Health care: a discussion
Participants in this discussion are Jean Stark Hebenstreit, C.S.B., Trustee of The Christian Science Publishing Society; Nathan A. Talbot, C.S.B., Manager of Committees on Publication for the Church of Christ, Scientist; Robert H. MacLachlan, C.S., Manager of The Christian Science Board of Lectureship; and Allison W. Phinney, Jr., C.S.B., Editor of the Church's religious periodicals, who serves as moderator.
Allison W. Phinney, Jr.: Let me start us off by first asking something on behalf of our readers: Why is there a need for a forum on health care when the subject gets so much constant attention?
Nathan A. Talbot: At the same time that the subject is becoming the focus of a growing national debate in the United States, there is also more interest from the public in trying to assess what kind of health care Christian Science provides and whether that form of care is adequate. As our Church by necessity addresses this complex issue, we may also find ourselves in the unique position of serving to indicate why and how society needs to explore some of the broader implications of what actually constitutes health care.
Mr. Phinney: Do you feel society is generally satisfied with the direction it is presently taking to health care?
Robert H. MacLachlan: On one level yes, but there is actually a deep stir of concern among thoughtful and informed people—and good reason for it. In the United States in 1990 we spent $666 billion on health care, or 11.5 percent of the GNP, and it is estimated that unless something changes by 2000, health-care costs will equal 15 percent of GNP. Still, the infant mortality rate continues to rise (the U.S. is now twenty-second in this category). We are only twelfth in life expectancy, and there is a shortage of doctors in poor and rural areas.
Mr. Talbot: Costs are running to nearly $2 billion per day. One writer has observed that the financial burden of health care is now "the leading cause of personal and small-business bankruptcy" and that the delivery system can be terribly dehumanizing, as when the elderly, for example, have felt forced "to degrading extremes—like divorcing a beloved spouse—in order to qualify for help through a long-term debilitating illness" (Time, December 10, 1990).
Mr. MacLachlan: In the case of the poorest people, the choice becomes medicine versus groceries. In the case of middle-class people, particularly the aged, they are forced to use up their savings at a very rapid rate. The result is a growing fear on the part of many people that even if modern technology can promise relative freedom from physical problems and aging, the cost is getting progressively beyond their reach and they run the risk of becoming long-term wards of the state.
Mr. Phinney: In other words, sheer economic problems are beginning to raise serious questions about the dream of unlimited health on a material and medical basis.
Mr. MacLachlan: Yes, and also beginning to raise questions about how health care should be defined. The United States has had, since its inception, a frontier heritage. As a part of this, there is a deep strain of belief in the ability to take hold of any problem and solve it. But American medical history, particularly in the years since World War II, has carried this to an extreme with an engineering approach to medicine that implicitly says the wonders of technology mean we can fix or replace anything that needs it. So health care has come to mean something different from healing. It means management under the constant supervision of the medical fraternity of bodily functions, including psychological or mental functions.
Mr. Phinney: Would a different definition help, in practical terms?
Mr. MacLachlan: It helps in Europe and in other countries because there is a less technological definition of what constitutes health care. There is also probably a bit more openness to a holistic approach to healing, along with fewer ties to profit motivations among the insurance industry and medical profession.
Mr. Phinney: You're not, of course, saying that Christian Science is the same as holistic healing, which it is not, but that the experience of Christian Science healing through prayer and entirely spiritual means shows something about the nature of man that can make a contribution to the understanding of health.
Mr. MacLachlan: Yes, one result of all this increased emphasis on health care (meaning primarily bodily care) has been the implicit assumption that there is only one authentic way to achieve it—the medical.
Mr. Phinney: But in proportion to humanity's grasp of the fact that man is actually spiritual in nature—related to Spirit, God, not a mere material collection of atoms, genes, and cells—humanity will have more health.
Jean Stark Hebenstreit: It seems to me that Christian Scientists' own very practical experience—four or five generations of them—offers an indication that a different definition of health care or healing is plausible. The greatest authority ever involved in health care, Christ Jesus, gave a clear-cut rationale of the ultimate provision for acceptable and effective treatment when he said, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Christ Jesus wasn't offering an abstraction or theoretical philosophizing. He was stating divine law—which he was proving in the laboratory of daily lives, the power of spiritually enlightened prayer as the reliable basis for health and wholeness.
Mr. Talbot: The book that Christian Scientists feel illuminates the teachings and works of Christ Jesus recounted in the Bible and that points to a Christianly scientific method of health care, ultimately for anyone to discover, is Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. Here Mrs. Eddy makes an interesting statement in connection with what we're talking about. She says, "Through Christian Science, religion and medicine are inspired with a diviner nature and essence; fresh pinions are given to faith and understanding, and thoughts acquaint themselves intelligently with God."
Mr. Phinney: Some additional context might be helpful for someone who doesn't know much about Christian Science.
Mr. Talbot: Well, Christian Scientists believe that Christian Science is not a matter of religious dogma or doctrine but is the discovery of spiritual laws that have been there all the time but were unrecognized. These laws underlay Christ Jesus' capacity to heal and help others to heal as he did. So, with the discovery that Mrs. Eddy named Christian Science, she believed that there would come a gradual uplifting or leavening of the concept of both medicine and religion.
