What's the Difference?
05/05/2002 - Christian Science
His story goes like this. "Nine years ago I was an atheist. I had been all my adult life. During college I started to lift weights, but by my mid-20's I began to notice a temporary but recurring pain in my right hand. As the years went by the condition continued to get worse and my hand would shake uncontrollably making it difficult to write."
"One evening at a dinner party, I was introduced to an orthopedic surgeon who diagnosed my problem as focal action dystonia and referred to the shaking as a 'tremor.' The very expensive state-of-the-art medication he prescribed did nothing for me. Instead, I solved the problem by learning to write with my left hand."
"My wife wasn't satisfied with my 'solution.' She had been studying Christian Science and for years had urged me to see a Christian Science practitioner. Finally, I figured I had nothing to lose. If it didn't work, I'd never have to hear about it again. So I called a practitioner and made an appointment."
"No one who hasn't been an atheist can really know how strange it feels for an atheist to go to a spiritual healer! After exchanging pleasantries, we sat down at a table and the practitioner began to speak to me part of the time and to God part of the time. I had no frame of reference for what was going on and the whole experience just seemed odd to me."
"The treatment took no more than 15 or 20 minutes, maybe less, and I didn't feel anything had happened. Until the practitioner give me a pen and a pad and asked me to write. Well, I picked up the pen in my right hand and started to write and write and write. No pain. No shaking. Just writing."
"In less than 20 minutes I'd been permanently healed. I bought a Bible and a copy of Science and Health and started to read and study and was soon healed of my atheism too. I am grateful beyond words to God, Christ Jesus, Mary Baker Eddy, my wife and the wonderful practitioner who introduced me to Christian Science. I have truly been given the gift of eternal life."
That testimony appears in the April 2002 issue of The Christian Science Journal and is available to be read on their website www.christianscience.com along with other testimonies of healings from allergies, tumors, diabetes, MS, fibromyalgia and heart problems.
But you won't read testimonies like this next one in the journal or on the website. "Doug and Rita Swan had watched their 16 month-old baby convulse and scream with pain for twelve days. When they finally rushed him to the hospital, it was too late. Little Matthew died six days later of bacterial meningitis. As devout followers of Christian Science, Doug and Rita had tried to follow their faith. Their church practitioner had told them to stop praying, tell no one, and ignore Matthew's condition. Rita, who now runs an organization called CHILD, which stands for Child Health Care Is a Legal Duty, says the practitioner threatened her when she began to doubt. She was told that illness and disease are illusions of the mind that can be corrected by right thinking."
"When my son died nobody cared," Rita said. "There wasn't even an obituary in the paper. Mentally I thought that wasn't right. In those days that's the way it was when a Christian Science child died. There was no press coverage and autopsies were seldom ordered. The deaths were all swept under the rug."
The science of healing is at the very core of the group that we're going to look at today. This morning we continue our series called What's the Difference? with a look at Christian Science also known as The Church of Christ, Scientist. Many claim that Christian Science is a way of life. Others call it a cult because it exhibits the marks of a cult. By now you should be able to give me the three marks of every cult. First, they all have another leader besides Jesus. For Mormons it was Joseph Smith, for Jehovah's Witness it was Charles Taze Russell, and for Christian Science its Mary Baker Eddy. Jesus is just not enough. Second, they all have another authority besides the Bible. For Mormons its The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ, for Jehovah's Witnesses its their own unique translation of the Bible called The New World Translation as well as Watch Tower materials, and for Christian Science its Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. The Bible is just not enough. And third, they all deny the deity of Jesus Christ. Don't be fooled. They may call Jesus god, or a god, or even the Son of God as Christian Scientists do. But he's not the Son of God as in the second person of the eternal Trinity, which is the cornerstone of the Christian faith. Once again, with cults as with the major world religions, Jesus is the issue.
Now let's look at the founder of the Christian Science movement. Her name is Mary Baker Eddy. Many have called her one of the most remarkable women who has ever lived. Her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, first published in 1875, has sold close to 10 million copies and was voted one of the 75 books authored by women "whose words have changed the world."
