Reader (Christian Science Church)

A Reader in a Christian Science church is a member of the congregation who has been elected to serve in one of two positions responsible for church services. Each week's sermon in Christian Science churches is outlined in the Christian Science Quarterly, prepared months in advance, and is the same in all Christian Science churches, worldwide. A lay church, it has no clergy; rather, the sermons consist of passages from the Bible and the Christian Science textbook, are studied as lessons during the week and are read aloud to the congregation on the Sunday following.

The Christian Science church was established as a lay church by founder Mary Baker Eddy. The principal responsibilities of Readers in Christian Science churches are established in the Manual of The Mother Church, written by Eddy.The Mother Church and its "branch churches" around the world each have two Readers, who are referred to simply as First Reader and Second Reader, according to the order in which they initially speak during the Sunday service.

The Manual gives the First Reader more responsibilities than Second Reader. He or she selects the hymns; chooses and reads the "Scriptural Selection", a brief prelude to the sermon, and the benediction, also from the Bible; makes announcements; and reads aloud the Sermon's citations from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy. The Second Reader reads from the Bible and leads the congregation in audible repetition of the Lord's Prayer. No personal comment about the lesson-sermon is offered, but an "Explanatory Note" printed in Quarterly is read before the lesson-sermon is begun.

In addition, the First Reader conducts weekly Wednesday evening testimony meetings, selecting and reading passages from both books on a topic as he or she is inspired. First Readers are to select their own passages, not using previous lesson-sermons or others' readings. The Second Reader has no role in the meeting, but attends the meeting as any other member or visitor.

Readers are required by the Manual to "devote a suitable portion of their time to preparation for the reading of the Sunday lesson" and they are required to "keep themselves unspotted from the world,— uncontaminated with evil, — that the mental atmosphere they exhale shall promote health and holiness, even that spiritual animus so universally needed." Article III, Section 4 of the Manual prohibits Readers from reading from anything but the actual books, however, in the February 2012 Christian Science Journal, the Board of Directors, the administrative body for the organization, worldwide, insinuated that this practice was mere "tradition" and "human regulation" and churches did not have to be adhere to the by-law. As a result, some Readers now read from a monthly version of the Quarterly, in which the lesson-sermon is printed in its entirety, rather than outlined.

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