Dialogue With The World March 20, 2017 Issue

The fact of healing in Christian Scientists’ experience

from the Office of Committee on Publication

The ninth chapter of John in the Bible recounts that when Jesus healed a man who had been blind from birth, the response of the local leaders was to deny that the healing had occurred. When the fact of the healing couldn’t be denied, the leaders sought to discredit Jesus, describing him as “a sinner” and contending that the healing couldn’t therefore be attributed to him. When the man who had been healed insisted that it was Jesus who had healed him, they “reviled” the man and cast him out of the temple.

The fact of healing in Christian Scientists’ experience over the years has often encountered similar denial and disbelief. This isn’t surprising, and it certainly isn’t personal in nature. Today, as in Jesus’ time, Christian healing challenges the limits of finite mortal thinking. It calls into question the basic belief of life in matter—the mindset within which people typically reason and think. And it does so, not just theoretically, but practically, as Christ Jesus did. It’s evident, as the Science of Christianity brings out, that he saw and thought about life in very different terms than the rest of us ordinarily do.

The blanket denial of Christian healing today has its source in the materialism that colors so much of contemporary thought, especially in the academic community. The two commentaries reprinted below respond to this denial. They don’t dismiss the questions raised by many who are skeptical of Christian Scientists’ healing practice. They acknowledge that serious questions deserve serious and thoughtful answers. They were written in the conviction that patience, understanding, truth—and Christian Scientists’ actual healing works, more than words—will ultimately find response in the hearts of honest thinkers.

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