Article June 5, 2006 Issue

CHURCH and HEALING—the ongoing mission

BY CINDY NEELY

CHURCH CAN MEAN different things to different people. To some church members or attendees, church provides a worship service where they can praise and honor God, while to others, involvement in a church means paying homage and obedience to religious rituals and creeds. And still to others, church is a place to meditate and feel at peace.

To Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered Christian Science in 1866, the concept of Church transcended a physical structure. She saw Church, in its spiritual meaning, as "the structure of Truth and Love; whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 583). Unequivocally, she knew healing and Church as one— as synonymous.

In Mary Baker Eddy's day, it was considered normal for people to be healed during Christian Science church services. Seekers came looking to be set free from whatever physical or mental ailments they had. Many who came to the earliest Christian Science services in Boston were lame, blind, or struggling with some disease, and they often walked out free and well.