Editorials

THIS QUESTION HAS COME UP at nearly every town meeting the Board of Directors has held over the last five years with Christian Scientists around the world: Where do you see our Church 50 years from now? Sometimes you hear concern in the questioner's voice. Sometimes you see pencils poised for note-taking, as if people expect to hear about an elaborate program for Church expansion.

CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS ARE WELL AWARE that Mary Baker Eddy expected her Church to embrace the world. Her heart of pure love spoke plainly when she wrote, ".

TODAY'S TECHNOLOGY HAS opened the door for communication in unprecedented ways. We talk more to each other than ever before.

IN 1822 A YOUNG British woman named Charlotte Elliott met a famous Swiss minister at the home of friends. The Reverend Henri Cesar Malan asked her if she were a Christian.

As The Christmas season draws near, millions of people will make earnest efforts to focus on the saving Christ. Some will build creches.

IT'S NOT HARD to find grim predictions about the future of mainline Christianity in Northern Hemisphere countries. Sociologist George Barna says that the US is awash with former churchgoers who refuse to be tied down to a single denomination (see Revolution, Carol Stream, Illinois: Tyndale House, 2005).

IT'S BUSY, THIS 21ST CENTURY. It's a technologist's dream.

ARE YOU CONCERNED about a bodily system behaving badly? Maybe about the way an organization is being governed? Or, how a country's economy or healthcare system is evolving? Might these queries sum to one root question—Who's in control here? Recently, editor colleagues and I met with a globally diverse group of summer interns. Among the issues they raised: they and their peers don't feel they have much control over their futures.

SERIOUS STUDENTS OF Christian Science agree that spiritual healing is at its core. It verifies their faith.

IF YOU WERE LIVING YOUR LIFE on a 24/7 reality show, what kind of record of your life would be digitally broadcast and stored? Kind of an unsettling thought isn't it—every moment of a person's life recorded and saved. The huge desire for celebrity today has exposed some entertaining segments of reality shows.