Response to the Telegraph: 48 Hours in Boston

(The following is a response to a recent piece in The Telegraph (Travel) on 15 August 2019. It has not been published.)

Dear Letters Editor,

As a frequent visitor to Boston, Massachusetts, myself, I delighted in reading Linda Laban’s romp through 48 Hours in Boston (15 Aug).  She brought out the sparkling essence of the blend of history, quirkiness and modernity that is this unique East Coast city.  One of the places she so adeptly describes is the Christian Science Plaza where one can learn about the New Englander who founded a religion.

While this unusual woman, Mary Baker Eddy, did indeed found a church, it is not one that includes homeopathy and faith healing, as Laban indicates. Eddy had tried and abandoned homeopathy well before the founding of her church. And healing in Christian Science differs from what is generally understood as faith healing - resigning one’s fate to God’s will. It is based on the conviction that sickness, suffering, and death are never God’s will, that God is Love itself, and that opening one’s heart to experience more of God’s love can bring healing.

Yours faithfully,

Robin Harragin Hussey

Christian Science Committee on Publication

London District Manager for United Kingdom and Ireland