The lecturers listed and pictured on the following pages give talks on Christian Science throughout the world. They reside in 16 different countries and include those who speak the following languages: English, Spanish, German, French, Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Japanese, Greek, Hindi, Igbo, and Lingala. These speakers are prepared to talk to all kinds of audiences, including seminaries, classrooms, medical schools, camps, conferences, prisons, and the general public.
What draws people to attend a talk on Christian Science? Historically, one reason has stood out above all else: healing. Even before Mary Baker Eddy established a Board of Lectureship, people who witnessed healings of friends and neighbors wanted to hear more about this Science that was restoring lives. For instance, when Julia Bartlett, one of Mrs. Eddy’s early students, was invited to speak in Vermont because of the interest generated by the healing of a young woman there, so many people wanted to attend her talk that the event had to be moved from a private parlor to a larger public venue. And the interest grew.
An understanding of true Christian Science is no less needed today. The demand on this Board is to speak to that need, to follow in the path of our Leader’s own life purpose: “to impress humanity with the genuine recognition of practical, operative Christian Science” (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 207). The need is not for happy talk about how to live more comfortably in a material world. While some people may be looking for that kind of message, many others have been disappointed by the broken promises of materialism and are looking for something more reliable. Christian Science is more than just the promise of a better human life. It is about a fundamental shift in consciousness from a material worldview based on the dualism of good and evil to recognition of Spirit as the only substance and reality of existence.
