Editor's note: Before his appointment as Senior Executive Editor of the Christian Science religious magazines, Nathan A. Talbot, C.S.B., served The First Church of Christ, Scientist, during the last decade as Manager of Committees on Publication, the chief public information office of the Church. In that capacity, Mr. Talbot had the opportunity to discuss Christian Science and its healing practice with a broad array of religious workers and clergymen, law-enforcement officials, medical authorities, legislators, and especially with those in the media, as illustrated by the following comments.

Recently I was invited to participate in a statewide conference for juvenile officers. These police officers deal not only with offenders but also with victims of abuse and neglect. They wanted to understand better how Christian Scientist families care for their health needs. One officer, during a casual conversation, expressed frustration with the press and how he felt it portrays and often misrepresents those in law enforcement.

I remembered similar concerns mentioned by ministers at a religious conference—concerns that those in the ministry are not given a fair shake by much of the press. In fact, as I thought about it, I recalled other parallel complaints, including those raised by doctors at medical meetings.

Probably most people who have directly encountered the rough-and-tumble world of the free press in a democratic society have felt its sting. And yet the options of no press, or of government-regulated views, would be far worse. At least groups who feel an unfair impact of newspaper stories have an opportunity in an open society to enter a dialogue with the media and put forward their perspective. And there are certainly many fine newspaper men and women providing a much-needed and valuable service.

In recent years a broad segment of the newspaper world, even beyond the United States, has carried stories about Christian Science healing—or, more accurately, stories about times when Christian Science did not bring healing. Christian Scientists have felt concern that the media tend to cover only shortcomings, and rarely the huge and growing successful record of healing. Reporters will say in their own defense that it's like airplane crashes. The safe flights aren't really news. The difference, of course, is that nearly everyone realizes the extraordinary record of air safety. Relatively few people have been exposed to the remarkable Christian Science record of healing through prayer.

On the other hand, media coverage of medical events attempts to provide some measure of balance between achievement and failure—though most of what the public sees and hears often suggests a far-reaching success of conventional medical practice that doesn't always hold up.

There is a growing realization that, at least in financial terms, the United States health-care system is headed into a crisis—even a catastrophe according to some analysts. Christian Scientists, as well as the majority who have, for the time, chosen this conventional system, are all having to pay dearly for huge inefficiencies. Maybe it isn't so strange that a Christian Science news publication, known for its solution orientation, would offer innovative and creative answers to those struggling within their own present medical system. (See World Monitor, April 1992.)

But in an effort to bring some balance to the way editors view the question of practicing a very different approach to caring for health needs, I have visited with newspapers throughout North America. And I've felt it to be a genuine privilege to discuss with the media a contemporary lifestyle that roots the concept of healing in Bible precepts instead of in high-tech modern medicine.

Most discussions took place with editorial boards, individual editors, or reporters. But some visits were with radio and television stations, legislators, and magazines. The tone of the meetings ranged from outright disbelief (even hostility) over the very idea of spiritual healing, to deep appreciation for the new insight into healing that Christian Scientists are contributing to society.

On the whole I'll have to confess I was almost surprised at how warm and cordial most meetings were. And I nearly always felt the visits concluded with a stronger appreciation for the possibilities of spiritual healing—especially on those occasional times when the initial attitudes had tended to be deeply skeptical or antagonistic. If there were any single feeling I was left with regarding these visits, it could be described as a real gratitude that there are many fair-minded media people who honestly want to be accurate in their presentation of issues.

A common thread I found in our discussions, however, was a significant lack of any real awareness of how effective spiritual healing has been for Christian Scientists over the decades. (I did often receive thanks for The Christian Science Monitor—and there were occasional compliments about the beginning efforts we are making in broadcast journalism.) But when it came to the question of spiritual healing, the majority of editors found it challenging to shift from a medical to a spiritual model in thinking about how health needs can be met.

