MODERATOR: If you've listened to our series, "How Christian Science Heals," you've heard many people tell you how they were cured of a wide range of difficulties, including diseases called incurable. All these healings were accomplished through prayer alone.

Now those unfamiliar with Christian Science may naturally wonder: "How can such things happen? Why do they happen?" They ask all kinds of questions about how prayer heals the sick. In fact, we have actual questions—hundreds of them—that people of many different religious views have asked us. Today we're going to devote our program to answering a few of them. Our panelists are Mrs. Grace Channell Wasson, of St. Louis, Missouri; David Sleeper, of Dallas, Texas; and Roy Linnig, of Chicago, Illinois.

This first question certainly brings us right to the point; Why is there so much emphasis on physical healing in Christian Science?

MR. LINNIG: I would say because Christ Jesus placed so much emphasis on it. He established the precedent for healing as a vital function of Christianity, an aspect of its redeeming work. His own ministry was literally filled with compassionate works of healing. By both works and words he showed the purpose of Christianity to heal and its power to do so.

MR. SLEEPER: The Master's career brought to human consciousness an unprecedented influx of divine power, a revelation of divine power available to mankind. This power was not limited to Jesus personally. It was shared by others when they clearly understood what he taught; that included his disciples and the early Christians for about three hundred years after the resurrection.

MODERATOR: And so you feel this same healing work is possible today then?

MR. SLEEPER: It's possible whenever and wherever the meaning of his teachings is understood.

MRS. WASSON: Jesus himself indicated this when he said. "These signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils;... they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover."

MR. SLEEPER: It might be helpful to point out that the spiritual rules and laws by which Christ Jesus healed were discovered in modern times by Mary Baker Eddy, and this is a great contribution to Christian thought.

MODERATOR: That brings us to the next question: Would you say that healing the sick is the chief purpose of Christian Science?

MRS. WASSON: No its purpose is to reveal the nature of God in His fullness as ever-present Truth and Love, as limitless Spirit and Mind; also to reveal what man really is as God's image and likeness. This, in turn, brings much more than physical healing. It opens the way to full salvation, liberation from all evil, and the overcoming of all sin—whatever is unlike God.

MR. SLEEPER: There's an interesting statement on this question in one of the books written by Mrs. Eddy. It's here in "Rudimental Divine Science" (p. 2): "Healing physical sickness is the smallest part of Christian Science. It is only the bugle-call to thought and action, in the higher range of infinite goodness. The emphatic purpose of Christian Science is the healing of sin."

MODERATOR: Then physical healing is by no means the whole of Christian Science but, by all means, an essential part of it.

MR. LINNIG: It's a necessary part of working out our salvation. The healing of sickness and sin is what takes Christianity out of the realm of theory. We feel such proofs of divine power are the best evidence we can have that Jesus' teachings have practical meaning for people today, that they can solve humanity's problems.

MODERATOR: Here is another question people sometimes ask: Aren't you just trying to "use" God for human purposes when you seek healing or the overcoming of other kinds of mortal problems through prayer?

MRS. WASSON: No healing isn't a question of "using" God for purposes outlined by human will. On the contrary, healing comes by surrendering human will, with all its pride, selfishness, egotism, resistance to God, and so forth, surrendering it to God's will. In other words, healing comes when a discordant human sense of things is lost in a better understanding of the divine.

MR. LINNIG: It might be well to explain that in Christian Science we understand God as infinite, perfect Love, good and good only. On this basis we understand that His will for His children is good and good alone. It does not include evil of any kind, but freedom from all evil and all mortality. So the purpose of prayer in Christian Science is not to change the divine order of things but to bring us into harmony with it.

MODERATOR: Here is the next question: Is healing as practiced in Christian Science essentially religious in nature, or is it just a material benefit added to religion?

MR. LINNIG: Well, it's essentially religious. We heal by prayer, and this prayer is a way of worship of God. In fact, healing is inseparable from our worship because it is inseparable from Christianity itself.

MRS. WASSON: All Christian Science healing is based on actually practicing the First Commandment, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." In our prayers we acknowledge no power, no law, no reality, no substance, no condition except what expresses the one omnipotent God, good.

MODERATOR: I think we're ready now for a question that goes a little deeper into the method: How can prayer, which is mental, change a physical condition?

MR. SLEEPER: Briefly, Mrs. Eddy writes in the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 411), "The procuring cause and foundation of all sickness is fear, ignorance, or sin." Elsewhere she speaks of fear as the fountain of sickness, and she makes it plain that all forms of evil thinking—hatred, self-will, bitterness, grief, envy, and so on—tend to ultimate in disease. So what happens in Christian Science treatment is that such ungodlike states of thought are uncovered and destroyed by the understanding of God as divine Truth and Love and of man as His image and likeness. In this way the root cause of disease and suffering is removed.

MRS. WASSON: In Christian Science, healing involves regeneration of thought and character; it's basically a redeeming process. To use the words of Paul, it's putting off "the old man" with his deeds and putting on "the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." It's being born again, as Jesus said. In other words, it's the fading out of a mortal concept of man and the progressive appearing of man in God's likeness, spiritual and perfect.

MR. LINNIG: So often those who have been healed through Christian Science speak with the greatest gratitude and joy not of the physical healing itself but of the enlarged awareness they have gained of God and of man's relationship to Him.

MODERATOR: This next question gets back to what you were saying about the nature of disease: Aren't there some diseases, or some cases, that thought cannot heal?

MR.SLEEPER: It would be more in keeping with the sense of Christian Science if the questioner had asked, "Aren't there some diseases God can't heal?" The answer would have to be, "No." of course. Jesus drew no distinctions between one disease and another. He healed them all.

MRS. WASSON: Here's a passage from Science and Health that touches on this question, and what it says applies to all disease (p. 411): "Disease is always induced by a false sense mentally entertained, not destroyed. Disease is an image of thought externalized. The mental state is called a material state." So, as we understand it, there is no disease beyond the transforming power of prayer to heal.

MODERATOR: This next question takes us into a somewhat different area: What about all the people who don't need healing? What does Christian Science mean to people like that?

MR. SLEEPER: A person may be physically healthy yet snared in trivialities or boredom or, perhaps, in silly self-satisfaction. Is there anyone who doesn't need a stronger sense of direction?

MR. LINNIG: I would say there's nothing more important than finding our true, direct relationship to God, and Christian Science brings the understanding of this. It brings an awareness of God as divine Love, the source of all that is good and real, and it shows us how to utilize this understanding in daily living.

MRS. WASSON: Also, it awakens the individual to a totally new view of himself as the son of God. It arouses him from the sense of being a faulty material personality—sinning without wanting to, suffering when innocent, chasing after the most worthless pleasures—to recognition of his real, spiritual dignity and freedom. And this opens up wonderful, new possibilities of being, right here and now.