Letters to the press—and other articles

In Christian Science, healing begins with God

This article was submitted by David A. Greene in response to a Los Angeles Times story about turmoil in the Christian Science Church that appeared in the News II section of the July 5 Providence Sunday Journal. The writer is the Christian Science Committee on Publication for Rhode Island.

Mercy is an awesome word. My dictionary says it means "a refraining from harming or punishing offenders, enemies, persons in one's power. Kindness in excess of what is expected or demanded by fairness."

I wonder if "bitter, abhorrence and outraged" describes mercy at all or even relates to it. These words were recently used in an article by Bob Baker that appeared in the Journal-Bulletin July 5 to describe Christian Scientists.

The central teaching of our religion is love. Jesus' two great commandments, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself," are central to it.

It is so serious that an offense against love could mean loss of membership in the Church. So the mission of our Church to put love first has not changed. All the publishing work is dedicated to loving God and our neighbors as ourselves.

Christian Scientists don't abhor medical treatment. We don't use it as a rule, because our healing method starts from a completely different standpoint, that God is Life, Truth and Love, and that God's laws are present here and now and govern us. It is understanding this law of God that does the healing work, not some personal ability or power. Anyone who has been healed time and time again by Divine Love has no desire or need for any other healing method....

The two great commandments taught by Jesus are central to our practice of Christianity. The Science, as Discoverer and Founder Mary Baker Eddy called it, is [evident in] the striving to understand God through prayer and study of the Bible and the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mrs. Eddy, His laws of the universe and how they govern us and our relationship to Him. Then to take what we have discovered of God's laws and apply that to our humanity; in other words, to make it practical. So it is not theory, it is practical proof. It is beholding, cherishing and honoring God and our neighbors as ourselves.

The millions spent in loving humanity do not reflect the work of an insular religion, but just the opposite, one that genuinely cares for its neighbors all over the planet. The Christian Science Church honors individuals' right to think for themselves, to have communion with God, without outside interference. So it is natural that you do not see them telling other people what to do.

The sixth tenet of our Church from the textbook sums it up: "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).

Love and mercy are the important things, and we cherish them.

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