Article May 8, 1978 Issue

So you're a Christian Scientist?

Geraldine Karp

In high school everyone knew that I was a Christian Scientist, and it wasn't because I broadcast it to all my friends. As a matter of fact, I avoided discussing religion whenever I could get away with it. You see, I was the only kid around who was a Christian Scientist. When someone asked me my religion, I just shrugged the question off with one of my favorite lines, "Well, my grandparents are Jewish, so what does that make me?" I found that didn't work, however, when it came down to questions like, "Why don't you smoke, drink, or get high?"

While in school I was under the great misapprehension that being a Christian Scientist meant being "different" from everyone else, being the kid who couldn't do anything that looked like fun. It took quite a while to realize that the biblical statement "Come out from among them, and be ye separate" II Cor. 6:17; didn't mean "Come out from among them, and be ye alone!" Being separate, in this sense, means having an individual, highly cultivated way of thinking that is separate from the popular patterns of thought, and it means acting in accordance with spiritual laws.

We are taught, as Christian Scientists, to place value on the things of Spirit, God. Our affections are focused on the innate goodness and purity of the real man, instead of on the deceptive physical appearance. God, the Father and Mother of everyone you know (and everyone you don't), created man spiritual and obedient to His spiritual laws. These laws are echoed in the moral code of the Ten Commandments and exemplified in the life of Christ Jesus. They demand the highest standard of human living, evidencing the highest standard of thinking.

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