Saturday, November 21, 1998

Reading rooms offer indication of Christian Scientists' decline

By Todd Van Campen

Knight Ridder Newspapers

LEXINGTON, Ky. -- Thursday was an average day at the Christian Science reading room in downtown Lexington: Four people came in between 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., and there were no sales.

Those figures would cripple most businesses, but the reading room is not about business. It is about providing public access to Christian Science books and periodicals.

"It's our way of reaching out to people," said Lois Alexander, a volunteer who was minding the reading room. "There's a lot of people who might not come to a church, but they'll come into a place like this."

The trouble is, they're not coming.

Attendance records are kept very loosely at many of the 2,200 Christian Science reading rooms worldwide, including Lexington's. But a log entry dated July 30 said eight church members, three church "attendants" and 14 non-Scientists visited that month.

With scattered exceptions, there's not much more traffic in other cities.

"The reading rooms are often emptier than we would like them to be," said Tony Lobl, assistant manager of the Christian Science Committees on Publication in Boston. "Most of us agree we would like to see the reading rooms better used by the public."

The vacancy of the reading rooms reflects the overall plight of Christian Science, which, scholars say, has been a faith in decline.

Christian Science teaches that sin, sickness and death are not real because they are not part of God's good creation and that all disease can be healed by spiritual means alone.

In an article this year for the Journal of Contemporary Religion, sociologist Rodney Stark wrote that the number of Christian Science members dropped from a high of 268,915 in 1936 to an estimated 106,000 in 1990.

The number of practitioners -- Christian Scientists licensed by the church to apply Christian Science principles to treating ailments -- fell from 11,200 in 1941 to 1,820 in 1995, Stark wrote.

Several factors have contributed to the fall.

J. Gordon Melton, director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion in Santa Barbara, Calif., lists three: the rise of modern medicine; "rather low-key" evangelism by Christian Scientists; and a dearth of young people joining the church.

"Is that going to continue? I think so, but I'm not the law," Stark said. "In this new world of New Age medicine, anything is possible."

If Christian Science revives, it will be because the world comes back to Christian Science, not the other way around.

Many other churches have adapted to attract converts, but Christian Science's methods -- including the reading room -- remain rooted in the Church Manual that Mary Baker Eddy wrote in 1895.

Eddy founded Christian Science after she was healed of injuries she suffered during a fall on an icy street in 1866.

"The Bible was my textbook," Eddy later wrote.

"It answered my questions as to how I was healed; but the Scriptures had to me a new meaning, a new tongue."

Eddy believed in the power of the written word. She wrote 13 books, including Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures, the Christian Science textbook. She also founded the Christian Science Monitor, which is still a well-respected daily newspaper.

The first Christian Science reading room opened in 1888 in Boston. Back then, publishers sold most of their wares through their own retail shops, and Eddy capitalized on the public's awareness of that method.

Every Christian Science church must operate a reading room. In recent years, some reading rooms have made minor innovations. One provides a haven for latchkey children. Another, in Seattle, offers a loft where people can bring their lunches, Lobl said.

Meanwhile, Christian Science leaders are encouraged by public interest in alternative medicine and the link between faith and physical health.

Lexington's First Church of Christ, Scientist, incorporated in 1903. The Lexington reading room also opened that year and has maintained a presence downtown ever since.

Now at 240 East Main Street, it offers a 93-volume lending library and a reference collection of Christian Science periodicals dating to 1883. Christian Science works, Bibles and Bible study aids are offered for sale.

Many of the volumes are accessible on a database. The reading room is open from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays.

There has been some concern about a lack of parking spaces near the reading room, and there has been talk of moving it.

"We don't have a lot of traffic -- that's one the church is mulling over," said Gardner Turner, a longtime member of the Lexington church.

One thing remains certain: The reading room will not close.

"The church manual really is the design for our church," Lobl said.

"I think Christian Scientists would agree that since it's in the manual it's not whether to do it, it's a question of how to do it that's appropriate to the times."

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(c) 1998, Lexington Herald-Leader (Lexington, Ky.).

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