Christian Science

Christian Science By: Mia Menard & KrystalCondie The church building, Huntington Ave. Boston, 1900

History • Founded by Mary Eddy Baker in 1879 following a personal healing in 1866. • She was convinced that: "The divine Spirit had [shaped] the miracle — a miracle which later [she] found to be in perfect scientific accord with divine law.“ • Spent the next three years investigating the law of God according to the Bible, especially in the words and works of Jesus. • The First Church is on Huntington Avenue in Boston and was built in 1900.

She was born as Mary Ann Morse Baker in New Hampshire in 1821. • was the daughter of a New Hampshire Congregationalist church member. • As a child, she was frequently ill and highly emotional. • In 1862, while suffering from an illness, she visited a man named PhineasQuimby. He taught a system of healing dealing with the mind. He taught that the mind had the power to heal the body. He exerted a significant influence on her thinking regarding spiritual matters. PhineasQuimby

In 1866, she fell and was seriously injured and she was not expected to recover. • She then read Matt. 9:2 ("And, behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed: and Jesus seeing heir faith said unto the sick of the palsy; Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee") and experienced a miraculous cure. • This experience that convinced her of the truth of Christian Science.

First published "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" in 1875, when she was 54. • claimed it was the final revelation of God to mankind and asserted that her work was inspired of God. • The word "Key" in the title of her book is in reference to her being the woman of Revelation 12; that she is the key to unlocking the Bible which she called a dark book. She claimed the Bible had many mistakes and that her writings provided the "Key" spoken of in Rev. 3:7.

In 1879, four years after the first publication of Science and Health, Mary Baker Eddy and some of her students voted organized the church of Christ (Scientist) in Boston Massachusetts. • In 1881 she opened a metaphysical college and charged $300 for 12 healing lessons. • The Church was reorganized in 1892, and the Church Manual was first issued in 1895 which provided the structure for church government and missions. • She died in 1910, a millionaire.

Cross and Crown Seal • The Christian Science Journal emphasizes, the Cross and Crown seal is the central emblem of Christian Science. The Cross and Crown is also a registered trademark of the Christian Science Board of Directors and has long been used on Mary Baker Eddy’s writings and the Christian Science journal to indicate the authenticity of these products. Further, the Cross and Crown is also symbolic of the united focus on healing that branches and church members have with The Mother Church and each other, and this unity is a result of members and branches, individually and collectively, committing to practice. The seal of Christian Science is a cross and crown with the words, "Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons," and is a registered trademark of The Mother Church.

Sacred Texts • There are two scriptures: • Christian Bible • Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures

The Bible is central to the study and practice of Christian Science and its system of healing. • In her seminal work Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures she writes, “The Bible has been my only authority,” and “my only textbook,” and “contains the recipe for all healing,” and describes it as “the chart of life”. • the textbooks for self-instruction in Christian Science, and a weekly Bible Lesson, made up of selections from these two books, is available for individual study. • This same weekly Bible Lesson also serves as the Sunday sermon that is read in Christian Science church services throughout the world.

Social Views • Eddy insisted on obedience by Christian Scientists to state laws in regard to health care. • she was in favor of women's rights, and rejected the "corporeal punishment" of children. • The Christian Science Monitor, which she founded, has traditionally been a staunch defender of civil liberties and individual freedom; it also supported the prohibition of alcohol.

No specific references to homosexuality in the writings of Eddy. • Writings prescribe the living of a morally decent life, which is not an explicit condemnation of homosexuality, but it may account for some of the discomfort with homosexuality seen within some Christian Science communities. • Is some dissent among Christian Scientists as to what exactly the position with regard to homosexuality ought to be; in this matter, as in others. • The Church chooses not to have an official position, as it is considered that each individual Christian Scientist should seek their own highest sense of right through prayer.

Practices • Most members refuse medical help for disease, although not every single one of them do so. • They cooperate with laws, such as getting vaccinations and reporting when they get a contagious disease, but they don’t necessarily get treatment for the contagious disease. • They do not have a full-time healing ministry, but they have Practitioners who treat church members through prayer and other members are also encouraged to prey. • They have a mother church which is governed by six people called the Board of Directors and they are chosen by their own successors. • They do not do baptism or the Eucharist.

