“What is Christian Science?” An inmate asked me this question when he attended his first ever Christian Science church service at a county jail where I was volunteering.

An unusual answer came to me, but it was one that I thought might resonate with him: that Christian Science is similar to the witness protection program. When someone has witnessed a crime and testifies in court, he or she may be placed in the witness protection program, meaning that the individual is provided with a new identity and moved to a new place to start a new life, having no more ties to the former life. The individual thus becomes safe from any possible retribution for his testimony in court.

I told him: “In Christian Science, you gain an entirely new identity, which is actually your spiritual, eternal, God-given identity; and you don’t go back to the old habits and ways of thinking. As the Bible says, ‘Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free’ (John 8:32). And then you are free from the penalties such ways may have incurred. Even though you may have to finish your jail sentence, you can find a whole new way of thinking and acting—one that reforms your heart and frees you of resentment, regret, and remorse.”

I went on to explain that from the study of the Bible and the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, one gains an entirely new view of oneself: as the child of God—as the perfect, spiritual idea of divine Love. This spiritual understanding of one’s actual identity frees the individual from the material thoughts and conditions that perpetuate sin and sickness, lack and violence. 

In Christian Science, you gain an entirely new identity, which is actually your spiritual, eternal, God-given identity. 

Christian Science gives the spiritual interpretation of the Bible, including the Bible’s account of God’s view of His creation: “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). In this way, Christian Science explains that each one of us, as the creation of God, is very good, and that this is the eternal truth of our identity.

When a mob confronted Christ Jesus, demanding that a woman be stoned to death for committing adultery, his response was to turn away from that scene (see John 8:1–11). The Bible says that he “stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground.” Finally, after tracing something in the dust, he arose and stated, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” And the accusers, chastened by the knowledge of their own sins, left one by one. 

When there was no one left but the woman, he asked her what had happened to her accusers: “Hath no man condemned thee?” She replied, “No man, Lord.” And he put the entire event into perspective by saying, “Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.” He evidently considered her sins as easily erasable as marks made in the dust. If she would let God govern her, she would be free from sin and would carry no stigma from her past.  

This points to the truth that God has given His children a better, purer identity than the kind of mortal identity that humans are used to beholding. In Science and Health we read: “Man is not made to till the soil. His birthright is dominion, not subjection” (pp. 517–518), and also, “Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals” (pp. 476–477).

Through reading the Bible and Science and Health, we can begin to discover this new view of each other and ourselves, lifting us out of the material, mortal sense of self to the perception of our true identity as Godlike, upright, loving, and satisfied. This new view of ourselves as made in the image and likeness of God changes everything we may have believed about ourselves as mortal and sinful, and it dissolves the negative, hurtful labels that may have been placed upon us. 

Even those who have committed crimes can discover a new spiritual identity, unmarked and unmarred by human history.

Jesus said, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). This perfection describes our true selfhood, which we can always discover. However, Jesus wasn’t talking about expressing human perfection and success. He was talking about reflecting the spiritual perfection of our heavenly Parent, divine Love. 

Everyone has the ability to find this new, or true, spiritual identity and prove its redeeming influence in human experience. One never has to do without good in life. Even those who have committed crimes can discover, and learn to live in accord with, a newfound spiritual identity, unmarked and unmarred by human history. And those who are faced with the prospects of disease, failure, or other human difficulties can find themselves reborn into a spiritual reality that removes the bad by revealing a better identity as the image and likeness of God. 

The discovery of this spiritual identity is far more valuable than anything the world has to offer. Jesus said, “Ye must be born again” (John 3:7). Gaining a new identity, a new birth, is like what the witness protection program is designed to do, so that anyone who might wish to exact retribution on a witness will be unable to find that person. 

The rebirth we encounter in the study of Christian Science, though, elevates us to behold and express our permanently established, divinely bestowed identity. Once we have discovered this, we can never go back to the way things were before. We have been made new. That old identity is no longer recognizable.

So, say goodbye to that old identity, and welcome to your new “neighborhood”—your God-given identity made in His image—complete, cared for, and protected.