Over the years, a number of people have asked me, "Why does your Church publish a newspaper?" One of my answers has always been, Because one role of the Church of Christ, Scientist, is to spread truth, and a good newspaper promotes the purposes of truth. One man kept expressing amazement that the paper was so fair, nonsensational, and broad in its coverage. It did not seem right to launch into a long, and perhaps tedious, theological explanation. But I did tell him that in Christian Science, Truth is one of the Bible-based synonyms for God, and that the more we understand God as Truth, the more authentically truthful we are. I said that this theological fact applied to producing healing, or truthful, journalism. This explanation seemed to satisfy him. It was, of course, the metaphysical basis of the paper that was reaching this man's thought.
As a matter of fact, large segments of the public are hungry for something higher than the unreliability of materialism; they're hungry for Truth and for spiritually based values. The Monitor helps illustrate for the public that when these values, embracing qualities of thought such as forgiveness and humility, intelligence and honesty, are lived, they make human life healthy, morally pure, safe, happy, progressive, mentally vital.
As it is with individuals, so is it with newspapers —the qualities of thought that build and sustain a newspaper communicate themselves. In addition, the more any journalist understands the presence and supreme power of God, and the more he or she is willing to perceive the consequent powerlessness and unreality of evil, the more he or she will uplift the lives of others. This healing view emphatically underlies Monitor journalism.
