Christian Science

“There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual.

” (S&H 468) “Christian Science founder, Mary Baker Eddy was born in Bow, New Hampshire, in 1821. Her parents were devout Christians and she joined a Congregational Church at age 17. She was chronically sick growing up with many ailments including paralysis, hysteria, seizures and convulsions.At 22, she married her first of three husbands, George Glover, who died within 6 months from yellow fever. ”(http://www. watchman. org/profile/chrsciprofile.

htm) “In 1862, she began to learn from Phineas Quimby the possibility of cures without medicine. In 1866 (the year Quimby died), she suffered a severe injury after a fall on ice, and claimed a complete cure without the intervention of medicine. She was reading an account of one of Jesus’ healings in the Bible when she suddenly realized that healing comes by spiritual means, and she was instantly cured. “Eddy thereafter devoted herself to the recovery of the healing emphasis in early Christianity, and in 1875 she completed the first edition of her major book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. In 1879, the Church of Christ (Scientist) was incorporated with the purpose of ‘commemorating the word and works of our Master’.She became chief pastor of the Mother Church, and wrote The Manual of the Mother Church to govern its affairs. She is referred to as Mrs.

Eddy by church members. ” (http://www. watchman. org/profile/chrsciprofile. tml) At the end of the 20th century, the church had about 2,500 congregations in 70 countries; its headquarters is at the Mother Church in Boston. The fundamental distinctive teaching of Christian Science is that creation is entirely spiritual and perfect and matter does not exist. Sin, sickness and death also do not exist; we only think they do.

“The only reality of sin, sickness, or death is the awful fact that unrealities seem real to human, erring belief, until God strips off their disguise” (Science and Health, 472:27-29). http://www. watchman. org/profile/chrsciprofile. htm) “The Christian Science Church is declining rapidly. Between 1971 and 2009 the number of U. S.

practitioners and teachers listed in the Christian Science Journal fell from about 5,000 to about 1,160 and the number of churches fell from about 1,800 to about 900 [9]. In November 2005, Rita Swan noted: The Christian Science Monitor had over 175,000 subscribers in 1988. Today it has 53,203 subscribers worldwide, but its circulation has fallen by more than 10% in the past six months.Even more startling, the Christian Science Board of Directors recently told a regional membership gathering that only 15,000 of those subscribers are members of the Christian Science church. (Thousands of the subscribers are libraries. ) The Manual of the Mother Church, which provides the rules for church members, requires all members to subscribe to all church periodicals if they can afford it. Many of those subscriptions are going to homes with only one church member (a widow, a single person, or a person who married outside the faith).

It therefore seems highly likely that the Christian Science church today has no more than 30,000 members. Around the time of World War II, when the church had to report its membership to the government in order to be allowed to have military chaplains, it reported having 268,915 members in 1936 [10]. In December 2009, I found that the number of practitioners and teachers had plummeted to only 333 (a 75% drop in only four years). ” (http://www. quackwatch. com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/cs2. html )The largest population of Christian Scientists is in Boston, MA and St Louis, MO.

Principia is a pre-school-college that is located in the St Louis area for Christian Scientists and many families have moved their so their children can attend. Boston is the home of The Mother Church and The Christian Science Monitor amongst others and so many people live and work in that area. (http://wiki. answers. com/Q/What_are_the_demographics_of_christian_science_people_in_ame rica ) Christian Scientists refer to God as “Father-Mother” rather than the biblical “Father. Though unconventional, this is not a major departure from mainstream Christianity, since God is believed to encompass both male and female (both were created “in the image of God”). Christian Science teaches that Jesus is divine but not God, and that Jesus’ human nature is a separate entity from the divine Christ.

“Jesus Christ is not God, as Jesus himself declared, but is the Son of God” (Science and Health, 361:12-13). “Jesus is the name of the man who, more than all other men, has presented Christ, the true idea of God, healing the sick and sinning and destroying the power of death” (Science and Health, 473:10-17).Mrs. Eddy rejected the traditional doctrine of the Trinity, saying that it suggests polytheism (Science and Health, 256:9-11). She did, however, accept the threefold nature of God, defining it as a trinity of “Life, Truth, and Love,” or “God the Father-Mother, Christ the spiritual idea of sonship, and divine Science or the Holy Comforter” (Science and Health 331:26-332:3). Christian Scientists are neither creationists nor biblical literalists. They regard the story of the creation in the Book of Genesis as having symbolic rather than literal meaning.

However, Eddy also believed that the theory of evolution wrongly portrayed man as mortal rather than spiritual: “Theorizing about man’s development from mushrooms to monkeys and from monkeys into men amounts to nothing in the right direction and very much in the wrong. “[20] Thus, from the Christian Science point of view, both creationism and evolution are false as they both proceed from a belief in the reality of a material universe. (http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Christian_Science) The Christian Science position on the nature of evil may be stated as follows: “Evil is a negation, because it is the absence of truth.It is nothing, because it is the absence of something. It is unreal, because it presupposes the absence of God, the omnipotent and omnipresent.

Every mortal must learn that there is neither power nor reality in evil”. [17] This statement should not be taken as meaning that Christian Scientists ignore the belief of evil and its effects, but they do not see evil as either an aspect of God, or as a real power separate from God. Evil is not fundamentally “real” because it is not part of God’s being or his creation. But it may appear to be real as a mistaken concept of God and man, and consequently must be “seen through” rather than ignored.Christian Scientists believe God and his creation to be wholly and only good. (http://www. religionfacts.

com/a-z-religion-index/christian_science. htm) Eddy defined salvation as follows: “Life, Truth, and Love understood and demonstrated as supreme over all; sin, sickness and death destroyed” (Science and Health, 593:20-22). Heaven and hell are states of mind. Heaven is “not a locality, but a divine state of Mind in which all the manifestations of Mind are harmonious and immortal” (Science and Health, 291:13-16). It is “Harmony; the reign of Spirit; government by the divine Principle; spirituality; bliss; the atmosphere of Soul. (Science and Health, 587:25-27). Hell is “Mortal belief; error; lust; remorse; hatred; revenge; sin; sickness; death; suffering and self-destruction; self-imposed agony; effects of sin; that which ‘worketh abomination or maketh a lie.

‘” (Science and Health, 588:1-4). Individuals are thought to “pass on” to an existence similar to that experienced before death, where they can continue making strides toward eternal salvation. Death is considered the “last enemy” that does not offer any advantage toward salvation. (http://www. patheos. om/Library/Christian-Science/Beliefs/Afterlife-and-Salvation. html) Their standard from morality comes from Eddy’s book.

“And we solemnly promise to watch, and pray for that Mind to be in us which was also in Christ Jesus; to do unto others as we would have them do unto us; and to be merciful, just, and pure. ” (Science and Health(496)) Readers lead Sunday services based on readings from the Bible and Eddy’s Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. These are based on Lesson-Sermons developed by the Mother Church, which are also used in daily private study. http://www. religionfacts. com/a-z-religion-index/christian_science. htm) Spiritual healing of disease is a central focus of the Church of Christ, Scientist, for its own sake as well as its evidence of redemption from the flesh.

Most members refuse medical help for disease. This is the church’s most controversial practice. However, Christian Scientists are generally teach cooperation with local laws, such as in getting vaccinations, reporting communicable diseases, etc. , and leave the decision to seek physical treatments up to each individual. “Healthcare decisions are