The Impersonal Christian Scientist

As I was writing and editing my recent post Love, I began to see issues I touched on there that I wanted to expand on, but it just didn’t seem to work within that post. The biggest one for me is something that has become very apparent to me as I’ve left Christian Science: the coldness and impersonal nature of many Christian Scientists–especially parents.

Truth

This is #11 in a series of posts looking at the 26 Christian Science Weekly Bible Lesson subjects, chosen by Mary Baker Eddy, and rotated twice per year. These lessons are the sermon at each Christian Science church worldwide, and are read by Christian Scientists daily. Today’s subject is “Truth”. Look for other posts in the category “Lesson Sermon Subjects“. 

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Today’s post, girls and boys, is brought to you by the synonym Truth. With my views on Christian Science now, as an ex-Christian Scientist, Truth is a bit of a loaded subject. Truth (capitalized) is one of the seven “synonyms” for God, as given by Mary Baker Eddy in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (pp. 465 & 587). Six of these seven synonyms are also Lesson subjects. The only one that didn’t make the cut was Principle. I’m not sure why. If anyone wants to research and report back, please feel free to do so.

So, what is Truth to the Christian Scientist?

Love

This is #10 in a series of posts looking at the 26 Christian Science Weekly Bible Lesson subjects, chosen by Mary Baker Eddy, and rotated twice per year. These lessons are the sermon at each Christian Science church worldwide, and are read by Christian Scientists daily. Today’s subject is “Love”. Look for other posts in the category “Lesson Sermon Subjects“. 

Love…another big subject, sort of like “God”, but not quite so big. Everyone wants and needs it, and there are many different ideas of what “love” exactly is. In reference to the Lesson Sermon subject of the same name, “Love” is a synonym for God (hence my capitalization of the word in keeping with what I call “Christian Science Grammar”). I’ll try to keep this focused on Love, and maybe touch a bit on the Christian Science take on love.

Giving Thanks

In the United States, it’s the Thanksgiving Day holiday, and all the good little American Christian Scientists will be dutifully heading to church for the annual Thanksgiving Day church service. Here in Canada, where I live and work, it’s just another day at the office. Our Thanksgiving Day was just over a month ago, and the one or two hundred or so Christian Scientists out of our population of over 30 million have already effusively thanked Mary Baker Eddy for her accursed “discovery” of Christian Science. However, a post from my friend over at Kindism has inspired me to throw down a few words of gratitude as I reflect on another year free of the massive mind-fuck that is Christian Science.

Something I’ve Read

My thank-yous to my fellow blogger at Kindism for finding this very interesting perspective on Christian Science and Christian Science church services.

Nouveau Christian Science

There are a couple of Christian Science groups that have arisen in the St. Louis, Missouri and Chicago, Illinois areas. They are a form of what I call “Nouveau Christian Science”. As I see it, it’s an effort to make Christian Science more relevant to a modern and wider audience that doesn’t generally embrace the highly sleep-inducing traditional Christian Science church service, or the highly esoteric nature of Christian Science theology. 

Evolve or Go Extinct

The theory of evolution states that all living things change (evolve) over time due to natural selection. Strong, adaptable, or otherwise positively attributed individuals survive to pass on their genetic strengths to succeeding generations, thus strengthening their species and increasing its chances for survival. Species that are unable to adapt to change eventually die out.

Divinely Authorized Hubris

“Friends:

The Bible and the Christian Science textbook are our only preachers. We shall now read Scriptural texts, and their correlative passages from our denominational textbook; these comprise our sermon.

The canonical writings, together with the word of our textbook, corroborating and explaining the Bible texts in their spiritual import and application to all ages, past, present, and future, constitute a sermon undivorced from truth, uncontaminated and unfettered by human hypotheses, and divinely authorized.”
~Mary Baker Eddy (Explanatory Note to the Christian Science Bible Lesson)

This statement is read at each and every Christian Science church service from Boston to Botswana. It heralds the coming of one of the grandest snooze fests I’ve ever experienced…the Christian Science Lesson Sermon–usually read pedantically in an excruciatingly sleep-inducing monotone. Recall Ferris Bueller’s teacher? Yeah, you get the idea. I swear I could sleep for 24 hours straight right before a Christian Science church service, wake up, pound 3 Red Bulls and 5 cups of coffee, and still be rendered into a state of nearly catatonic stupor by its sheer blandness and lack of anything remotely resembling excitement. But, I digress–church services will be another topic when inspiration comes to me. I’m here today to talk about divinely authorized hubris. Looking at this statement and breaking it down, especially now that I’ve emerged from the deep dark forest of Christian Science denial, I see a statement that is filled with hubris and high-mindedness.