"Christian Science is Scientology" - and other Fallacies
Applying the common sense of Christian Science to the journey of the modern seeker
“We are not human beings on a spiritual journey; we are spiritual beings on a human journey.” (Stephen Covey)
This gets at the very basis of Christian Science.
We are not born broken humans to broken parents tasked to find and earn our spiritual identity. We don’t need to seek it out because we already have it — it was given to us at birth. We were born fixed. The idea that we have to pass through a mortal stage in order to get to a spiritual stage has been a firmly held Christian fallacy since the days of Adam and Eve.
“That man must be vicious before he can be virtuous, dying before he can be deathless, material before he can be spiritual, is an error of the senses; for the very opposite of this error is the genuine Science of Being,” writes Mrs. Eddy.
If we base our self-worth on the Adam and Eve/original sin allegory, on the false claim that we were born of dust and therefore doomed to err, we are trapped and can never be free.
All human discord in the world can be traced back to the erroneous collective thought that we were born of dust and are a mix of both good and evil.
Before Moses, before the Garden of Eden, way back in Genesis 1 when the true creation happened, God made humans in His “image and likeness.” That means that our very DNA is of God — immaterial and immortal. This enables us to face our chaotic lives with the comfort and protection of seeing ourselves as God sees us.
We can experience heaven on earth.
In declaring “The kingdom of heaven is at hand” and “The kingdom of God is within you,” Jesus was teaching us that we don’t have to wait until we “die” to be in God’s dwelling; perfect God and perfect man are right here, right now.
Christian Science, which really is just the Science of life, or the Science of reality, presents the practical method of utilizing these biblical truths to heal the sick, reform the sinner, cast out devils (evils), and destroy the belief in death.
Myths Debunked
Today I’m addressing a few myths and misinterpretations that have persisted from generation to generation.
CLAIM: Christian Science is Scientology
FALSE
Christian Science was discovered by Mary Baker Eddy in 1866, and is a religion that is solely based on the Bible. Scientology was founded by L. Ron Hubbard in 1950, and is a doctrine that is not based on the Bible.
If there seems to be any surface similarities between Scientology and Christian Science it would be coincidental. Many cite Tom Cruise’s appearance years ago on the Today Show talking about the dangers of prescription drugs, and, since Scientists are also known not to use drugs, blindly draw the comparison. If two people from different faiths don’t believe in taking drugs that doesn’t mean they do it for same reasons.
All you really need to know is that Christian Science has no other method of healing or progressing spiritually than going directly to God, while Scientologists have their own human-based approaches.
The last thing is maybe the most obvious — the two are often conflated simply due to the “Scien” in each name. In a way it’s understandable. But now you know.
CLAIM: Christian Science is a cult
FALSE
There are three common traits of a cult: First, followers typically worship a person or object(s) as opposed to the one God; Second, followers can feel forced or manipulated into joining or staying; Third, a “cult” is not simply a new organization of an old faith, it represents an actual new faith, often centered around non-biblical, human or material-based theories.
Christian Science is not any of these.
First, Mrs. Eddy condemned guru worshipping and personal deification firmly and often; the Science was not her personal innovation, it was God’s.
Second, you will never hear of a Scientist or aspiring Scientist feeling manipulated or forced in or out of the religion.
Third, Christian Science is not a “new faith.” It is a restoration of the lost art of divine healing, based on Jesus’ ministry. Some Christians have misinformed notions that Scientists proclaim themselves a part of some “new” belief system that isn’t Christian. As a deeply devoted lifelong Christian, Mrs. Eddy taught people how to think, pray and heal like Jesus did, how God was the answer for every conceivable human problem. Not one word of her teachings ever came from anything other than Scripture.
CLAIM: Christian Scientists aren’t allowed to visit a doctor
FALSE
First of all, Christian Science is predicated on the principle that divine Mind (God) meets every human need and solves every human problem.
But Mrs. Eddy made it patently clear that if a person feels they can’t handle an issue metaphysically, if the “pain is too great,” they can visit a doctor and afterwards resume their spiritual treatment. In lieu of medical doctors, Christian Scientists seek help from Christian Science practitioners, who provide spiritual treatment through prayer.
It is never the practice of a true Christian Scientist to denounce or criticize the medical profession. Though Mrs. Eddy made it clear she thought there was a “better way,” she had tremendous respect for doctors, especially if they brought the following to their work:
“Physicians whom the sick employ in their helplessness, should be models of virtue. They should be wise spiritual guides to health and hope.”
CLAIM: Christian Scientists think evil doesn’t exist
MISLEADING
There’s the notion that when Christian Scientists say “evil isn’t real” it means they ignore it. They don’t ignore it — they just don’t accept it. This isn’t a “see no evil, hear no evil” situation, where a blind eye is turned.
Scientists expose evil… in order to prove its nothingness.
Most people when confronted with evil, fight it or flee from it, making what had no power have immense power.
What we resist, persists. The more we resist, in other words the more we give evil its power, the more powerful it becomes.
Christian Science doesn’t deny there’s evil in the world, it overcomes this evil with good, by understanding God. Since evil didn’t proceed from God, it’s not a reality in His universe and can have no power over His creation.
To human sense — to our fleshly sense — evil seems to be a reality, and we are tempted to confront it and destroy it with human will; but to spiritual sense — God’s sense — evil is a morning mist that disappears with sunlight.
Mrs. Eddy calls evil (or error), “nothing claiming to be something.”
She also says: “Evil never did exists as an entity. It is but a belief that there is an opposite intelligence to God. This belief is a species of idolatry. The Scriptures declare: ‘to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are.’”
Jesus healed all manner of sin, sickness and death precisely because of his demonstration of the nothingness of evil. He said of the devil (evil): “ye are a liar, and the father of it.”
The nothingness of evil can be illustrated another way: We know that darkness is only the absence of light. When a light is turned on, darkness disappears instantly. Light has no idea what darkness even is, because when light shows up there is always only light (Just as when Love shows up, there is only Love, rendering “hate” null and void).
To consciousness filled with only good there is literally no room left for evil, proving that it has no other power than the power of suggestion (aka a false thought about some spiritual reality). The Laws of God, good, are the only laws in existence. There are no opposing laws. There has never been and never will be an actual law supporting evil.
God does not generate, allow, monitor or comprehend evil. The belief that God knows evil comes from centuries of scholars and church fathers giving credibility to the Adam and Eve allegory which gave God human attributes. God is Spirit and therefore not a mix of good and bad. He is 100% good.
Here are three biblical passages supporting God not knowing evil:
“God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.” (I John)
God is “of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on iniquity.” (Habakkuk)
“For I know the thoughts that I think towards you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil.” (Jeremiah)
“Evil needs only to be known for what it is not; then we are its master, not servant.” (Mrs. Eddy)
To all the people out there in the world who are innate self-healers, who naturally gravitate towards spiritual remedies, who would rather focus on good than evil, and who treat fear as F.alse E.vidence A.ppearing R.eal — you are essentially practicing Christian Science and you don’t even realize it.
“We should become more familiar with good than with evil, and guard against false beliefs as watchfully as we bar our doors against the approach of thieves and murderers. We should love our enemies and help them on the basis of the Golden Rule, but avoid casting pearls before those who trample them under foot, thereby robbing both themselves and others.” Mary Baker Eddy