Branch Church News
The potential for growth of Christian Science in non-English-speaking countries was early recognized by Mary Baker Eddy when, in 1910, she authorized the first translation of Science and Health into German. Nine other translations of the book have since been published in Danish, Dutch, French, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish.
Quite often interest in the Bible prompts a non-Scientist to enter and explore a Christian Science Reading Room for the first time in his life. There was the lawyer who came into a Reading Room in the midwestern United States to ask help in finding Bible passages he intended to use in a murder trial.
The strategic importance of the Christian Science Reading Room is currently undergoing a reemphasis—even a rediscovery. The fact is, the Reading Room has commanded the center of attention in the letters The Mother Church has received from many of its branches concerning the "Spiritual Goals" project introduced to the Field fourteen months ago.
"Whatever comes aboard these ships in religious form won't hurt any of us, and I personally have seen the men reading through your writings and material. Something might rub off some time and no one but God above might know it.
It is not always easy for undergraduates to believe in God. Academic courses seem calculated to knock the pins out from under unreasoned faith.
What is our common ground with Asian peoples? How can Christian Science touch their hearts and minds? After traveling thousands of miles from Tokyo to Ankara, talking and listening to scores of Asians while lecturing on Christian Science in the East last fall, Geith A. Plimmer remembers one experience which begins to answer these questions for him.
Studying to be a Chaplain for the Armed Forces is a good way for a Christian Scientist to find out how much he holds in common with other Christians and for others to see the essential Christianity of Christian Scientists. One young man, a Scientist who has just completed a three-year course at Boston University's School of Theology as part of the Chaplain training program of The Mother Church and now looks forward to a commission in the United States Air Force, sees it this way: "All of us had a deep love for Christianity and the meaning of its gospel.
The scene: Da Nang Air Base, Vietnam. Helicopters sputtered overhead and jet fighters thundered off the airstrip.
THE Christian Science Sunday School is an integral part of the Church of Christ, Scientist; for this reason the apprehension of the true concept of Church enables one to discern also the true concept of Sunday School. In turn, the correct concept of Sunday School inevitably results in harmonious and fruitful Sunday School activity.
In her works "Miscellaneous Writings" and "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" Mary Baker Eddy refers to the Manual of The Mother Church in striking terms. She states that its By-Laws were written under divine guidance as occasion demanded and that they are inviolable, forever endowed with power to elevate and spiritualize the thought of those obeying them.