Response to Review of "History of Wolves"

*(11/9/17)

For a more recent response to this book, check out Martha Moffett's letter to the Post and Courier Charleston, South Carolina, of May 19.  This book is now on the shortlist of the Man Booker Prize (14/9/17). Below is our original response to a Sunday Telegraph book review of Emily Fridlund's debut novel "History of Wolves," which includes a couple of characters described as Christian Scientists.

Sir,Sam Kitchener’s review of Emily Fridlund’s History of Wolves briefly alludes to Christian Scientists who “dismiss pain as ‘false belief in Mortal Mind’”.While this may be Fridlund’s genuinely held view, it nevertheless presents your readers with an imbalanced one that certainly doesn’t accord with what I have spent a lifetime living and observing.The Christian Scientists I know, like most people, naturally feel deep compassion for those who are suffering. When confronted with pain and disease themselves, they have found that turning to their faith often brings rapid relief and healing.This spiritual approach to healing, sometimes in cases where doctors have acknowledged there is nothing further they can achieve, relies whole-­heartedly on the same divine power that Jesus used in his many healings as recounted in the New Testament.I see this power to be an all­-loving God who actively cares for humanity, a power exemplified by the Golden Rule in the Bible ­ “love thy neighbour as thyself”.With kind regardsRobin Harragin HusseyChristian Science Committee on Publication, LondonDistrict Manager for United Kingdom and Ireland