Scientists' Centennial

It is, as one Christian Science official has said, "a launching pad for a major outreach by the church." This ecclesiastical Canaveral is the dramatically modernized world headquarters of the Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston. The old Mother Church, built in 1894, is now framed by manicured lawns, a 700-ft. reflecting pool and a complex of glass and concrete office buildings designed by I.M. Pei & Partners and completed this month at a cost of $75 million. Last week 13,000 devoted Scientists from 25 countries gathered at their church to attend its annual meeting and to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the publication of its major text, Mary Baker Eddy's Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.

Slipping Membership. By all accounts, sales of Mrs. Eddy's book, now translated into 14 languages and still in demand, are considerably healthier than the movement it guides. The church is as secretive as ever about membership figures (one outside estimate put the roster at 400,000 in the mid-'60s), but officials concede that the total has been slipping. Despite a spurt of growth in Latin America, Africa and Asia, the number of branch churches and societies has fallen by about 5% over the past decade, to some 3,000 today. The roll of Christian Science "practitioners"--healers authorized to help members overcome illness by prayer--has dropped considerably.

Incoming Board Chairman Otto Bertschi, 68, reported last week that administrative expenses are being slashed by 20%. Last April, the church's respected but stodgy daily newspaper, the Christian Science Monitor (circ. 191,000) cut back to a more economical tabloid size. It also reduced its staff and raised subscription and advertising rates in an effort to shrink its $7 million annual deficit.

Such statistics suggest that Christian Science has reached not only its centennial but perhaps also a perilous actuarial milestone. The religion started out with a small group of cultists who accepted Mrs. Eddy's belief that evil--including physical illness--can be overcome through prayer and an understanding of God. Christian Science experienced its greatest membership surge during the Depression, when thousands looked to it for spiritual help. Now that crowd is dying off--a phrase that no good Christian Scientist would ever use, of course. As Chairman Bertschi puts it, today more of the faithful "are going off than are coming on the rolls." Notes one younger member: "It is largely a gray-haired group."

For a while, church leaders fought a defensive battle against decline aimed at keeping existing Scientists in the fold. But in recent years Christian Science has stepped up a campaign to pull in the young, new members it needs.

New Territory. Staking out new demographic territory, Scientists now conduct some services in Spanish. Reading rooms have been opened in predominantly black communities, as well as in airports and shopping malls. Christian Science literature is distributed at antidrug conferences and treatment centers. Today, says Director DeWitt John, a former Monitor editor, the church is placing special emphasis upon Christian Science's virtues in healing "not just physical disease but all kinds of wretched troubles." One of the troubles that will be overcome, Mrs. Eddy's successors might pray, will be Christian Science's recent membership slide.

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