Mary Baker was born into a stern church going family on July 16, 1821, in Bow, New Hampshire. Her father, Mark Baker, was a strict follower of the teachings of the Reformer John Calvin especially on things like final judgment, God's wrath toward sinners and the eternal punishment of unbelievers. Truth clearly taught in the Bible, but things that Mary didn't agree with. And so she and her father had some major arguments, which helped set the stage for her later rejection of historical Christian teaching.
Mary was a sickly child and missed a lot of school growing up. Her education came mostly through self-study. When she was 22, she married George Glover who died after only six or seven months, but not before Mary conceived her only child, a son George Glover II.
She raised him as a single mom for ten yeas until she married Dr. Daniel Patterson, a dentist who proved to be unfaithful to Mary. After 13 years they divorced and then in 1877, Mary married her third husband, Asa Gilbert Eddy who became her first disciple and the first Christian Science practitioner.
Mary's life was dominated by physical and mental suffering which explains why there's so much emphasis on healing in the Christian Science church. In 1862, at the age of 41, something happened that dramatically changed Mary's life. She was suffering from a spinal illness at the time when she became intrigued by the healing ministry of man from Portland, Maine, named Phineas Quimby. Quimby practiced a form of mind-over-matter healing that he called the Science of Christ. He used techniques like hypnotism and the laying on of hands and Mary was convinced that he had rediscovered the healing method of Jesus. And during her visit to Quimby she claimed that she had been healed.
In 1866, shortly after Quimby died, Mary slipped on an icy sidewalk and injured her back. She later claimed that her fall left her with only three days to live, although her physician denied that diagnosis. Nevertheless, on the third day, while she was bedridden, she picked up her Bible and read the account of Jesus healing the paralytic in Matthew 9. As she was reading verse two, Take heart, son, your sins are forgiven, she experienced a miraculous cure. She got up from her bed and claimed that she was healed.
From that point on, Mary felt that her mission in life was to spread this new discovery she called Christian Science. She said that the date of her healing, February 1866, coincided with the second coming of Jesus Christ, which was a spiritual and invisible event that marked the founding of Christian Science.
By 1870, Mary was teaching her system of healing and her graduates set themselves up as practitioners and charged fees for their services. In 1875, she published Science and Health, the "textbook" of Christian Science, and then in 1879 the Church of Christ, Scientist was incorporated with Mary Baker Eddy as pastor of the Mother Church in Boston, Massachusetts. All other churches are branches of the Mother Church in Boston.
In 1895, Mary published the first edition of the Manual of the Mother Church and one of her last and greatest accomplishments was the founding of The Christian Science Monitor, a daily Pulitzer Prize winning newspaper that she started in 1908 at the age of 88. When she died in 1910, at the age of 90, Mary Baker Eddy was one of the most recognized public figures in America.
Today the world headquarters of Christian Science continues to be in the Back Bay section of Boston with over 2,000 branch churches spread throughout 60 countries around the world. I tried to get an accurate count on current membership, but when I called world headquarters they said that their founder never wanted that figure to be published. Although U.S. Census figures indicate that their numbers are declining from the 300,000 members estimated in 1936.
The closest Church of Christ, Scientist is on Route 29 in Phoenixville. But if you went to that church, or any other for that matter, you wouldn't find a pastor. They don't have personal pastors. That's because in 1895 Mary Baker Eddy couldn't find a successor for herself at the Mother Church and so she appointed two impersonal pastors to lead the church, one being the Bible and the other being Science and Health.
About that she wrote, "Your dual and impersonal pastor, the Bible, and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, is with you. And the Life these give, the Truth they illustrate, the Love they demonstrate, is the great Shepherd that feedeth my flock, and leadeth them 'beside the still waters.'" Since that time those two books have served as the pastors of the Mother Church and of every branch church as well.
This week I was talking to Ken, my Christian Science friend from college, and he gave me a feel for how he practices his faith. He told me that there are two one-hour church services each week, one on Sunday and one on Wednesday. They're run exactly the same way everywhere in the world. The one on Sunday morning is for instruction and the one on Wednesday night is for testimonies.
