A) INTRODUCTION.

B) WHAT IT TEACHES.

C) TO THE CORE BELIEFS.

 

 

A) INTRODUCTION

 

 

Christian Science is neither “Christian” nor “Scientific.”   It was founded in 1879 in New England, U.S.A., by Mary Baker Eddy, who wrote the 1875 book, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” which outlined the theology of Christian Science.  The book became Christian Science’s central text, along with the Bible, and by 2001 had sold over nine million copies.  Christian Science became the fastest growing religion in the United States, in 1936, with nearly 270,000 members by that time.  However, by 1990, the church had declined to 100,000 once its false doctrines were exposed and properly understood.

 

 

B) WHAT IT TEACHES

 

 

Christian Scientist believe and teach that reality is purely spiritual and that the material world is simply an illusion.  Once any one of them was smacked on the cheek when they were preaching on the street corners, they seemed to quickly give that thought process up.

 

They also believed in the view that disease is a mental error rather than physical disorder; believing that the sick should be treated not by medicine, but by a form of prayer that seeks to correct the beliefs responsible for the illusion of ill health.  However, adherents use dentists, optometrists, obstetricians, physicians for broken bones, and vaccination when required by law.  But they do maintain that within Christian Science prayer is most effective when not combined with medicine.

 

In a side note, the reliance on prayer and avoidance of medical treatment has been blamed for the deaths of several adherents and their children.  Between the 1880’s and 1990’s, parents and others were prosecuted for, and in a few cases convicted of, manslaughter or neglect.

 

According to the church’s tenets, adherents accept “the inspired Word of the Bible as [their] sufficient guide to eternal Life. . . acknowledge and adore one supreme and infinite God. . . [and] acknowledge His Son, one Christ; the Holy Ghost or divine Comforter; and man in God’s image and likeness.”  “Wilson 1961, page 121.” & Eddy, in “Manual of the Mother Church,” pages 15-16.  When founding the Church of Christ, Scientist, in April 1879, Eddy wrote that she wanted to “reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing.”  “Wilson, Bryan, 1961, in his work, “Sects and Society:  A Sociological Study of the Elim Tabernacle,  Christian Science and Christadelphians.  Berkeley:  University of California Press,” page 125.  Later she suggested that Christian Science was a kind of “second coming” and that her book “Science and Health,” was an inspired text.  In 1895, in the “Manual of the Mother Church,” she ordained the Bible and “Science and Health,” as “Pastor over the Mother Church.”  Eddy, in his work, “Manual of the Mother Church,” page 58; also recorded in “Wayback Machine,” page 273.

 

 

C) TO THE CORE BELIEFS

 

 

At the core of Eddy’s theology is the view that the spiritual world is the only reality and is entirely good, and that the material world, with its evil, sickness and death, is an illusion.  Eddy saw humanity as an “idea of Mind” that is “perfect, eternal, unlimited, and reflects the divine,” according to Bryan Wilson; what she called “mortal man,” is simply humanity’s distorted view of itself.  Wilson 1961, page 122, in his work, “Wayback Machine.”

 

Despite her view of the non-existence of evil, an important element of Christian Science theology, understanding, that evil thought, in the form of “Malicious Animal Magnetism,” can cause harm, even if the harm is only apparent.”  Wilson 1961, page 127, in his work, “Wayback Machine;” Moore 1986, page 112 and Simmons 1995, page 62, in “Wayback Machine.”

 

Eddy viewed God not as a person, but as an “All-in-all.”  Although she often described God in the language of “personhood,” she used the term “Father-Mother God,” and in the third edition of her book “Science and Health,” she referred to God as “she.”  God is mostly represented in Christian Science by the synonyms “Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love.”  Even more startling is the injunction that the Holy Ghost IS Christian Science.  And that Heaven and hell are only states of mind.

 

Christian Science claims to lead to lead one to (in prayer) a state of consciousness where these earthly things do not exist.  “What heals is the realization that there is nothing really to heal.”  Wilson 1961, pages 125-126.

 

Eddy accepted as true the creation narrative in the Book of Genesis up until Chapter 2, verse 6, that God created man in His Own image and likeness, but she rejected the rest “as the story of the false and the material.”  Wilson 1961, page 122; Gottschalk 1972, page xxvii.

 

Her theology is understood to be that of “Nontrinitarian.”  She viewed the Trinity as suggestive of polytheism.  She saw Jesus as a Christian Scientist, a “Way-shower” between humanity and God.  Eddy, in her work, “Retrospection and Introspection,” page 26.

 

She did distinguish between Jesus the man and the concept of Christ, the Messiah, as the latter being a synonym for Truth, while Jesus being the first person fully to manifest that Truth.  Wilson 1961, page 121; Stark 1998, page 199.

 

In her understanding, the “crucifixion” was not a Divine sacrifice for the sins of humanity (If that is true; all are still in their sins).  The “Atonement” is the forgiveness of sin through Jesus’s suffering, “not the bribing of God by offerings,” writes Wilson, page 124, but an “at-one-ment” with God.

 

Her views on life after death were vague and, according to Wilson, “there is no doctrine of the soul” in Christian Science.  “After death, the individual continues his probationary state until he has worked out his own salvation by proving the truths of Christian Science.”  Wilson 1961, page 125.   However, Eddy did correctly believe that the dead and living could not communicate.  Gottschalk 1973, page 95.