The March 1996 issue of The Christian Science Journal, and the Annual Meeting report carried in the July 1996 issue, focused on the healing mission, purpose, focus, and current priorities of the Church of Christ, Scientist. As a continuing report on how the Church is going forward in this work, senior managers at The Mother Church have been invited to write for the Journal a brief account of how workers in their area of activity are approaching these goals. This month, William E. Moody, Editor of the Christian Science magazines, discusses some of the recent developments and objectives for these publications.
When Mary Baker Eddy founded the Christian Science magazines—The Christian Science Journal, the Christian Science Sentinel, and The Herald of Christian Science—she was clearly responding "to the public's hunger for spirituality, worldwide" as the Church's current mission statement reads. From the first dates of issue, starting with the Journal in 1883, these were publications designed "to reach and serve all '... honest seekers for Truth'"—to spread the gospel of Christhealing universally.
Later, in a mission statement for the magazines themselves and The Christian Science Monitor, Mrs. Eddy would write: "I have given the name to all the Christian Science periodicals. The first was The Christian Science Journal, designed to put on record the divine Science of Truth; the second I entitled Sentinel, intended to hold guard over Truth, Life, and Love; the third, Der Herold der Christian Science, to proclaim the universal activity and availability of Truth; the next I named Monitor, to spread undivided the Science that operates unspent. The object of the Monitor is to injure no man, but to bless all mankind." The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 353. Keeping these missions distinctly in focus is paramount in the planning of each issue today. And these missions naturally support the healing mission and purpose of the Church itself in helping to fulfill its current focuses and priority objectives.
