus shall complain thereof to the Clerk and the complaint be found valid,..." Can there be any doubt that this signifies that the Clerk, as a function of the Manual-designated office of Clerk, has a duty to make a determination as to whether the complaint is valid? Consider the following questions:

a. Can the Board make this determination for the Clerk? If this were to occur, would not the Clerk have abnegated a Manual-designated duty of the office of Clerk?

b. Can the Board dictate to the Clerk what determination to make, or what the Clerk may or may not do in making the determination? Would not such conflict with our Leader's guidance when she says, "The man of integrity is one who makes it his constant rule to follow the road of duty, according as Truth and the voice of his conscience point it out to him." (Mis 147)?

c. Should the Clerk be a member of the Board of Directors, can the Clerk make the determination from the point of view of a member of the Board? Is not the answer to this the same as to question a?: If this were to occur, would not the Clerk have abnegated a Manual-designated duty of the office of Clerk?

6a. If the complaint be found valid, The Board is given two options, and this would conclude the sequence. It would be reasonable to assume that having made the determination, the Clerk would also notify the complaining member of the determination, valid or invalid, and if invalid, the reasons therefor. This would appear to be the normal and loving thing to do, if the member's actions were in conscientious response to a Manual-designated duty.

6b. Section 9 does not speak to further action, should the complaint be found not valid. However, there are implications.

• Even at this point in the sequence, our Leader's counsel still applies: "Follow your Leader [the leadership] only so far as she follows Christ." In other words, the members have a duty to continue to watch, to prayerfully listen to the voice of conscience, to be obedient to Principle rather than to person, to give support and loyalty only so far as it is merited by obedience to the laws of The Mother Church. In other words, the officers and the Board are in a stewardship position and are accountable to be obedient to the laws of The Mother Church.

• In no place does our Leader deny to members the right to communicate with each other, or to inform other members of things considered beneficial to the movement for members generally to be aware. Obviously, any such activities must be approached prayerfully, and within the context of Article 24, Section 5: "God requires wisdom, economy, and brotherly love to characterize all the proceedings of the members of The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist."

• What the editorial identifies as the Matthew Code, our Leader speaks of as "the Scriptural demand." In other words, although she only incorporates it in two Manual sections, these show her recognition of its importance and that it is a universal requirement given us by our Wayshower applying any time anyone has a complaint against any other. And taking it to the church is an option within that Scriptural demand, but only after the prior two requirements of the Code are met.

In conclusion, how can any member (or group of members) who is conscientiously seeking to be obedient to the duties specified in the Church Manual, and to the guidance found in Scripture and our Leader's writings, be regarded as an enemy? If we wish to see a discontinuance of Mailing Fund activity, would it not be helpful to view the activity of the Mailing Fund not as an attack on the Board or the Church or its Manual-established form of governance, but as efforts by members of The Mother Church to fulfill a duty laid upon all members to watch and to assure that the laws of The Mother Church are obeyed? To the extent that all members, including the officers, cooperate prayerfully to see that this is accomplished, will not this be found to be a road to true unity in our Church?

 
Attachment B to 8/7/05 email to The CS Board of Directors from Paul Kautz

THE MISSION OF THE MOTHER CHURCH, 12/98

The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass., has a grand destiny. Not small, limited, parochial, in-looking, exclusive or easy of accomplishment, but grand, noble, expansive, universal, and utterly challenging and demanding. The mission of The Mother Church is nothing less than the healing and saving of the world from sin and death. No small order. Not to be achieved by any but the highest and purest of motives and means. This is a mission which transcends all lesser goals and objectives. It is God-ordained in its scope and in the holiness of its purpose. It is a high purpose in which all God-revering men and women everywhere, not just members of this church, can participate in whatever ways are appropriate to their abilities, world-view and situation.

Let's consider the basis as well as some of the ramifications of these possibly audacious sounding statements. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer of Christian Science, Founder of The Mother Church, and considered to be our continuing Leader by grateful Christian Scientists everywhere, makes this far-reaching statement at the end of the Historical Sketch in her Manual of The Mother Church: "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass., is designed to be built on the Rock, Christ; even the understanding and demonstration of divine Truth, Life, and Love, healing and saving the world from sin and death; thus to reflect in some degree the Church Universal and Triumphant." As one finds so often in her writings, this statement is fraught with significance. It is also one of those statements which one tends to pass over without giving a great deal of attention until one is mentally and spiritually prepared to plumb it for the depths of meaning it contains.

