Church of Christ,
Scientist
An organization founded by Mary Baker Glover Eddy in an effort to reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing. In 1876 Eddy formed the Christian Scientists Association and three years later chartered the Church of Christ, Scientist. The church was reorganized into its present form in 1892. The First Church of Christ, Scientist of Boston is known as the mother church, and other Christian Science churches are considered branches, although each is independently governed. The tenets and bylaws of the church were incorporated by Eddy into the church manual of 1895. The church's fundamental theological teachings are presented in Eddy's Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.
Theologically, the Church of Christ, Scientist, does not concur with the basic tenets of historic orthodox Christianity. It is purely Heretical, from start to finish! Although it uses the theological vocabulary of traditional Christianity, it assigns metaphysical meanings to the terms. The sources of authority for the church are the Bible and Eddy's writings. Members accept Eddy's writings as divine revelation and interpret the Bible allegorically through her works. The most significant authority for the church is Science and Health, which was published in 1875 and regularly revised until Eddy's death in 1910. Eddy referred to this volume as containing the perfect word of God, and thus was divine and infallible teaching. Christian Science's view of God is monistic. God is divine principle, not a supreme being God is mind, and mind is all. Nothing possesses reality or exists which is not mind. The characteristics and attributes of God become God. The Trinity is constituted by the threefold nature of divine principle (God): life, truth, and love. God, Christ, and Holy Spirit are not persons. The Christology of Christian Science denies a physical incarnation of Christ and insists Mary conceived Christ only as a spiritual idea. Since God is mind and spirit, and nothing exists which is not spirit, there can be no matter or flesh; these are only illusions. Thus Christ did not possess a body and did not die on a cross. The need of an atonement is nullified since sin, evil, sickness, and death are delusions, not reality. God is good, and nothing can exist which is not good. Christian Science teaches man is created in God's image as spirit, mind, and good; thus man is incapable of sin, sickness, and death. Man is placed on a plane of equality with God in his origin, character, and eternity. The metaphysical presuppositions of the church insist that heaven and hell are present states of man's thoughts, not real future dwelling places. (What a surprise is waiting!) They focus upon the uniform lesson-sermons which are read aloud from the Bible and Science and Health by readers elected from the congregation. There is no clergy or priesthood. The sacraments are not special rites. Baptism means the spiritual purification of daily life and the Lord's Supper is silent spiritual communion with God. No visible elements are used. Salvation to the Christian Scientist is the gaining of the understanding that man's life is wholly derived from God the spirit, and is not mortal and material. EDDY, MARY BAKER