c. 2006 Religion News Service
LOS ANGELES _ Nineteen-year-old Dan Johnson said he held in his pocket the key to preventing a bird flu pandemic.
After watching television news reports warning of a potential outbreak, the University of Southern California sophomore picked up a copy of “Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures,” a seminal text of the Christian Science Church. He flipped through its pages until he found a relevant passage.
On a 3×5 index card, Johnson wrote: “Disease is an experience of so-called mortal mind. It is fear made manifest on the body.” He stuffed the card in his pocket and carried it with him for more than a week.
While the U.S. government stockpiles antiviral medications, scientists work on developing new treatments and vaccines, and infectious disease experts try to detect and contain a virus, Christian Scientists are taking their own line of defense: They are praying.
Christian Scientists believe in spiritual, rather than medical, healing. They believe in the power of prayer to both prevent a bird flu pandemic and heal those who are sick should an outbreak occur.
Mary Baker Eddy, who founded the Church of Christ, Scientist in 1879, after recovering from injuries sustained from a fall on an icy sidewalk, taught that God is infinitely good and that sin, disease and death are illusions.
Debbie Simmons, a member of the Tenth Church of Christ, Scientist in Los Angeles, explained, “Whether you call it cough or cold or bird flu, it’s really what we would call error, a false statement about what is true about man.”
Sandra Rygel, a financial analyst, has been trying to ward off a flu outbreak by reading hymns. One of her favorites, Robert P. Stewart’s “Mount Calvary,” speaks of the spiritual nature of man: “In atmosphere of Love divine, we live, and move, and breathe. Though mortal eyes may see it not, ’tis sense that would deceive.”
Christian Scientists’ belief in spiritual rather than medical treatment has led to controversy over the years, particularly in the 1980s and early 1990s, when a number of charges were brought against Christian Scientists whose children had died of curable ailments. In a famous Massachusetts case from 1990, Ginger and David Twitchell were convicted of manslaughter after their 21/2-year-old son, Robyn, died as a result of a bowel obstruction. The conviction was overturned on a legal technicality three years later.
The Christian Science Church has about 2,000 branch churches in 82 countries. Although the church does not publish membership numbers, estimates indicate that U.S. membership has dwindled from 268,915 in 1936, based on a U.S. religious census, to 194,000 in 2001, according to an American Religious Identification Survey conducted by the City University of New York.
A recent article in The Christian Science Monitor, the widely read and respected daily newspaper run by the church’s headquarters in Boston, stressed “how invaluable a spiritual component would be in this campaign for preparedness” against bird flu. Prayer “could favorably reach people in far-flung areas and in ways that no other response does,” the article said.
The Christian Science Sentinel, a weekly magazine for church members, devoted its Nov. 14, 2005, issue to fighting the “fear of contagion.” One article counseled: “If disease comes knocking on your door, or on anyone else’s _ whether it’s bird flu or something else _ you don’t have to be scared.” Instead, “you can take your case to the `strength of Spirit.’ And that infinitely loving power will stop the disease in its tracks.”
In the same issue, Bea Roegge, a Christian Science practitioner _ someone who works full-time healing others through prayer _ in Chicago, wrote that during the 1918 flu pandemic, her husband’s parents got the flu. No one was willing to help but a benevolent Christian Scientist, who nursed the couple back to health with her prayers.
“I don’t believe in flu. I don’t believe in sickness and sin,” Roegge said in an interview. “My heart goes out to anybody who’s afraid of it.”
As of Tuesday (Jan. 10), the most recent accounting available, the bird flu virus that health officials are worried about _ the virulent H5N1 strain _ had passed from birds to humans in 147 cases, resulting in 78 deaths in Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, China, Cambodia and Turkey, according to the World Health Organization.
A pandemic occurs when a flu virus starts spreading easily among people around the world. The 20th century has seen three pandemics: the Hong Kong flu of 1968, the Asian flu of 1957 and the Great Influenza, or Spanish flu, of 1918, which killed at least 40 million people worldwide, including more than 500,000 in the United States.
An H5N1 pandemic would happen only if the virus mutated and became highly contagious among humans. The World Health Organization has classified the current situation as Level 3: “pandemic alert.” A pandemic would occur only at Level 6.
A worldwide flu outbreak could create problems particular to the Christian Science community. If a vaccine were developed to prevent infection from H5N1, for example, the Christian Scientists interviewed for this article said they would not take it unless the law required them to do so.
Kim Walker, a church official who monitors California legislation, said he was keeping an eye out for any bill that might dictate what would happen in the case of a flu pandemic. Walker said he would advocate for optional vaccination, with quarantine or isolation as an alternative, if need be.
Then there is the question of what Christian Scientists would do if they were prohibited from going to church.
When the Los Angeles City Council passed an ordinance prohibiting people from going to churches and movie theaters in 1918, a handful of Christian Scientists challenged the constitutionality of the law in court. The judge ruled in their favor, saying that the city had a legal right to prevent public gatherings, but that the ordinance illegally singled out churches among other public places like hotel lobbies, stores and streetcars.
Heather Davis, a 44-year-old television producer, said that if a bird flu pandemic struck today and she could not go to church, she would want to go “twice as much.”
“I’d want to pray with anyone then,” she added, “not just Christian Scientists.”
Johnson, the college student, said: “I would go out. I would definitely protest and fight it” in the courts. “As soon as in my thoughts, I accept the fact that by going out and gathering with people, I become potentially susceptible, it’s as if I completely nullify all the work I’ve done.”
In the meantime, Christian Scientists have a lot of work to do.
“We’re not waiting for (the flu) to come knock on our doorstep before we feel that we have to treat it,” Johnson said.
Instead, he was looking at the card in his pocket, trying to “get a true sense” of the words.
“It is a prayer for the world,” he said, “and it is also a prayer for myself.”
MO/PH END RNS
Editors: To obtain photos of Church of Christ, Scientist founder Mary Baker Eddy and the Mother Church in Boston, Mass., go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.
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