Article September 27, 1999 Issue

Response to The New York Times Book Review

From Gary A. Jones, Manager, Committees on Publication, The First Church of Christ, Scientist

On August 22, God's Perfect Child, by Caroline Fraser, was reviewed in The New York Times Book Review. Like the book, the review itself contained inaccurate statements about Mary Baker Eddy and The First Church of Christ, Scientist. Below is the Church's response to The New York Times.

In his piece about God's Perfect Child by Caroline Fraser (August 22), Philip Zaleski reviews and editorializes. After summarizing Caroline Fraser's rancorous indictment of Mary Baker Eddy and the Church of Christ, Scientist (and also criticizing Fraser's "ill-conceived broadside" against exponents of alternative medicine), he cites a fact marginalized in Fraser's book: the 50,000-plus documented cures, published by the Church over the last century. Zaleski acknowledges, this record is "hard to explain away," while also wondering how Eddy has managed to "captivate so many over the years." Would it not be instructive, he suggests, after conceding the "intemperateness" of Fraser's attack, to hear "the other side of the story"?

There is indeed another side. It is sad that Fraser developed a text devoid of balance and filled with inaccuracies. She uncritically accepts and generously recycles assertions by detractors of the Church, while admitting that she herself never requested access to the Church's archives.

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