Spiritual resources for re-establishing unity in the Christian Science movement

Response Letters

Following my sending in my global warming email we had an interesting set of exchanges regarding the response letter from the customer service team (which I'm told is a service team for all communications coming into The Mother Church).

Date: 29 Jun 2007
Subject: Global warming in April Journal

Dear Paul,

How nice to hear from you again! We appreciate your taking the time to write to the Journal and let us know your thoughts on the piece in the April Journal. We eagerly welcome Christian Scientists' perspectives on how to pray about global warming, climate change, or whatever name it may be called in the future. As fellow Christian Scientists, you and I and everyone are all looking for the most effective healing ideas to address every issue that confronts our world. In fact, we encourage you to share with Journal readers how you are metaphysically addressing the challenge of global warming (or how you in your prayers are addressing any other challenge that humanity seeks to heal, such as on-campus violence, domestic violence, drug addiction, genocide, famine, obesity...). So if you are so inclined, please consider sending us an article draft (600-700 words) to jshwrite@csps.com, and we would be delighted to work together with you to perhaps run your article in an upcoming issue. We depend on our readers to bring metaphysical insights to our pages and to share these insights with the world. Looking forward to hearing from you and possibly finding a place for your article in our pages.

Your response to the Journal is greatly appreciated, carefully read, and will be shared with the staff. All letters to the editor are submissions for publication, unless you request otherwise, and are subject to editing for length and clarity if selected for publication.

Again, thank you for being in touch with us.

All the best to you,

Tami Conklin
The Christian Science Journal
Customer Service Team

And I wrote back, after a bit...

July 17, 2007
To: journal@csps.com
Re: Recent response letters

Dear friends:

I've recently received response letters from the Customer Service Team regarding two email comment letters to you (6/27 and 6/29), one relating to whether tyranny is a powerful word, and the other to global warming.

You may be interested in my impressions regarding these response letters. Incidentally, upon reading the most recent, relating to my global warming email, I felt very severely depressed for about half an hour or so. But that is just by way of preface. My real purpose is to give you my impressions on the content of the response letters -- for your consideration.

1. There was not a single word about the point of my letter, or whether it got to those to whom it was addressed, or whether they read it, considered it, made any comment about it, or have any viewpoint about it. That being the case, I ask myself if the response letters have any value to me, the reader, in other words the customer, other than to let me know my email was received.

2. Does this convey that the Journal discourages readers from sending anything critical of content in the Journal, regardless of whether the point might, or might not, be well taken?

By the way, I value all content in the Journal that is sound and inspiring, and there is much of that. I write these, what might be called, 'alert' letters, only because, as we all know, our Leader held the correct statement of Christian Science in the periodicals to be of highest importance.

Sincerely,

Paul Kautz

And Tami wrote...

Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 20:08:49 -0400
From: "Journal@csps.com" <Journal@csps.com>
Reply-to: "Journal@csps.com" <Journal@csps.com>
To: paul <paul@duncansbeemers.com>
Subject: Recent response letters

Dear Paul,

We're so glad you were back in touch with us - as it allows us to let you know just how important your feedback is to the entire editorial staff (the staff members, the editor, and the editor-in-chief). We always appreciate hearing from our readers, and we endeavor to respond to each message with love and care. There might be a writer that feels strongly about an issue that we may not see in quite the same way, and so our reply may not satisfy immediately, but there is always genuine care and a listening ear for each message we receive.

We know that not every article, interview, testimony, poem, etc., published will speak to each reader in the same way, but if even one individual is touched by the Christ message that results in a change of thought, which then changes a situation in that reader's life to one of healing, then we have succeeded!

We hope this is helpful to you and that you'll continue to be in touch with us with any comments or questions as you continue to read The Christian Science Journal. We always appreciate hearing from our readers!

All the best to you,

Tami Conklin
The Christian Science Journal
Customer Service Team

And I...

7/24/07
Dear Tami,

It is a sadness to me that you are apparently required to write within communication policy guidelines which come to you from management above you, which do not allow you to communicate either forthrightly or substantively to concerns or messages from readers, and since you apparently speak for the Journal editors, that they are thereby, in effect, constrained by the same requirements.

Is such a communication policy in accord with the admonition in Romans, "Let love be without dissimulation," and is it in accord with Science, which the Journal is supposed to be putting on record?

This question is really for consideration by those who control the communication policy.

Sincerely,

Paul Kautz

The next and most recent response letter, followed another protest letter I felt compelled to send to the editors,
regarding the capability of the human mind, and was from Bronwen, not Tami...
In this case, I did hear directly from the author, since he had his email address in his Journal listing.

July 27,2007
Re: The human mind

Dear Paul,

Thank you for taking a moment to write to The Christian Science Journal to share your comments on the article "The Prayer that Heals" by Jim Spencer in the August 2007 issue.

We appreciate you taking the time to thoughtfully share your insight on one of the points shared in this article, dealing with the human mind and blind faith. Much thought and prayer goes into every issue of the Journal, but we so appreciate your attentiveness to detail and your care in bringing these elements to our attention.  We are grateful for the support of readers like you who help us strive for the highest standard in our publication. Your message will be shared with Journal editorial staff and also with Jim Spencer. If they have any comments or thoughts to share they may be in touch with you directly.

All letters to the editor are submissions for publication, unless you request otherwise, and are subject to editing for length and clarity if selected for publication.

Again, we do thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with us. Please feel free to write to us anytime.

With gratitude for your loving readership,

Bronwen Arthur
The Christian Science Journal
Customer Service Team