From the story:
But the reality of the existential crisis remained elusive to church
officials. In 2005, Nathan Talbot and J Thomas Black, longtime church
leaders who had promoted recklessly irresponsible policies encouraging
the medical neglect of children, endorsed ambitious plans for raising
the dead. Black argued that Eddy wanted to keep alive the possibility of
defeating mortality, saying, “What would set us apart as a denomination
more than raising the dead?” What indeed? Black himself has had ample
opportunity to demonstrate it: he died in December 2011, and hasn’t been
seen since. ...
So did the softening of some Christian Science attitudes suggest that
the church was undergoing a genuine change of heart? Or were they
trying to save their jobs, their pride and the institution? At that
time, officials were grasping at relationships with ecumenical groups
and New Age alternative healers – anything to boost membership. Shirley
Paulson, for example, sister-in-law of former US treasury secretary Hank
Paulson (also a Christian Scientist, taught by Nathan Talbot),
contributed to a series of summit meetings – known as “Church Alive” –
which sought to jazz up services with ideas fresh from the 1950s:
reading from recent translations of the Bible (more recent than the King
James version, that is), singing hymns a cappella, and urging Sunday
School students to rap their narcotic weekly “Lesson Sermons”.