Beliefs • Believes in the all-powerful God and puts authority in the Bible. • They believe in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus and that it is essential to human redemption. • God is taught to be soul, mind, spirit, truth, life, and love. • God is gentle, compassionate and understanding. • everyone as their own spiritual self are created in God’s own image or reflection, so that some part of them also holds some part of the qualities of God as well. • The Christian Science definition of God is “The great I AM”.

They believe that Christ is completely divine and spiritual and only Jesus alone can carry the title of “Christ” because he is the one that had embodied Christ. • Jesus not only never claimed to be God, but that he denied it, according to the bible. • Even to this day that Christ is here, destructing sin and healing. • Some teachings are unorthodox from conventional Christian theology. • They do not believe that Jesus Christ was sacrificed to save us, and they do not believe in Hell as an internal place of punishment. • They believe in the virgin birth and the resurrection of Jesus. Christian Science is presented as a scientific system.

The teaching of Christian Science is 100% spiritual. • Consequence is not a factor. • Sin, sickness and death do not really exist; it’s just what everyone believes. • Have to follow the law as long as they believe it is real. • Believe that they can also bend a spoon with their mind if they can realize that there is no spoon. (Matrix) • Believe they can heal themselves spiritually if they believe there is no illness.

There is no such thing as evil, that it is an illusion. • That if the belief in evil is replaced by the understanding of the true universality of good, your view on it will also change, leaving the question "where did evil originate?" meaningless. • The trinity of Christian Science is found in God, Christ and divine science, or also known as “God the Father-Mother” .

After you die, the deceased are put on “probation” to gain more spiritual development and be used by God by the unlimited love of God. • There is no eternal punishment . • Heaven and Hell are only states of thought. • Only adjust to another level of consciousness that no one else is able to access. • You do not need death to experience heaven. • It can be experienced at any time, as long as your mind is at a spiritual level. • It is taught that death is an illusion and it can and will be conquered if you can conquest sin, as taught by Jesus Christ.

Prayer is the spiritualization of thought and the nature and spiritual creation of God. • The world is distorted by the senses of what it really is, in the view of spiritual ideas • Believe that prayer can heal the distortion • There is only the one spiritual creation, but it is often mistaken as a material creation. • They have a belief in the new testament. • EX: Jesus calmed a storm through prayer and implied that his disciples could have done so also if they had sufficient faith.

Sickness is only caused by fear, ignorance or sin. • Sickness will disappear once one of these is corrected. • Corrected once you realize the true goodness of God. • Disappears once they realize that the sickness has no power and that God is the only power. • Healing, in the Christian Science sense, is when you realize that the material world in which we believe we are living in, is just an illusion of the spiritual world.

Love was taught that it was not enough to think true thoughts, our consciousness must be inspired by it (love is God). • Should love in a Christian and spiritual sense. • Loving is seeing, understanding, witnessing to or upholding, and accepting as valid only the spiritual identity of each individual as God's likeness, expression, or idea. • Love is known as the understanding on what God is.

Evil is a negation, because it is the absence of truth. • It is unreal, because it presupposes the absence of God, the omnipotent and omnipresent. • They do not ignore the idea of evil. They just do not see it as an aspect of God or as a real power separate from God. • It may be considered a mistaken concept and must be seen through. • teaches that if anyone has a thought or action that is evil, that they will suffer. • They suffer from the result of what they have done, but do not suffer from the doings of God, because God believes that evil does not exist because he created all good.

Have no problem with the ideas presented from geology, biology and cosmology, setting them apart from other Christian based religions. • Example of this is the creation of man-kind, they can accept the idea of a world-wide flood or even the age of the earth itself. The only thing they really object to is the development of diseases. • Sometimes make developments in cosmology and physics to show how contemporary science is coming to understand the unreal nature of time and materiality. • They believe that the idea of creationism and evolution are false because that refers to a belief in the material universe, but they do not oppose to the teaching of evolution in schools.

Quiz Time • A set of sample test questions - 5 multiple choice, 3 short answer, 2 essay

Multiple Choice

Resources http://www.religioustolerance.org/cr_sci.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Christ,_Scientist http://carm.org/christian-science-history http://www.religionfacts.com/a-z-religion-index/christian_science.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Science http://www.religionfacts.com/a-z-religion-index/christian_science.htm

Christian Science