Over the last ten years, the Mailing Fund, a nonprofit Massachusetts corporation, has sent over 40 mailings to members of The Mother Church. Each of these mailings was, to one degree or another, critical of Church practices and policies. The Mailing Fund is not the only organization—or individual—engaged in this practice. In the following editorial, which considers whether the practice of widely disseminating such mailings is in accord with Mary Baker Eddy's provision for Church government, "mailing funds" is used as a generic descriptor of the several organizations and individuals engaged in this activity.
How is one to decide which course is right?
Sometimes, within the Christian Science movement, one hears someone say: "I have been giving much prayerful thought to this situation. I have gone deeply into the Bible and our Leader's writings on the subject, and have considered what she would want us to do. Here are some of the things she says"—and then some quotations are supplied. The person continues: "I have sought not my own will, but the Father's will. I have prayed, and listened, humbly and silently, and deep into the night, and it has come to me so clearly that we should do X." This can then be followed by another's statement, full of the same earnestness, of the same considerations (but perhaps different quotations), concluding: "But it has been shown me unmistakably by the Father that we should not do X."
