Christian Science Free Essays

â€Å"There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error. We will write a custom essay sample on Christian Science or any similar topic only for you Order Now 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. † (SH 468) â€Å"Christian Science founder, Mary Baker Eddy was born in Bow, New Hampshire, in 1821. Her parents were devout Christians and she joined a Congregational Church at age 17. She was chronically sick growing up with many ailments including paralysis, hysteria, seizures and convulsions.At 22, she married her first of three husbands, George Glover, who died within 6 months from yellow fever. †(http://www. watchman. org/profile/chrsciprofile. htm) â€Å"In 1862, she 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. â€Å"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. She is referred to as Mrs. Eddy by church members. † (http://www. watchman. org/profile/chrsciprofile. tml) At the end of the 20th century, the church had about 2,500 congregations in 70 countries; its headquarters is at the Mother Church in Boston. The fundamental distinctive teaching of Christian Science is that creation is entirely spiritual and perfect and matter does not exist. Sin, sickness and death also do not exist; we only think they do. â€Å"The only reality of sin, sickness, or death is the awful fact that unrealities seem real to human, erring belief, until God strips off their disguise† (Science and Health, 472:27-29). http://www. watchman. org/profile/chrsciprofile. htm) â€Å"The Christian Science Church is declining rapidly. Between 1971 and 2009 the number of U. S. practitioners and teachers listed in the Christian Science Journal fell from about 5,000 to about 1,160 and the number of churches fell from about 1,800 to about 900 [9]. In November 2005, Rita Swan noted: The Christian Science Monitor had over 175,000 subscribers in 1988. Today it has 53,203 subscribers worldwide, but its circulation has fallen by more than 10% in the past six months.Even more startling, the Christian Science Board of Directors recently told a regional membership gathering that only 15,000 of those subscribers are members of the Christian Science church. (Thousands of the subscribers are libraries. ) The Manual of the Mother Church, which provides the rules for church members, requires all members to subscribe to all church periodicals if they can afford it. Many of those subscriptions are going to homes with only one church member (a widow, a single person, or a person who married outside the faith). It therefore seems highly likely that the Christian Science church today has no more than 30,000 members. Around the time of World War II, when the church had to report its membership to the government in order to be allowed to have military chaplains, it reported having 268,915 members in 1936 [10]. In December 2009, I found that the number of practitioners and teachers had plummeted to only 333 (a 75% drop in only four years). † (http://www. quackwatch. com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/cs2. html )The largest population of Christian Scientists is in Boston, MA and St Louis, MO. Principia is a pre-school-college that is located in the St Louis area for Christian Scientists and many families have moved their so their children can attend. Boston is the home of The Mother Church and The Christian Science Monitor amongst others and so many people live and work in that area. (http://wiki. answers. com/Q/What_are_the_demographics_of_christian_science_people_in_ame rica ) Christian Scientists refer to God as â€Å"Father-Mother† rather than the biblical â€Å"Father. Though unconventional, this is not a major departure from mainstream Christianity, since God is believed to encompass both male and female (both were created â€Å"in the image of God†). Christian Science teaches that Jesus is divine but not God, and that Jesus’ human nature is a separate entity from the divine Christ. â€Å"Jesus Christ is not God, as Jesus himself declared, but is the Son of God† (Science and Health, 361:12-13). â€Å"Jesus is the name of the man who, more than all other men, has presented Christ, the true idea of God, healing the sick and sinning and destroying the power of death† (Science and Health, 473:10-17).Mrs. Eddy rejected the traditional doctrine of the Trinity, saying that it suggests polytheism (Science and Health, 256:9-11). She did, however, accept the threefold nature of God, defining it as a trinity of â€Å"Life, Truth, and Love,† or â€Å"God the Father-Mother, Christ the spiritual idea of sonship, and divine Science or the Holy Comforter† (Science and Health 331:26-332:3). Christian Scientists are neither creationists nor biblical literalists. They regard the story of the creation in the Book of Genesis as having symbolic rather than literal meaning. However, Eddy also believed that the theory of evolution wrongly portrayed man as mortal rather than spiritual: â€Å"Theorizing about man’s development from mushrooms to monkeys and from monkeys into men amounts to nothing in the right direction and very much in the wrong. â€Å"[20] Thus, from the Christian Science point of view, both creationism and evolution are false as they both proceed from a belief in the reality of a material universe. (http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Christian_Science) The Christian Science position on the nature of evil may be stated as follows: â€Å"Evil is a negation, because it is the absence of truth.It is nothing, because it is the absence of something. It is unreal, because it presupposes the absence of God, the omnipotent and omnipresent. Every mortal must learn that there is neither power nor reality in evil†. [17] This statement should not be taken as meaning that Christian Scientists ignore the belief of evil and its effects, but they do not see evil as either an aspect of God, or as a real power separate from God. Evil is not fundamentally â€Å"real† because it is not part of God’s being or his creation. But it may appear to be real as a mistaken concept of God and man, and consequently must be â€Å"seen through† rather than ignored.Christian Scientists believe God and his creation to be wholly and only good. (http://www. religionfacts. com/a-z-religion-index/christian_science. htm) Eddy defined salvation as follows: â€Å"Life, Truth, and Love understood and demonstrated as supreme over all; sin, sickness and death destroyed† (Science and Health, 593:20-22). Heaven and hell are states of mind. Heaven is â€Å"not a locality, but a divine state of Mind in which all the manifestations of Mind are harmonious and immortal† (Science and Health, 291:13-16). It is â€Å"Harmony; the reign of Spirit; government by the divine Principle; spirituality; bliss; the atmosphere of Soul. (Science and Health, 587:25-27). Hell is