A LOT OF PEOPLE have been disappointed by Christianity as it's commonly taught. For almost 2,000 years, a kind of dust settled on the good news proclaimed by Jesus of Nazareth, obscuring its original brilliance.

If all I knew of Christianity were this dusty version, I would feel the same way. But in 1866, Mary Baker Eddy had a spiritual insight into the nature of God that would, in her words, "reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing" (Church Manual, p. 17).

Healing is important because it silences theological arguments about God, the devil, sin, punishment, and so on, with proof that God is good and all-powerful. If a statement about the nature of the Creator and His creation is true, we should be able to prove it. Christ Jesus accomplished moral and physical healings as proofs that God is Love. That's why Mrs. Eddy linked those two powerful words Christian and Science to describe her discovery.

It was this lost-and-found element of Christianity—healing—that brought my parents into the study of Christian Science when they were quite young. And when I was in my teens, it was the healings I experienced in my own life that convinced me that Christian Science is the truth, and that I should stick with it.

Recently, while serving as a Christian Science chaplain in a county jail, I was asked by an inmate why I had chosen a path that is so metaphysically challenging. I replied, "Because I'm convinced that this is the way the universe really works." The implication: Why would one want to live a lie—even a comfortable and comforting one—once one recognized its falsity?

Why is it that many people have difficulty when reasoning about the nature of divinity and humanity? I suspect it's because they start from matter and try to reason their way to an understanding of Spirit. The process goes something like this: "I have a body," or, "I am a body, and I'm made in the image of God, as it says in Genesis 1 in the Bible. Therefore, God must have a body, too." To me, this is backward. I would say: "God is Spirit. I am the image and likenes of Spirit. So, I can't be material. I am spiritual."

In Herman Melville's novel Moby Dick there's an insight into the way we see things: "In looking at things spiritual, we are too much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking that thick water to be the thinnest of air."

In other words, our physical senses are like the water that distorts the oyster's view. The universe looks material and imperfect through this distorting lens, but God actually made it spiritual and perfect. This is the great truth Jesus spoke of when he said, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32).

How can you find this liberating truth? Read Mary Baker Eddy's book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures for the light it throws on the Bible. Some first-time readers have discovered in it what they always knew intuitively to be true, but couldn't explain.

Others have found it difficult to understand at first, but have been convinced of its truth by the healings they have experienced. Mrs. Eddy doesn't say, "You have to believe this, because it's a revelation from God." Instead, she says, "You can prove for yourself, dear reader, the Science of healing, and so ascertain if the author has given you the correct interpretation ofScripture" (Science and Health, p. 547). |CSS