Explaining Christian Science to Friends
	NOTES AND REFERENCES 1/21/01 EXPLAINING CHRISTIAN SCIENCE Today we discussed explaining Christian Science to your friends. Here are the citations I referred to as support for our answers. Remember not to engage in debates. Answer honest seekers on a one to one basis. Some thoughts re: Explaining Christian Science to your friends! - (nothing official) Keep it simple. Christian Science is not complicated. I have found it helpful to remember the following: • We are Christians. We believe in God, in prayer, the Golden Rule and the Beatitudes. • We believe we are saved through Christ. • We believe in baptism, communion, the immaculate conception and the resurrection although we don't celebrate these concepts through physical rituals. • We are a Bible based religion and use the King James Version of the Bible. • We are not fundamentalists and we don't take the Bible literally. We "take the inspired word of the Bible"... since the Bible was written at different times under different situations and translated from different languages. • We believe man is good and reflects God as Genesis says. • We turn to God in prayer and believe all things are possible to God • We believe God heals "all manner of sickness." Jesus said, "The works that I do shall ye also do". • We do not believe that Mrs. Eddy is equal to Jesus. She was the Founder of our Church and the author of our textbook. • Everything we believe is found in the Bible and generally in the new testament. • We don't believe in the concept of "original sin". • We believe life is infinite. • We believe that God is all and that God is good, therefore good is all. Thus good's opposite, evil, has no power. • We believe that Life, Truth, Love, Mind, Soul, Spirit and Principle are synonyms for God and govern mankind spiritually. • We don't believe that matter or material life correctly states the truth about man. If God is Spirit and spiritual and all, then all is spiritual, not material. The spiritual qualities of life correctly state the truth about man. Physical healing occurs when we see things from this spiritual viewpoint. In summary, find points upon which to agree not disagree. And always answer the question behind the question. For instance when asked to traditional, "What would you do if" question, followed by some horrific event happening to you, remember that the real question is "Why don't you go to a doctor-instead you do nothing!" The answer is that you do the most effective thing available to solve the problem-that is turning to God. But you would never do nothing or let yourself or anyone else die. And you could use first aid but you would call it second aid-you would turn to God first! IMMACULATE CONCEPTION Jesus' spiritual origin and understanding enabled him to demonstrate the facts of being, — to prove irrefutably how spiritual Truth destroys material error, heals sickness, and overcomes death. The divine conception of Jesus pointed to this truth and presented an illustration of creation. The history of Jesus shows him to have been more spiritual than all other earthly personalities. Was there original self-creative sin? Then there must have been more than one creator, more than one God. In common justice, we must admit that God will not punish man for doing what He created man capable of doing, and knew from the outset that man would do. God is "of purer eyes than to behold evil." 35:19 Our baptism is a purification from all error. Our church is built on the divine Principle, Love. We can unite with this church only as we are new-born of Spirit, as we reach the Life which is Truth and the Truth which is Life by bringing forth the fruits of Love, — casting out error and healing the sick.. Our Eucharist is spiritual communion with the one God. Our bread, "which cometh down from heaven," is Truth. Our cup is the cross. Our wine the inspiration of Love, the draught our Master drank and commended to his followers. 32:20-25 The true sense is spiritually lost, if the sacrament is confined to the use of bread and wine. The disciples had eaten, yet Jesus prayed and gave them bread. This would have been foolish in a literal sense; but in its spiritual signification, it was natural and beautiful. 497:13 4. We acknowledge Jesus' atonement as the evidence of divine, efficacious Love, unfolding man's unity with God through Christ Jesus the Way-shower; and we acknowledge that man is saved through Christ, through Truth, Life, and Love as demonstrated by the Galilean Prophet in healing the sick and overcoming sin and death. Trinity 331:26 VII. Life, Truth, and Love constitute the triune Person called God, — that is, the triply divine Principle, Love. They represent a trinity in unity, three in one, — the same in essence, though multiform in office: God the Father-Mother; Christ the spiritual idea of sonship; divine Science or the Holy Comforter. These three express in divine Science the threefold, essential nature of the infinite. They also indicate the divine Principle of scientific being, the intelligent relation of God to man and the universe. What follows is a list of questions that Mrs. Eddy answered about subject relating to attacks on and explanations of Christian Science. These are not meant for you to quote to others but rather to reinforce your own understanding and give you some authority for your answers. CHRISTIAN SCIENCE/SYSTEM/THEOLOGY Is Christian Science from beneath, and not from above? -No 14:16 Is Christian Science pantheistic? -No 15:19 Is Christian Science blasphemous? -No 18:1 Is Christian Science of the same lineage as spiritualism or theosophy? -No 13:15 What are the demands of the Science of Soul? -S&H 467:1 What is the scientific statement of being? -S&H 468:8 Does Christian Science, or metaphysical healing, include medication, material hygiene, mesmerism, hypnotism, theosophy, or spiritualism? -S&H 484:6 Is Christian Science contradictory? -S&H 546:9 If Christian Science is the same as Jesus taught, why is it not more simple, so that all can readily understand it? -Mis 53:21 Is Christian Science based on the facts of both Spirit and matter? -Mis 55:16 Has Christ come again on earth? -Mis 180:8 What are the advantages of your system of healing, over the ordinary methods of healing disease? -Mis 33:21 Why do Christian Scientists hold that their theology is essential to heal the sick, when the mind-cure claims to heal without it? -Mis 62:14 Is spiritualism or mesmerism included in Christian Science? -Mis 34:10 How would you define Christian Science? -Rud 1:1 What is the Principle of Christian Science? -Rud 1:5 Is healing the sick the whole of Science? -Rud 2:22 What are the means and methods of trustworthy Christian Scientists? -Rud 13:23 Is Science material? -’01 22:4 Does the theology of Christian Science aid its healing? -Mis 58:19 CHRISTIANITY AND CHRISTIAN SCIENCE The Rev.----said in a sermon: A true Christian would protest against metaphysical healing being called Christian Science. He also maintained that pain and disease are not illusions but realities; and that it is Christian to believe they are illusions. Is this so? -Mis 68:7 Do we not see in the commonly accepted teachings of the day, the Christ-idea mingled with the teachings of John the Baptist? -Mis 81:10 If not ordained, shall the pastor of the Church of Christ, Scientist, administer the communion,--and shall members of a church not organized receive communion? -Mis 90:21 Do I believe in the atonement of Christ? -Mis 96:17 Is there no sacrificial atonement? -No 33:12 Should Christians beware of Christian Science? -No 41:1 The ancient Christians were healers. Why has this element of Christianity been lost? -S&H 146:2 If Christian Science is the same as Jesus taught, why is it not more simple, so that all can readily understand it? -Mis 53:21
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