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Readers write: Magazine changes, the Second Amendment, and more

Letters to the editor for the Dec. 2, 2019 weekly magazine. Readers discuss the Monitor's crossword, the Second Amendment, and the rugby world cup.

  • By Monitor readers

Magazine changes

I had to write in to say that as I was looking through the Oct. 21 Monitor Weekly, I noticed the double-page “Points of Progress” with the world map! I love it. Thank you.

In that issue, there was also a longer crossword and no sudoku puzzle; I was glad to see sudoku will return. I rarely do the sudoku and never do the crossword. However, I know many people who do both and am glad they are there for when I share the Monitor with non-Christian Scientists.

In addition to reading the full print Monitor, I have started listening to the Monitor Daily as well as “A Christian Science Perspective,” which is such fun! So many thanks for the blessing of the Monitor.

Sancy Nason
Tathra, Australia

The Second Amendment

Regarding “Readers Write” in the Nov. 4 Monitor Weekly: Two people wondered why some Americans fiercely defend the part of the Second Amendment that states “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

I believe the point of that part of the Second Amendment – and why it should be interpreted to mean that private citizens should be armed outside a government-run militia – is so that Americans themselves can defend the U.S. Constitution in case the government falls to a corrupt politician or group of politicians. Many nations have fallen this way throughout history. 

Allison Eggers
St. Louis

Healing the divide

The editorial “Friendship across political lines” in the Nov. 4 Monitor Weekly reminds me of a statement I love. It’s credited to the Methodist founder John Wesley and says “We need not think alike to love alike.”

Harry R. W. Sullivan
Santa Rosa, California

Sports talk

The editorial “A springbok in their steps” in the Nov. 18 Monitor Weekly rightly celebrates South Africa’s success in the recent rugby World Cup in Japan. The writer failed to acknowledge, however, the second team that competed on Nov. 2: England. 

England’s rugby squad contributed much to the World Cup tournament, and the editorial should have recognized their achievement in reaching the final. The team’s semifinal victory over New Zealand was considered by many to be the most outstanding match of the six-week tournament.

Alistair Budd
Newport, Wales

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Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

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