Practical education

I’ve taught English to students in St. Louis, China, Pakistan, and, most recently, in public high school and middle school in Los Angeles. And I’ve noticed something interesting: Even though we don’t teach specific religious points of view in classrooms, students everywhere have a deep desire for strong, clear moral and spiritual foundations to stand on. They’re hungry to understand their unique relationship with God and to find out how they can bless the world through this relationship.

As I’ve thought more about this, I’ve come to think of the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, as textbooks for real education—healing, blessing, and allowing us to understand God’s creation in a deep and fundamental way. They enable a kind of practical spirituality that everyone, young people especially, are hungry for. You don’t have to have a specialized education to understand the spiritual ideas contained in these books—anyone can experience their healing power at work in their lives. The Bible and Science and Health enable us to understand reality and demonstrate God as the divine Principle of healing and spiritual power, just as Christ Jesus did.

Recently, I had an insight into students’ hunger for practical spirituality when I was asked to visit a local Christian middle school and speak about Christian Science alongside panel members from the Sikh and Jewish faiths. The students excitedly asked us deep and stirring questions about what we believed and why we believed it. 

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