Article March 2, 2020 Issue

What is Christian Science healing?

Deborah Huebsch

You may have heard it’s a way of fixing something that’s wrong. Or that it’s merely an alternative method of health care. These answers have some truth in them, but they don’t begin to tell the whole story. There is more to Christian Science healing, and when we understand what Christian Science really is, healing follows naturally and inevitably.

In order to answer this question more thoroughly, it’s helpful to define Christian Science. Is it a religious denomination? A group of people who generally don’t use conventional medicine? Again, a yes answer to these questions isn’t wrong, but there is more to it. Here is one definition of Christian Science by its Discoverer, Mary Baker Eddy: “It is not a search after wisdom, it is wisdom: it is God’s right hand grasping the universe,—all time, space, immortality, thought, extension, cause, and effect; constituting and governing all identity, individuality, law, and power” (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 364). That’s a very big statement. But for me, it’s been a helpful way of thinking about Christian Science because it lifts our understanding of this Science beyond a fix-it mode to what it reveals about the divine Principle, God, that governs His own creation.

What Mrs. Eddy discovered and described is spiritual reality—beyond the scope of the physical senses. This was the same reality Jesus perceived two thousand years ago, and preached to his followers when he said, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 3:2). In her textbook on Christian Science, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mrs. Eddy articulated the nature of this reality, including its spiritual laws of health, continuity, and harmony—which, when understood and put into practice, bring healing.

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