Is the following paraphrase of the above quotation accurate and faithful to our Leader's intended meaning, and may it help to clarify her intended meaning?

"The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass., is designed to be built on the Rock, Christ;..." and to be built also ("even") on "the understanding and demonstration of divine Truth, Life, and Love,..." and it is designed to be "healing and saving the world from sin and death;..." through that "understanding and demonstration of divine Truth, Life, and Love," and if it is effective and successful in healing and saving the world from sin and death ("thus"), it will "reflect in some degree the Church Universal and Triumphant."

May we not appropriately conclude that our Leader designed her church to be "healing and saving the world from sin and death?" Is not this the essence of the purpose and mission of her church? Is not this conclusion in keeping with these other statements from the textbooks of Christian Science?: "God sent...his Son into the world...that the world through him might be saved," states the Gospel of John (3:17). And Mrs. Eddy speaks in her book, SCIENCE AND HEALTH, WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES, of "the higher mission of the Christ-power to take away the sins of the world" (p. 150).

An interesting confirmation of this view is Robert Peel's statement regarding Mrs. Eddy in an article in the July 1982 Christian Science Journal, p. 401, "She learned by doing. Some of the most mundane tasks that were forced on her by the need of the moment brought to her the very inspiration that moved the church closer to its designated purpose of 'healing and saving the world from sin and death'--not just the individual Christian Scientist or even the local community but the WORLD."

Earlier in the Historical Sketch mentioned above, the statement of purpose adopted at the founding of the church thirteen years earlier is quoted: "To organize a church designed to commemorate the word and works of our Master, which should reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing." This purpose is not abandoned but included and encompassed in the later and final statement of the design of the church, which embodies a broader, more complete, more demanding mission for the church. To go back to the earlier statement of purpose and ignore the later, would be to deny the unfolding vision of our Leader; it would not be progress, but retrogression. To avoid the more challenging mission would be to assume a Jonah mentality of avoidance of God's behest. But Jonah found no peace or success until he accepted and fulfilled God's command to him.

Mrs. Eddy concludes her final statement of the design of her church with the words, "...thus to reflect in some degree the Church Universal and Triumphant." To reflect implies that which already exists, and that the Church Universal and Triumphant therefore already exists in our Father's kingdom. But what of the words, "in some degree?" May we conclude that progress toward the human manifestation of such a transcendent church will depend on the effectiveness of the demonstration of the members of our Church? Indeed, will it also depend on their recognition that they have been charged with such a task? But may we not also conclude that Mrs. Eddy did not envision her church as alone comprising the Church Universal and Triumphant? Must not this universal church include all Christianity, indeed, all persons everywhere who would in any measure come to understand and demonstrate the Christ in its true meaning and essence? And this, regardless of denominational affiliation or title? In other words, do we not share the high charge of healing and saving the world from sin and death with, as we put it earlier, God-revering men and women everywhere? Are not all such persons everywhere our brethren?

But let us weave in another aspect of this tapestry of the significance of the mandate of our church. In Hebrews 11 we read, "By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith, he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles... For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God."

Is not the Church Universal and Triumphant our land of promise, the city which we seek? And is not our route and means for arriving there the healing and saving of the world from sin and death? Even though Abraham was not sure where he was going nor entirely how to conduct himself, he was obedient. He was willing to dwell in transitory accomodations, tents, use transitory means, while moving toward the city of promise, of permanence, having foundations.

In Revelation 21, John describes the city in more detail, in terms requiring spiritual decoding since the book is an apocalypse, or book written in code (predominantly Old Testament allusions) during a time of persecution. He described "that great city...descending out of heaven from God" as indeed having foundations, twelve in number. "And the city lieth foursquare, and the length is as large as the breadth..." To the Hebrews, the numbers four and twelve (as well as one, three and seven) symbolized completeness. Mrs. Eddy says in SCIENCE AND HEALTH (p. 575), "Taken in its allegorical sense, the description of the city as foursquare has a profound meaning. The four sides of our city are the Word, Christ, Christianity, and divine Science;...,"

The city lying foursquare and the Church Universal and Triumphant. Are these not but two aspects of the same grand spiritual concept? A spiritual concept, but one demanding demonstration and manifestation in the here and now.