On the very delicate subject of youth, many assumed the issue was society's effort to balance the right of children to have health care against the right of parents to practice religion. I explained if that were what's at stake, surely all of us in society would come down on the side of children! I felt the real issue was whether society has become so medicalized that it has lost sight of a tolerance for any other method of treating disease, even if that method were consistently reliable. In fact, the question may be whether most people have been too materially and medically dogmatic to recognize a viable alternative if it did exist, especially a religious or spiritual one. Are we no longer a pluralistic society that respects differing but honestly held views?

Although there were literally hundreds and hundreds of questions over the course of these interviews, some inquiries cropped up repeatedly. One common concern related to what available evidence there is of actual healing through prayer. The Christian Science religious periodicals were a lifesaver! The fact that weekly and monthly, year in and year out, our Church publishes accounts of healing that have resulted through prayer provides a massive accumulation of evidence that wouldn't be reasonable simply to dismiss. A recent study of over two thousand medically diagnosed conditions selected from these publications begins at least to suggest that society should be willing to look more seriously at this whole question. (Free copies of this study are available at Christian Science Reading Rooms in the booklet Freedom and Responsibility.)

Perhaps the point most troubling to these editors was why we don't take the best of both worlds—combine Christian Science treatment with medicine. After all, the argument goes, most people in society do pray and yet don't find turning to God conflicts with accepting, for instance, a drug therapy for treating a disease.

While I really found no pat answer for any specific question, it was often helpful to point out that most people are looking to the drug as the basis for treating the disease. They are looking to God for comfort, for providing the doctor with guidance, for support during a difficult time. In contrast, Mary Baker Eddy taught the use of prayer itself as the actual treatment for the disease. And it's a radically different kind of treatment from the drug therapy. Those practicing this system have found that mixing such fundamentally different modes of treatment is not in the best interest of the patient. Similarly, a doctor certainly wouldn't combine two medical remedies that are incompatible.

Occasionally editors were interested in the theology that underpins our method of treatment. What was it about our approach to prayer, they asked, that is in conflict with a drug therapy?

Again, there were dozens of ways to respond to this question, depending on the context in which it was asked. At times it was useful to shift away from a medical model and discuss the model Christ Jesus taught his disciples for healing. I explained that prayer for the Christian Scientist involves a communion with God that seeks to understand Him as infinite Spirit, the only power. While most people who love the Bible feel they pray with this same view, there is a difference. Actually to glimpse Spirit as the sole power has the effect of destroying the belief that disease is a power. It also would undermine any benefit a patient may seek from the power of a drug or from some other form of matter. Healing comes with more certainty when this method of treatment is based fully on the realization that matter, in whatever form, is powerless in the face of Spirit.

The factor that has made Christian Science treatment so effective is the inspired recognition that Spirit is omnipotent. To relinquish this spiritual insight and accept matter as any kind of power dilutes the strength of the treatment being administered through prayer. Some editors found it interesting to consider the Christian Scientists' view that healing based on eternal and changeless Biblical precepts and laws is closer to true "science" than medical practices based on changing material theories.

I was grateful for the number of editors who openly acknowledged there was much more to this method of healing than they had initially realized. Most had previously assumed Christian Scientists were, at best, just good people hoping for a miracle. Often they were surprised to learn that insurance companies cover Christian Science treatment, that there are recognized Christian Science nurses and care facilities, that the United States Internal Revenue Service and Revenue Canada provide deductions for Christian Science treatment, that our nurses and facilities currently are part of the federal medicare system, that numerous state laws in the U.S. accommodate spiritual healing.

Perhaps the most important point symbolized by these visits is how natural it can be for our Church to carry forward a dialogue with society on the question of spiritual healing. We shouldn't be hesitant about being scrutinized by the public. And the public shouldn't be hesitant about acknowledging a growing amount of evidence that spiritual healing is a very real event, practiced with consistency and repeatable results, in the lives of a significant segment of society.

Some editors, by the end of our visit, would smile and suggest, not too seriously, that maybe this is the answer to society's health-care crisis. With real seriousness I would smile and agree that it just may be.

Nathan A. Talbot