Article July 23, 1990 Issue

SECOND THOUGHT

Looking again at news and commentary

James M. Wall

The Christian Century

From The Christian Century, May 2, 1990, by James M. Wall

"Christian Scientists David and Ginger Twitchell are on trial in a Boston courtroom, charged with relying on prayer rather than medical care [for] their two-year-old son in 1986. The trial has attracted national attention in part because it is taking place in the Suffolk District Court close by the Mother Church, world headquarters of the Christian Science denomination.

"In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Christian Science founder Mary Baker Eddy, whose teachings are the basis for the Twitchells' care for their son, defended those beliefs this way: 'Denial of the possibility of Christian healing robs Christianity of the very element, which gave it divine force and its astonishing and unequalled success in the first century.' Allison W. Phinney, Jr., writing in the Christian Science Sentinel, notes that Christian Scientists believe in a divine power that makes the 'healing presence of God' a 'practical reality.' If it is possible, Phinney says, to legislate against such a belief, society 'has come to the point where it must ask itself some very sobering questions. Is God going to be tolerated only as a kind of inspirational poetry?'

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