Article July 7, 1986 Issue

The following commentary is reprinted from U.S. News & World Report's...

The following commentary is reprinted from U.S. News & World Report's weekly "Rostrum" column, a forum for citizen opinion, under the significant headline "Prayer's not a gamble." The author is a church member from California and an Assistant Committee on Publication. She wrote in response to an earlier article in the same magazine that gave an unfair representation of Christian Science healing.

That earlier article was about court cases brought against several Christian Scientist parents in California. It fitted in all too predictably with a wider pattern of reporting in the media—reporting that has generally reduced the serious issues involved in these cases to a set of simplistic stereotypes, i.e., "benighted faith healers" versus "enlightened society."

The U.S. New's article had quoted only a sentence from the substancial statement furnished by the Committee on Publication (reprinted in the February 17, 1986, issue of the Sentinel, pp. 304–306). And the story as a whole was based on the unspoken assumption that medical care alone constitutes "real" care for rational people. As the "Rostrum" commentary points out, the abundant healing that has taken place in Christian Scientists' lives simply can't be so casually brushed aside.

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July 7, 1986
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