Article September 21, 1981 Issue

Man is not guilt-ridden

EVELYN M. S. DUCKETT

Many people are beginning to recognize the link between thought and experience, including health. But sometimes they find the implications disturbing. Does this correlation mean that sick people are necessarily more wicked than anyone else?

In Medical World News Dr. Howard M. Spiro, professor of medicine at Yale University, wrote: "The emphasis today on personal responsibility for one's own health is admirable as long as it doesn't turn into guilt for getting sick. . . . Increasingly, disease is seen as punishment for bad behavior . . . ."^{Medical World News, January 7, 1980, quoted in Detroit Free Press, March 16, 1980.}

Undoubtedly some diseases are directly attributable to various degrees of sin, and Christianly scientific healing has to include a change of heart and motivation. Indeed, sin-induced disease can sometimes be a powerful incentive for this change of thought. Christian Science shows how wrong thinking can be acknowledged and repudiated through the redeeming power of the Christ. Then the feeling of guilt is purged, and the attendant suffering disappears.

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