Article March 16, 2015 Issue

Changing the evidence

Katherine Lazarus

A statement of Mary Baker Eddy’s puzzled me for a long time. Referring to Christ Jesus and his healing work, she writes, “He demanded a change of consciousness and evidence, and effected this change through the higher laws of God” (Unity of Good, p. 11). What I wondered about was the meaning of the word evidence, as used in that sentence.

I have often read and heard the word evidence in testimonies of healing in the Christian Science periodicals and at Wednesday evening meetings in Christian Science churches. Testifiers frequently write or speak of having worked and prayed when healing was needed, and then relate that at some point later they began to see “evidence of healing.” Sometimes they are referring to physical evidence that they observed, and sometimes to changes in thought. That use of the word evidence is correct, and Jesus did demand evidence of healing, but I realized that I needed to gain a broader understanding of the word as also meaning what we use to inform us of what is true.

In the practice of Christian Science, the only evidence we admit into consciousness as true is spiritual sense evidence.