Last year in July, a man who had been injured in an automobile accident was airlifted to Hermann Hospital in Houston, Texas. On arrival he told the hospital staff he wanted his rights as a Christian Scientist respected. The hospital's manager of pastoral education, Chaplain Jan de Jong, called First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Houston for help in understanding the man 's convictions and how the hospital staff should respond. Chaplain de Jong's call led to his invitation for a Christian Scientist to meet the next day with some of the chaplains who serve in the largest medical and health-care center of its kind in the world. On behalf of the Christian Science Committee on Publication for Texas, Barbara Thiel Johnson met with the chaplains. She tells of her experience below.
"New occasions
teach new duties ..."
We gathered in the chaplains' reception room around a low table, where I put within their reach ten copies of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, samples of our Church's religious magazines and other publications. The ten chaplains of various denominations who came ranged in experience from graduate students to senior chaplains. One was from Africa, another from a Middle Eastern country. Most of them knew little about Christian Science.