Mr. Phinney: I think that is a very important point. Christian Scientists are sometimes portrayed as "against" medicine or opposed to doctors. It is an unfortunate and very distorted perception. There's a comment made by Mrs. Eddy that characterizes any Christian Scientist acting according to the norm: "A genuine Christian Scientist loves Protestant and Catholic, D.D. and M.D.,—loves all who love God, good; and he loves his enemies." Then she goes on to make a key point, touched on by Nate, "It will be found that, instead of opposing, such an individual subserves the interests of both medical faculty and Christianity, and they thrive together, learning that Mind-power is good will towards men" (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany).
She obviously believed that Christian Scientists are not opposing but supporting healing in every circumstance. They are strongly convinced that over time medicine will be understood to be less and less materially based and more and more spiritually based, and that is their own choice in regard to healing. But the attitude is deeply constructive in regard to people trying to relieve humanity's suffering and to find health.
Jean, your Christian Science teacher was a former medical general practitioner who chose to become a Christian Science practitioner after his healing of a physical disability.
Mrs. Hebenstreit: Yes, it has always seemed to me this was a perfectly natural transition. Dr. John Tutt had been devoted to helping others, and he naturally went forward with metaphysical healing after he became a Christian Scientist.
Mrs. Eddy, in Science and Health, termed Christ Jesus "the most scientific man" who ever lived because he got below the surface of things and found the basic spiritual cause of health and well-being for mankind. Christ Jesus' spiritual perception of what was actually true about creation provided valid solutions to the fluctuating but unremitting health-care problems that challenge mankind.
His was no mere palliation nor temporary adjustment of conditions but the permanent resolution of whatever besets health. His method of healing rested wholly on spiritual thought and action, and he said so.
Mr. MacLachlan: Most people understand there is some connection between what they think and what they are, but they don't associate it with God. Christian Scientists believe that when a person's entire life and thought is spiritually disciplined to serve God, it leads not only to a more moral lifestyle but also to increased health or wholeness. Health care really ought to include the whole man, ought to include his job, his home, his family, and so forth in addition to his body. Indeed, it ought to include his relationship to the world in which he lives.
Mr. Talbot: In the continuing dialogue I have with society, I've found that Christian Science healing can only be fully appreciated in the context of the whole way of life it provides. For the Christian Scientists, his or her entire experience must be centered on gaining the spiritual understanding of man's relationship to God and then demonstrating that understanding for the benefit of humanity. It is this relationship to God that gives direction, meaning, and purpose to every facet of an individual's life. And it is this relationship that also leads very naturally to the profound blessing of Christian healing—healing that extends to the widest range of human challenges and difficulties.
Mrs. Hebenstreit: The Science of Christ is not just an alternate healing remedy but is a way of life, the living of the Christ-spirit. One cannot be casual about the demands of Christian Science and then look to it as a pill to ward off ills. It calls for the highest moral and spiritual standards. It accentuates the importance of turning to the Christ to find salvation. In so following the Master, there is healing and freedom.
Mr. Phinney: Christian Science goes back to the root meaning of salvation, which is not simply the saving of a soul but implies practical wholeness and health.
Mrs. Hebenstreit: Yes, Jesus restored health, and he assures us, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father." There is the closest connection between Jesus' "preach the gospel" and his "heal the sick." His preaching was radically reliant, and with its logic and genuinely spiritual impetus, his love for God and man, healing ensued.
Mr. Talbot: Christian Scientists are neither religious elitists nor faith-cure fanatics, although there continues to be considerable misunderstanding on these points by many people today. Reliance on spiritual means for healing has to go much deeper than any dogma, official position, or even an agreement one freely chooses to make in joining with a church organization. That reliance has to be recognized as an integral part of one's commitment to working out his salvation. It is a fundamental element in one's worship of God. And it is also the way one is prepared to help others, including the public at large, to find healing and spiritual renewal. Health care for the Christian Scientist must include a ministry of caring for others. The healing available to students of Christian Science must always be available to everyone.
Mr. Phinney: Many medical commentators are pointing out that differences in lifestyle and expectations and hope may actually have more to do with health than does access to modern medical care. In a recent book called The Power to Heal, one of its writers, Michael Crichton, makes a startling observation about the rapidly changing medical scene. Dr. Crichton says: "What all this means is that our present concept of medicine will disappear. Pressed both by patients and its own advancing technology, medicine will change its focus from treatment to enhancement, from repair to improvement, from diminished sickness to increased performance. That transformation has already begun."
Mr. Talbot: I believe that's correct. We mentioned earlier Mrs. Eddy's expectation that both religion and medicine can be freed somewhat from their feeling of being based in and limited by matter. She spoke of "a diviner nature and essence" that could infuse religion and medicine. That is truly beginning to happen. The health-care crisis in society, and the most important health care needs of individuals, will be more effectively answered as people everywhere discover the inspiration and practicality of that "diviner nature and essence." It is in God-directed caring and in the kind of healing which actually transforms people's lives that we all learn, step by step, what genuine "health care" really means.
