Editorial June 20, 2016 Issue

Real reform now!

Patricia C. Woodard

In this year of raucous politics in the United States, there is one thing that all sides seem to agree on—the need for prison reform (see “Congress’s big, bipartisan success that might be just beginning,” CSMonitor.com, October 20, 2015). Although this is cause for celebration, there is still much to be done to address the problem of high incarceration in the United States and a high rate of recidivism.

Thankfully, Christian Science offers every individual real, heartfelt reform now! In 19th-century New England, as prison reform was being introduced to the prison system, Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science and author of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, expressed an interest in bringing Christian Science to prison inmates. Mrs. Eddy once asked a worker in her household, Irving Tomlinson, to begin holding Christian Science services in the Concord, New Hampshire, county jail. Today, Christian Scientists continue this work, holding Christian Science services in prisons and county jails throughout the United States. In areas where there aren’t volunteers to serve, the Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lessons is being mailed to large numbers of inmates.

During one service in a prison, the reader had barely finished saying “Amen” after the benediction when one of the “regulars” stood up and with Science and Health in hand, encouraged all to read the book. “It will change your life. It has mine,” he said. It sure had! He had applied for parole several times and been denied. In the interim, however, he had become not just a diligent student of Christian Science, but also a member of The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston. Recently he was paroled after 17 years. This former inmate is a new man.

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