Article August 15, 1931 Issue

Item of Interest

Occasionally in the by-laws of a branch church there is provision for the First Reader to sit with the board of directors at certain intervals or in respect to certain matters, and he then participates in the proceedings of the board and their decisions. Churches generally, however, have found it inadvisable to have such a by-law, which may be described as a hold-over from the custom of an earlier period in our denominational experience, when it was justified by the then existing circumstances.

At one time a By-Law of The Mother Church specified that the First Reader should be present with The Christian Science Board of Directors in the consideration of cases of discipline, but now Article XI, Section 5, provides that, "Only the members of this Board shall be present at meetings for the examination of complaints against church members; and they alone shall vote on cases involving The Mother Church discipline."

The By-Laws, Article III, Sections 7 and 8, of the Church Manual, are necessarily considered in conjunction with other By-Laws which call for local, democratic self-government, such as Article XI, Section 13, and Article XXIII, Sections 1 and 10, of the Manual of The Mother Church. Taken together, these By-Laws imply that a First Reader should stand for proper discipline and the enforcement of by-laws in the church of which he is Reader, but he does not necessarily participate in the disciplinary affairs which are before the executive board of his church. Many branch churches feel that their Readers should be freed from the necessity of contact with questions of church discipline and procedure, and thus be left to devote their thought and attention to spiritual preparation for the church services. (See Article III, Section 1, Church Manual.) There is no reason, of course, why the Readers of a church, just as other officers or members of the church, may not confer with the executive board when occasion requires.

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