What is Christian Science?

Christian Science, discovered by Mary Baker Eddy, is a universal, practical system of spiritual, prayer-based Christian healing, available and accessible to everyone.

Christian Science is fully explained in Mary Baker Eddy’s primary text on spirituality and healing, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.

Christian Science has helped many people find better emotional and physical health, answers to life’s deepest issues and progress on their spiritual journeys.

Basic ideas of Christian Science

God is divine Love, Father-Mother, supreme.

The true nature of each individual as a child of God is spiritual.

God’s infinite goodness, realised in prayer, heals.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Why Science?

It’s Science because it’s based upon a set of spiritual principles – laws relating to the nature of God and His creation – that can be applied with expected, consistent results.

Is it Christian?

Yes. Christian Science is based on the Bible and Christian Scientists follow the teachings and ministry of Christ Jesus. In fact the virgin birth, crucifixion, resurrection and ascension of Christ Jesus, and so on, are all central to Christian Science theory.

Is it true that Christian Scientists don’t take medicine?

Generally a Christian Scientist’s first choice is to rely on prayer for healing and in most cases this means a medical remedy is unnecessary. There is no biblical or church mandate to forgo medical intervention, nor do Christian Scientists believe that it is God’s will that anyone suffer or die. A Christian Scientist’s decision to rely on prayer comes from trust in God, not blind faith, and from a conviction that God’s care continues under every circumstance.

Is Christian Science the same as Scientology?

No. Scientology is much more recent and its teachings have nothing in common with Christian Science.

Is Christian Science the same as a positive thinking?

No. Positive thinking relies on the human mind to think or effect a good result. Christian Science starts with God and the conviction that God’s goodness embraces each of us, all the time.

Is Christian Science faith healing?

No. Christian Science does not involve pleading with God to heal the sick and then accepting His will, good or bad. Nothing in Christian Science theology says it’s God’s will that anyone suffer, be sick, or die. Christian Science shows God to be entirely good, and therefore His will for each individual is only health and life.

What is a Christian Science practitioner?

Christian Science practitioners are individuals who are self-employed, who have completed a course in spiritual healing given by an authorized teacher of Christian Science, and who devote themselves full time to helping and healing others through prayer. While practitioners do not offer counseling, diagnosis, prognosis, or any physical manipulation or treatment, they do offer Christian Science treatment—as explained in Mary Baker Eddy’s book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.

What’s involved in Christian Science treatment?

Christian Science treatment is the application of spiritual principles—who and what God is and what that means for each individual—to the specifics of any given situation. These spiritual principles, applied, have a tangible effect—restored relationships, financial well-being, physical healing, and so on.

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Church History

Christian Science began in 1866 when Mary Baker Eddy was healed of severe spinal injuries caused by a fall on ice. This healing came after she re-read one of the so-called miracles in the Bible and realised that it was not a miracle but the application of divine law, the understanding of which could bring healing now as surely as it it did in Jesus’ time. She devoted three years to in-depth study of the Bible in order to understand how this could work, and began to prove, by healing others, that there is a scientific way to heal mentally – not through human will or hypnotism, nor by what we would now call the placebo effect, but through the understanding that all reality is spritual, not material.

She expanded on her discovery, first with a group of followers, and then through the publication of Science and Health in 1875. In 1879 she and her group, now calling themselves Christian Scientists resolved “To organize a church designed to commemorate the word and works of our Master, which should reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing.”

This led to the founding and development of the Christian Science Movement as it is today.

The Tenets of Christian Science

The church does not have a creed, but it does adhere to six tenets as found in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. (pp496-497)

  1. As adherents of Truth, we take the inspired Word of the Bible as our sufficient guide to eternal Life.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. We acknowledge that the crucifixion of Jesus and his resurrection served to uplift faith to understand eternal Life, even the allness of Soul, Spirit, and the nothingness of matter.
  6. 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.

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