Did you know there is a church that observes Communion Sunday without actually taking Communion? They take it "spiritually" in their minds and not "materially" in terms of bread and wine. They thus "think" through the service without being bothered by material appurtenances. That Jesus himself found meaning in such symbols as bread and wine does not dissuade them as they move on up to a higher spiritual plane.  

Such is typical of Christian Science, which categorically affirms that matter does not exist. And so poverty, injustice, sickness, and death do not really exist, for "God is All." These are but "the illusory effects of mortal mind," as The Christian Science Journal puts it. Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, in her Science and Health and Key to the Scriptures instructs her disciples how to respond to an injury suffered in an accident: declare that you are not hurt.  It is not surprising, therefore, that her disciples would celebrate Communion strictly on a mental plane.

In searching for a word to describe a Christian Science service I cannot do better than funereal, which is not necessarily a criticism. It is solemn, dignified, and simple, but it is also stodgy. One might get the distinct impression that the mortician will soon wheel in the coffin, even if there is no such thing as death. While waiting for the service to begin the visitor is faced by a white-gloved usher at the head of either aisle, whose function never became clear to me after two visits, except that they resume their stations each time the congregation stands to sing, and they always stand to sing.  

The service is radically unorthodox. While there is an organ prelude, there is not much else that a typical Christian would find familiar. One of the readers begins the service by explaining that the Denton congregation is a branch of the Mother Church of the Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts, founded by Mary Baker Eddy for the purpose of restoring primitive Christianity in reference to healing. I did not realize that the "Scientists," as they call themselves, also consider themselves restorationists, a common concept in sectarian circles. The sects all have a different emphasis upon what is to be "restored," the Mormon view being the most elaborate. I can only regret that Churches of Christ/Christian Churches have yet to overcome the myth of "the restored church." One thing is obvious: all restorationists have their own select list of what constitutes the true restored church. The Scientists are satisfied to emphasize healing.  

The reader also tells about their Reading Room, which is maintained in every Christian Science community, located in this case on our courthouse square. He also explains that the service we are entering into is the same in all Christian Science churches the world over, the same text, prayers, hymns, and the same reading lesson, which is in lieu of a sermon. Mary Baker Eddy forbade any interpretation of the Scriptures in the pulpit except her own, and no preaching.

There are two readers, a man and a woman, who follow a prescribed list of readings from both the Bible and Mrs. Eddy's Science and Health. One reads the Bible, the other from Mrs. Eddy, selections that presumably interpret the Bible. There are six segments of readings with upwards of thirty references from the two sources, which takes about 25 minutes, nearly half of the service.

When they said the Lord's Prayer together, I remembered the chaplain who thought he had found in that prayer the one thing that all Christian services include, until he attended a non-Science Church of Christ! But the Scientists are unorthodox even in saying the Lord's Prayer, for again they have interspersed between the petitions embellishments by Mrs. Eddy. The responsive reading is from the Bible and an offering is taken, shades of orthodoxy!

The readers are professional, elected by the congregation for a three year period and are paid. Considerable preparation is required in order to do such an excellent job. There is no pastor or anything equivalent thereto. A congregation may have a practitioner who is duly approved by the Mother Church to minister in healing, but he or she has no part in public worship unless also elected to be a reader. To be ordained a practitioner one has to show evidence of having ministered in at least two healings. There are thousands of practitioners all over the world: 37 in Argentina, 12 in New Zealand, over 100 in West Germany, 46 in Africa, 31 in Dallas, and one in Denton. They are all members of the Mother Church in Boston.

Like the Unitarians who also emphasize things of the mind, a Christian Science congregation will predictably be made up of those from the upper socio-economic class. But unlike the Unitarians who are vigorous in their concern for social justice, the Scientists appear to be preoccupied with mind-healing and are not known to be involved in ameliorating human suffering, except to deny that it really exists. In reading the Christian Science Journal, a monthly publication, one finds no references to such problems as poverty, racism, abortion, terrorism, starvation, or even AIDS, unless it is to dismiss them as "mortal beliefs" and "illusory effects." They say they address such problems through their world-wide healing ministry by such methods as Jesus used rather than by modern medicine. In fact a practitioner will not minister to a patient if he also relies upon medicine or goes to a physician or a hospital. Neither will a practitioner pray for healing if there is anyone in the room who does not believe in it. They also have certified nurses who assist in this ministry.

There is currently a highly publicized case in the courts of a Scientist couple who is accused of criminal neglect for denying their child, now deceased, the advantages of medical science. While such experiences sometimes drive people from Christian Science, the Scientists themselves have an answer. When a spokesman for the Mother Church was asked about this case, he calmly and persuasively responded, "If a doctor does not have to explain when a child dies after medicine is used, why does a practitioner have to explain when prayer is used?"

