Recently, and to my surprise, a life-long Christian Scientist told me that all new ideas in our churches get immediately squashed by those members who want to pray and focus on healing! He went on to say that the desire to heal others has never helped our churches prosper.
Unfortunately, this view is not isolated to this one individual. And without a doubt it is nothing less than animal magnetism—evil, error, the carnal mind—mesmerizing and engulfing those folks’ thought.
Think about it for a moment.
How could that which is at the very core of Christian Science and the most significant aspect that makes it unique—Christianly scientific healing—in any way hamper our churches’ growth?
It is the basis upon which Mary Baker Eddy founded Christian Science, the rock upon which churches were organized, and the primary reason that people flocked to those churches.
People that were already healed by Christian Science of the diseases, injuries, and illnesses that the medical fraternity had said—and still says—were either incurable or that material-based remedies alone could cure (or at best manage).
People who knew firsthand of the potency of Christianly scientific healing.
And people who were living witnesses to the power of Truth which thoroughly lifted them out of lives shackled by illness and sin into selfless lives of healing and blessing humanity. Their reformed and regenerated lives, and their subsequent dedication to healing others, in turn drew newcomers seeking the same salvation from evil’s terrors of the flesh.
Tell me then, in what possible way could healing hamper the growth of Christian Science or squash new ideas?
The answer is that it can’t. In fact, Christianly scientific healing fosters growth and inspires and frees us with new spiritual ideas—not new human strategies and opinions.
So what’s happening here that some members would express such absurd observations?
These individuals are being used by evil to voice the larger claim of material thought—of the secular and sensual that asserts a separation from God’s immediate and complete healing presence. A thought that would try to efface our true and only identity as God’s spiritual creation. A thought which claims that Christianly scientific healing is irrelevant in the 21st century because of all the advances of material medicine. A thought that places all value in matter, pleasure, and worldly satisfaction and validation.
A thought that is aggressively promoted everywhere we look.
Yet, a falsity can be nothing other than false. By its very nature, it cannot—under any circumstances—voice the truth.
Mrs. Eddy wrote:
The so-called laws of matter and of medical science have never made mortals whole, harmonious, and immortal. Man is harmonious when governed by Soul. Hence the importance of understanding the truth of being, which reveals the laws of spiritual existence. (Science and Health, p. 273)
To those dear ones who are falling into this trap of error—of thinking that focusing on healing is a hindrance to our churches’ growth and prosperity and/or is no longer relevant—I would ask one question:
Where can you find any such assertion in Science and Health and Mrs. Eddy’s other writings?
Search though you may, you will never see a justification for such erroneous claims.
Christianly scientific healing is and always will be at the center of all God-inspired growth—individually and collectively—in Christian Science.
The two cannot be separated.
Vistas 
Thanks Mr. Girard,
We have certainly experienced this attitude in our church. However, I feel that the idea of healing covers more than the healing of human problems. It also includes the healing of the church and all the word “church” includes.
Elizabeth
You’re welcome, Elizabeth and thanks for your comments. And as I commented below to Alan, the last phrase in the definition of “Church” is “healing the sick.” We can’t escape that requirement (see MBE’s writings including the Manual, p. 92:3) and our individual responsibilities to be doing what our Leader and our Master expected of each of us. It seems to me, once we get focused on healing others, many of the problems within the churches will start to be healed because we are fulfilling the demand to truly love our neighbor as ourselves. 🙂
You’ve got to be kidding is right!!
Thanks, Loral. Yup, it’s amazing the way error will try to sneak in! 🙂
As a lifelong Christian Scientist. I too have run into new ideas being squashed by the membership of a church. Originally it was the older membership that were set in their ways, I thought. Until I found a lot of the younger members voting the same way because that was the way they were raised and it worked for them.
Mrs. Eddy asked us to “come out from the world and be separate.” But I feel this religion was founded on Love and that included the love of the world. She also asked us “to abreast of the times.” That includes doing new things, be more inclusive, being attractive to new thinkers.
We should always base our service on healing. That includes aged thought. Until our churches come into the 21st century, we will not attract new members and if this church wants to survive, we must do this. We all must be more loving.
Thanks so much for your comments, Alan. I certainly understand what you’re saying. The issue you’re addressing becomes culture/tradition instead of living Christian Science–the latter always including the need for each of us to be out there doing public healing (whether Journal-listed or not). When that begins to happen then the false traditions will start to be jettisoned (the chaff will be separated from the wheat). And since healing–and what greater expression of divine Love is there?–is at the core of Christian Science and is always current, it’s that which will bring us into the 21st century. It’s extremely important to note that “healing the sick” is the last phrase that MBE included in the definition of “Church” in Science and Health. 🙂
Hard to believe anyone thought that way. It seems like we often are looking to so many other ways than healing to make our church grow. We don’t have fancy kitchens, basketball courts, pep bands etc. We have information about a healing method good for all mankind and many people who actually practice. What greater “activity” could we offer?
Indeed, what greater activity?! Thanks so much, Lee!
Thanks!! I’ve read in some of the early papers involving the beginnings of the CS movement where Mrs Eddy was discouraging building new church edifices fora time because she thought all of the busywork involved was getting in the way of healing. To your point… Healing is all that we have. If Jesus hadn’t healed, and taught his disciples how to heal and uplift, there wouldn’t be Christianity.
I’ve read that, too, Pat. Thanks for your comments! 🙂 And, now we have to really be healing to draw mankind to our doors once again to learn the Science of Being. It’s the only way we can really obey the Second Great Commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves!
Ken, thanks for uncovering this particularly pernicious lie!
You’re welcome, Amy! Pernicious it is indeed!
Amen! It’s the better part that shall not be taken away from those who love Christ.
Hi Cassie: Thanks and I agree! 🙂