Instead of pastors, each church elects two readers, one for the Bible and one for Science and Health. And on Sunday's the readings are based on twenty-six weekly Bible lessons that are studied two times a year. Every Christian Scientist in the world is studying the same lesson at the same time. After the half-hour reading which is done alternately between the two books, three hymns are sung, then there's a solo and the recitation of the Lord's Prayer. There are also Sunday School classes for those up to age twenty.
On Wednesday nights readings are given that speak to current issues or needs in the community or the world after which there's a testimony time where members share their experiences of spiritual healing or insight gained from prayer and the study of Christian Science. Those are times of encouragement and inspiration.
In addition to the services each church is responsible to have a Christian Science reading room where members can go and study and pray and learn more about their faith. Now let's learn about the Christian Science faith and see what's the difference?
First, they believe in one God, but he's very different from the God of the Bible. He doesn't exist as three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In fact, he's not a person at all. In Christian Science, God is an impersonal principle of life, truth, love, intelligence and spirit. He's all that truly exists in the world. Because God is spirit, everything that is not spirit really does not exist. Human beings are not made up of material things like flesh and bones. Instead, we are ideas, spiritual and perfect. Material things like disease, sin, evil, even death are illusions. Only that which is good actually exists which is God. That's a difficult concept to grasp and was tough for Ken to explain to me.
And understandably so, because the Bible doesn't teach that. God is Spirit. Jesus said in John 4:24, God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth. But God is also a person with a mind, a will and emotions who created the universe, but is separate from it. He is holy. He created all that truly exists, but he is not all that truly exists. There are material things and they are real. There is sin and evil and disease in this world, but its not God. The Hebrew prophet Isaiah wrote in Isaiah 40:22, 25, God sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers... "To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?" says the Holy One.
Second, Jesus is not God, instead he displayed the Christ idea. Since everything material isn't real according to Christian Science, God could never become a man made of flesh and blood. Instead, Jesus is the Son of God in the same sense that we are all sons and daughters of God. We are all the perfect children of God. On page 361 of Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy clearly states that "Jesus Christ is not God... As a drop of water is one with the ocean, a ray of light one with the sun, even so God and man, Father and son, are one in being." Jesus is a part of God, just like we are a part of God. Jesus is not the Way in Christian Science. He's only the Way-shower.
Jesus didn't suffer for our sins. He didn't die on the cross because death is an illusion. He didn't rise from the dead and he isn't coming back. There's no heaven or hell and there's no sin to be saved from. We are already eternally saved.
Third, the Bible is not the inspired Word of God it is full of errors. The Bible can only be interpreted with Mary Baker Eddy's textbook Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. Her book is the key to understanding the treasures locked up in Scripture. Science and Health without the Bible would be like having a key without a door. But the Bible without Science and Health is like having a door without a key.
As followers of Jesus Christ, we don't need another truth source. The Bible is enough. In fact, the Bible warns us against adding or subtracting from the Word of God. In Revelation 22:18-19, the last paragraph of the last chapter of the last book in the Bible God says, I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book. If any one of you adds anything to them, God will add to you the plagues described in this book. And if any one of you takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from you your share in the tree of life and in the Holy City, which are described in this book. I'm not sure I understand everything that passage means. But I really don't want to find out.
Christian Scientist's are wonderful, hard working, law abiding, clean living people. They make good neighbors and great friends. And like all of us they wrestle with pain and suffering and the problem of evil in the world. But their solutions are not based on the Word of God. They're based on the word of Mary Baker Eddy. They consider Christian Science to be the Revelation and Mary Baker Eddy to be the Revelator. So we cannot understand the Revelation without her. So once again it comes down to Jesus. Is Jesus enough or isn't he?
During my study this week I read the testimony of a woman named Carolyn who is an ex-Christian Scientist and now a follower of Jesus. And I thought she put it best when she said, "I had been believing in Mrs. Eddy to guide me for my eternal life, and I came to see that she didn't know any more than I did. She was only another mortal. Moreover, when she died, her body stayed in the grave. She didn't come back. Therefore, she can't really testify as to what goes on after death because she had never been there when she wrote her book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. Jesus had been to the grave and back. He resurrected from the dead. To me, that gives him a lot more credibility than Mrs. Eddy. I have accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and my God. He is the only way to salvation. I will confess him and him alone as Lord and Savior."