Christian Science, (The Church of Christ) was founded by Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910), a semi-invalid who, in 1862, 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. The main texts of Christian Science is the Christian Bible and Eddy's Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. Both texts are read in Sunday services and studied in private devotions. Christian Science teaches the existence of an all-powerful God and the authority and inspiration of the Bible. Christian Scientists believe the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus to be essential to human redemption. Mrs. Eddy taught belief in one God and described God with the synonyms: Principle, Soul, Mind, Spirit, Life, Truth, and Love. Christian Science departs from traditional Christianity in several doctrines.
Eddy lists six points, or religious tenets, claiming them to be adherents of Truth, the inspired Word of the Bible as the sufficient guide to eternal Life. She quotes, “We acknowledge and adore one supreme and infinite God. We acknowledge His Son, one Christ, the Holy Ghost or divine Comforter, and man in God's image and likeness. We acknowledge God's forgiveness of sin in the destruction of sin and the spiritual understanding that casts out evil as unreal. But the belief in sin is punished so long as the belief lasts. We acknowledge Jesus' atonement as the evidence of divine, efficacious Love, unfolding man's unity with God through Christ Jesus the Way-shower; and we acknowledge that man is saved through Christ, through Truth, Life, and Love as demonstrated by the Galilean Prophet in healing the sick and overcoming sin and death. We acknowledge that the crucifixion of Jesus and his resurrection served to uplift faith to understand eter- nal Life, even the allness of Soul, Spirit, and the nothingness of matter. 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.”
Christian Science Beliefs:
Christian Scientist believe that Creation is entirely spiritual and perfect and matter (the substance of which any physical object consists) does not exist.
God is the Creator of all things, including the flesh and it does exist.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.” - John 1:1-3.
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth...And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” - Genesis 1:1,26,27.
“And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” - Genesis 2:7
“And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.” - Genesis 2:21,22.
Christian Scientist believe that sin, sickness, and death do not exist, we just think they do. According to Christian Science, humans are subject to the laws of matter only so long as we believe they are real. They believe they can heal themselves spiritually by realizing illness does not exist. 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. 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.
Sin, sickness, and death is not in our imagination, it is real, while some illness can be cured simply by prayer, some are cured by the help of physicians, but God chooses how to cure .
“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;” - Romans 3:23.
“He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.” - Revelation 21:7-9.
“And a woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which had spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any, Came behind him, and touched the border of his garment: and immediately her issue of blood stanched.” - Luke 8:43,44.
“Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.” - James 5:14,16.
Christian Scientist believe that there is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all. These teachings are known as the Scientific Statement of Being, which is read at every church service.
God is the Creator of all things, but God is not in everyone. He is only in those who believe in and accept His Son, Jesus Christ.
“Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.” - Isaiah 40:28,29.
“Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ...But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light; Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.” - I Peter 2:5,9,10.
“And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” - I John 5:11,12.
Christian Scientist believe the 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.
God is the Spirit which gives us life through the Holy Spirit, unless we are saved the Spirit of God is not in us. No one receives the Spirit of God unless they are saved.
“Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” - I Corinthians 2:13,14.
“And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.” - Romans 8:10,11.
Christian Scientists believe God to be a Father-Mother, that He encompasses both male and female.
God has never addressed Himself as a woman or a mother, He has always been addressed as He, Him, The Father, my father. Jesus addresses Him only as His Father and our Father.
“And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.” - Matthew 23:9.
“Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.” - Luke 6:36.
“All things are delivered to me of my Father: and no man knoweth who the Son is, but the Father; and who the Father is, but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him.” - Luke 10:22.
Christian
Scientists believe that Jesus is divine, but not God, and that Jesus'
human nature is a separate entity from the divine Christ.
Jesus
is the Son of God, Jesus is God in the flesh, Jesus is the Word made
flesh, Jesus was not born with the sin nature that we are all born
with therefore, He was sinless, Jesus was a man also.
“In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word
was God. The same was in the beginning with God...And the Word was
made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory
as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.”
- John 1:1,2,14.
“For
the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels;
and then he shall reward every man according to his works.”
- Matthew 16:26-28.
“Now
then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by
us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. For
he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be
made the righteousness of God in him.”
- II Corinthians 5:20,21.
“But
to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and
we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we
by him.”
- I Corinthians 8:6.
Christian
Scientists believe that the Holy Spirit is equivalent with divine
Science, i.e., the teachings of Christian Science. Mary Baker Eddy
rejected the traditional doctrine of the Trinity, saying that it
suggests polytheism (the doctrine of or belief in more than one god
or in many gods). However, she did emphasize the threefold nature of
God, defining it as a trinity of Life, Truth, and Love, or God the
Father-Mother.
The
Holy Spirit (Ghost) is God, He is the Spirit of God, He is the
Comforter, Jesus Christ, all three, although known individually are
One God.
“For
there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and
the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.”
- I John 5:7.
“Let
no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is
good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the
hearers. And
grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day
of redemption.”
- Ephesians 4:29,30.
Christian
Scientists believe that Christ the spiritual idea of sonship, and
divine Science or the Holy Comforter. Eddy defined salvation as
follows: Life, Truth, and Love understood and demonstrated as supreme
over all, sin, sickness and death destroyed.
Salvation
is the redemption of sin through the belief in Jesus Christ, who
without sin died for all sin, was buried, and 3 days later arose to
end the death sentence imposed on all.
“Though
he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he
suffered; And
being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto
all them that obey him;”
- Hebrews 5:8,9.
“For
God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our
Lord Jesus Christ, Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep,
we should live together with him.”
- I Thessalonians 5:9,10.
“Wherefore,
as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so
death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:.. Nevertheless
death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned
after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of
him that was to come. But not as the offence, so also is the free
gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the
grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus
Christ, hath abounded unto many.”
- Romans 5:12,14,15.
Christian
Scientists believe that 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". It is
"Harmony, the reign of Spirit, government by the divine
Principle, spirituality, bliss, the atmosphere of Soul." 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.
Heaven and hell are just as real as the earth, it is not
an illusion or state of mind.
“In
the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”
- Genesis 1:1.
“And
the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell
delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every
man according to their works. And
death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second
death.”
- Revelation 20:13,14.
Christian
Scientist have no ordained clergy, members engaged in the full-time
healing ministry are called Christian Science practitioners and
services are conducted by elected Readers. Practitioners treat church
members through prayer, and members are encouraged to pray as well.
Christian Scientists authority comes from the Mother Church.
The Mother Church is governed by a Board of Directors comprised of
six members who choose their own successors. Each branch is
self-governed and democratic. The Manual of The Mother Church that
governs the movement has remained virtually unchanged since Eddy's
death. 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.
There
is no such thing as the Mother church, the True Church is Jesus
Christ, who is the head of the church. Believers, those who have
asked Jesus to save them are members of His church.
“For
by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in
earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions,
or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for
him: And
he is before all things, and by him all things consist. And he is the
head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn
from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. For
it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell;”
- Colossians 1:16-19
“For
the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of
the church: and he is the saviour of the body.”
- Ephesians 5:23.
“For
as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the
same office: So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one
members one of another.”
- Romans 12:4,5.
“For
as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of
that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. For by
one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or
Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink
into one Spirit.”
- I Corinthians 12:12,13.