They are the only denomination that publishes a world-wide "secular" newspaper, which happens to be one of the best in the business. Founded by Mrs. Eddy herself, the Christian Science Monitor sees itself as part of the healing ministry in that it reports the news factually without damaging those who make the news. As a regular reader of the Monitor I can testify that this is the case. It is probably the most unbiased newspaper in the world, and except for a column on the back page of a "spiritual" nature all its 32 pages are filled with penetrating news items that really come to grips with our everyday world.

Christian Science is sometimes accused of speaking two languages, one spiritual and the other secular, one that denies the material world and all its hideous evils and the other that recognizes its reality. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Monitor. A 1987 issue of the Christian Science Journal said this about the Monitor:  

It can be only as free from news of sin, conflict, inhumanity, crime, terrorism, disease, accident, disaster and war as humanity itself is free from these ills. Nevertheless the truthfulness that the Monitor is pledged to uphold expresses in some degree divine Truth. And divine Truth has positive, healing effect because Truth is Spirit.

Doesn't that say that the world the Monitor tells us about, with all its sin, disease, and inhumanity, is real? Divine Truth is the answer, but that truth witnesses in a real world of crime and terrorism. That is what most all of us believe. But that is but one language that the Scientists speak. The other language says that these things do not exist and are but the creation of "mortal mind," their favorite term in explaining that sin, disease, and death are but illusions. Notice these words from the same journal.  

So our effort in Christ-healing isn't merely to change sick matter into well matter but rather to prove step by step the spiritual reality of God's kingdom. All is God and God's expression, His creation has to be spiritual and perfect. Matter doesn't exist in the first place. 

Matter doesn't exist in the first place! This is not saying that matter is merely transient or that it is not as important as spirit, which we all more or less believe, but that it doesn't even exist. This is drawn from a false premise, also stated in the quotation, that God is everything and everything is God. Since God is Spirit and Truth and Perfection, then there can be nothing material, and no sin, disease, or death.

If the Scientists are right in their radical pantheism, that God is all and all is God, then we all face an impossible dilemma: how did this world that the Monitor tells us about ever come to exist - even as an illusion in our minds? How did matter come to exist even as the creation of "mortal Mind" if God is all there ever has been?

Mark Twain's response to Christian Science when it was only a budding religion underscores this "two language" fallacy. In his book on Christian Science he tells of his encounter with one of their practitioners after injuring his leg in a fall. The humorist tells in his inimicable way how she spent all her time trying to convince him that his injury wasn't real. "It hurts just as much as if it were real," he told her, an answer that lays bare the underbelly of Christian Science.

We are tempted to say to our Science friends, 'Why play the denial game? Oppression, injustice, drug abuse, cancer, and AIDS are out there in our world, and even if you call them "illusions" they hurt just as much as if they were real." They are as real as Jesus said they were: "In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world" (Jn. 16:33). Jesus did not deny the world's woes, he overcame them. In following him we can do likewise.

The language of Christian Science is the language of denial of all that a believing Christian holds dear, a denial so obvious that it is understandable that some of its critics insist that it is neither Christian nor Science. Angels are "exalted thoughts;" God is "Mind" or "Principle;" baptism (they do not baptize in any material way) is "spiritualized away;" prayer is "desire that is best expressed in thought and life." The test of any religion that claims to be Christian is its view of Jesus himself.

Here too the real historical Jesus is lost in metaphysical fog, such as Mrs. Eddy's "Jesus was the offspring of Mary's self-conscious communion with God" and "Jesus is the human man, and Christ is the divine idea; hence the duality of Jesus the Christ." Then there is "Jesus represented Christ, the true idea of God."

There is a vast difference between the apostolic proclamation, where sin is real and redemption is based on faith in and obedience to Jesus Christ, and the message of Christians Science where "healing" is a matter of mental discipline. We would that they would listen less to Mrs. Eddy and more to the holy Scriptures. And that they believe!

What can we learn from the Scientists?, a question I ask in all my visits with the churches, and I always find something. Except perhaps for their dignity of worship I come away with virtually nothing. They remind me of the ancient Gnostics whose faith, even about Christ, was based upon a special knowledge of their own invention and that only for the initiated. As I visited with some of Science leaders in the foyer I inquired as to what steps one takes in becoming a Scientist. The answer was "It is a hard discipline." It is salvation by mental works!

I see no good news in that, no grace and no mercy. Even though the Scientists are my neighbors and I love them, I would send no troubled soul to them for succor. Even as a philosophy it is often viewed as sheer nonsense. Socrates would come nearer saving them than Mary Baker Eddy. —the Editor