A forty four year period of development occurred between the discovery of Christian Science in 1866 and the completion of Mrs. Eddy's tenure in this experience in 1910. It has been remarked many times that her last major action in that momentous period of establishing and developing all the structures and channels of her church and movement occurred in 1908 with the founding of The Christian Science Monitor. Can it be doubted that she conceived of it as having an important role in the unified design of her Church? She stated, "...the next I named Monitor, to spread undivided the Science that operates unspent" (My. 353). Science--the fourth side of the city. To bring it, undivided, into the marketplace of the world, into the broad field of daily news journalism, the gathering and disseminating in written form of the daily occurrences in the world, and their significance.

As with all else that she established, to fulfil her mandate for the Monitor in a way to do justice to that mandate and to make its essential contribution to the larger design for the church of which it is an integral part to heal and save the world from sin and death, is truly an awesome challenge, not one to be accomplished easily nor with anything less than the most scrupulous adherence to principle, honesty, truth, validity, and unrelenting spiritual perceptivity.

If our Leader conceived of the work of her church as healing and saving the world from sin and death, does it not follow that every part of that church, every activity, every branch, every member, has its (or his or her) unique, individual role in that tremendous goal? If we have not as yet been conceiving of our role in that light, do we not need to give this our most earnest and prayerful consideration? Thought must precede action, and action is needed for fulfillment of any goal, small or large. In the words of Hymn 41, "Who dares stand idle on the harvest plain? ... Claim the high calling that we all may share;... Redeem the time: its hours too swiftly fly... No arm so weak but may do service here; by means the simplest can our God fulfill His righteous will."

 
Response from the Board of Directors
to the August 2005 letter

There was no response or acknowledgment in writing from the Board of Directors. One of their members, the Clerk, called and we had a telephone conversation. The substance of his message was that they 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 the letter and attachments are human opinion, and on all of them, there are views on both sides. My strong conviction, however, is that our church is not founded on opinion, but on Science.

In January 2007, I informed the above-mentioned member of the Board that "other things remaining unchanged, I expect to make the analysis contained in my 8/7/05 letter to the Board available to individual Christian Scientists who may express an interest in seeing it." This site is my means of doing so. The site will become known only to individuals 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. Which means that it will reach only as far as it is valued, which is as it should be. Our objective is unity and obedience, accompanied by the utmost of love and joy.

+++++++

Can any conscientious member of The Mother Church legitimately put obedience to The Christian Science Board of Directors (Board) before and above obedience to our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy?

and The Most Fundamental Question facing our movement today
propounded more recently, namely,

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 administrators of her Church?

At this time (September 2011), a third Fundamentally Important Question comes to mind:

Is our movement paying sufficient heed
to our Leader's designated purpose for her church, namely
"healing and saving the world from sin and death?"
(see Manual, p.19)

In conjunction with my two letters to the Board (2005 and 2011), the following subsidiary questions may be helpful in prayerfully determining what are right steps for one to take.

Subsidiary Questions:

• If the Board, in effect, has been asking the membership to put obedience to the Board before obedience to our Leader, do individual members have a duty described in Article 1 Section 9 of the Church Manual, to ask the Board to be obedient to our Leader, and, if so led by prayer, to withdraw support from them until they are so obedient?

• If it is deemed necessary, can the annual minimum $1 per capita tax requirement be used as a clear message of non-support?

• Is the authority of the Board in the office, or in the persons appointed to that office?

• If the members of the Board violate their trust, do they morally forfeit their authority?

• Is it one of the implicit duties of the Board to preserve unity in the movement by the integrity of their obedience to the Christ and to our Leader?

• If a deep division in the movement has gone on for 15 years or more, will it continue indefinitely, so long as
  a large proportion of the membership is unaware of what our Leader has required of us,
  and another large proportion "flies under the radar"--avoiding taking a stand, and avoiding the risk attendant on taking a stand?

• Is the risk to the movement associated with disobedience to our Leader a more compelling risk than incurring the displeasure of the Board?