â€Å"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. ‘† (Science and Health, 588:1-4). Individuals are thought to â€Å"pass on† to an existence similar to that experienced before death, where they can continue making strides toward eternal salvation. Death is considered the â€Å"last enemy† that does not offer any advantage toward salvation. (http://www. patheos. om/Library/Christian-Science/Beliefs/Afterlife-and-Salvation. html) Their standard from morality comes from Eddy’s book. â€Å"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. † (Science and Health(496)) 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. http://www. religionfacts. com/a-z-religion-index/christian_science. htm) 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. This is the church’s most controversial practice. However, 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. â€Å"Healthcare decisions are How to cite Christian Science, Papers Christian Science Free Essays The basic philosophy of Christian Science is idealism. â€Å"Nothing is real and eternal; nothing is spirit- but God and his ideal; evil has no reality. † The primary theme of The Bible is that spiritual power always triumphs over material power. We will write a custom essay sample on Christian Science or any similar topic only for you Order Now As a result, illness is not real. Instead, it is simply a failure of faith and this can be documented, â€Å"scientifically,† in the lives of those who have genuine faith. Christian Science was discovered and founded by Mary Baker Eddy. â€Å"The Mother Church. † Raised in a strict, religious home, she derived her lifelong interest in Christianity and the Bible. Throughout her childhood and into her adult years, she was plagued with ill health. This motivated her to study alternative methods in healing, which deviated from the then current medical techniques, which had failed her. After her first husband’s death, she began to study a number of healing ministries. At the age of forty-one, she sought a cure from a healer, Phineas Quimby. Mr. Quimby was a clockmaker who developed a method of natural healing. He emphasized the role of the human mind in achieving bodily health. Mr.  Quimby felt that the key to healing lay in the confidence by the healer in the patient’s recovery, and in the confidence that the patient has in the healer’s ability. Mrs. Eddy was a student-associate of Mr. Quimby until his death in 1866. Initially, her health improved under his care, but later she suffered a relapse. Shortly afterwards, she fell on an icy sidewalk and severely injured herself. Some did not expect her to survive. On what she believed to her deathbed, she read one of Jesus’ healings and suddenly realized that healing comes not from internal bodily processes, or from the power of a person’s mind, but from the Divine Mind, God. She was instantly cured. Mrs. Eddy withdrew from society for three years in order to concentrate on a deep search through the Bible and discover precisely how her healing had taken place. She wished to share this knowledge with others, and to give them the tools to take away sin and achieve health. Mrs. Eddy then wrote her book, Science and Health, later called Science and Health with key to the scriptures. This book explains how Christian Science heals and by just reading it, people are healed. Many people have speculated on the source of Mrs.  Eddy’s new beliefs. Some skeptics have implied that she plagiarized much of Mr. Quimby’s writings and teachings. The difference between the two was quite obvious, Mary Baker Eddy had always been deeply committed to Christianity and Mr. Quimby was highly antagonistic towards it. Mrs. Eddy determined that it was the Divine Mind, God, who healed, no the human mind. After the book was published, her teachings were welcomed and adopted by many Americans, but bitterly opposed by many traditional Christian authorities. The church went though a period of rapid growth during the first half of the twentieth-century. Membership leveled out by 1950 and has gradually declined. They operate Christian Science Reading rooms where the public is invited to read the Bible and literature published by the church. These reading rooms are in many communities and anyone is welcome. An estimate of about 400,000 people follows Christian Science teachings. The church has about 2,300 branch congregations in 60 countries. There are about 1,600 congregations in the United States and about sixty in Canada. Christian Science is practiced worldwide except for Northwest Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and parts of the Central, East, and Southeast Asia. Christian Scientists do not generally use medicine or go to doctors. They respect the work of the medical profession, but choose prayer as treatment for themselves and their children rather than medicine because they have experienced prayer’s effectiveness many times in their lives. The regeneration of heart and mind that brings about physical healing is the most significant element of healing. The teachings of Christ Jesus are central to Christian Science, and his healing work provides and example of how his followers can turn to God’s omnipotent love for healing. Over the years, Christian Science religious publications have provided thousands of accounts of healing through prayer. Each week testimonies of healings are published to the Christian Science Sentinel and each month in The Christian Science Journal. Healing is accomplished not though blind faith but through a growing understanding of God and a recognition of one’s identity as God’s reflection. This can be gained through the study of Christian Science. It is the result of drawing closer to god through coming to know the loving kindness of his divine laws and the perfection of his spiritual creation. Christian Scientists often pray for themselves and find healing. If one feels the need for additional prayerful assistance, however, he or she can call a Christian Science Practitioner. Practitioners are men and women who devote their full time to helping others through prayer. The practitioners claim no personal healing power. God alone heals. The practitioner just as the patient turns to God in humility and willingness to hear his direction and followed his guidance. In church, Christian Scientists practice the daily stuffy of the Bible and Science and Health. There are no ordained clergy in the church. Services are conducted by readers who read from the Bible, from Science and health, and from lesson sermons sent from the mother church. Christian Scientists believe in one, infinite God who is all and all good. They believe that God is not distant or unknowable, but that God is all encompassing and always present. And that God loves each individual, cared for by him, and made in God’s image- spiritual, not material. How to cite Christian Science, Essay examples