Heal the sick. Raise the dead. Cleanse the lepers. Cast out demons,” reads the proud emblem of the Church of Christian Scientists. No wonder a man at the first service I went to told me that being a Christian Scientist is “very difficult”.
Most people who have heard of Christian Science know one thing about it: Christian Scientists do not “believe” in doctors. More accurately, Christian Scientists do not believe in medical science, or what they call “materia medica.” They generally do not accept medical care for themselves, and many do not permit it for their children. They believe they can heal through prayer.
What I discovered in visiting a Christian Science church and talking to the congregation was a community of people living according to a different set of physical laws to those of the general population. In Christian Science, the material world is an illusion, a dream, from which we must awaken. The only real thing is God and God’s ideas (including man). This is the opposite of scientific materialism (the belief that physical matter represents the world’s underlying reality). Christian Scientists might interpret the word differently, but they call it science because they think it is certain, consistent, and replicable.
I was nervous walking into the church. I sat on my own, across from a lady wearing an amazing hot pink outfit who smiled at me. Each week, every Christian Science church in the world reads the same Bible Lesson from a quarterly pamphlet. There are no church leaders, so members of the congregation take turns leading the services. The lessons are read out by two people, usually a man and a woman. I enjoyed the silent prayer; something that one man said attracted him to Christian Science over other churches. He didn’t like the way many churches tell the congregation to pray over a certain world event or certain people.
I had assumed that health in the Christian Science sense was only part of their faith, and was surprised to find that a large amount of their lessons are devoted to healing and the superiority of Christian Science treatment over medicine. This particular service included a Bible story about Jesus spitting on the ground and making a poultice to treat a blind man’s eyes. Selene Mize, one of the readers at the service, spoke to me on her interpretation of the Christian Science faith, and not as a representative of the Church. She said the poultice wasn’t necessary to heal the person, and that Christian Science treatment is “entirely mental.” She says if you read the Gospel that “Jesus was all about healing. Other churches may tend to de-emphasise it, but we give it the same prominence that the Gospel does.”
After the service the smiling lady who I will call Sarah introduced herself to me. She told me how being a Christian Scientist is an ongoing process, and she is still working on not needing her glasses. A group of friends asked me to join them for coffee where they discussed their faith with me.
Christian Science is based on the premise that God is entirely good, and He created all reality, and therefore everything that really exists is entirely good. Logically, therefore, there is nothing bad. Since the material world appears full of destructive, painful, difficult phenomena, the material world is not real. Only God is real. We are made in the image of God, and therefore our natural state is in the non-material spiritual realm of God. The material world manifests around us as a result of our thoughts, or “mortal mind”. This means that if we feel sickness, distress, or pain, we do not need healing because there is nothing there to heal – we are perfect images of God, and so if we become close enough to God we can realise that present perfection and the discomfort will vanish.
Christian Scientists do not believe in Heaven or Hell as places, but see Heaven and Hell as different states of mind we can inhabit. They believe that we do not die, but only “appear to die,” and that we can reach a higher plane of existence by ascending, as Jesus was said to do. Selene told me “death is like sin and sickness – not real, though seeming to be real, and it needs to be healed in the same way, by affirming God’s goodness and dominion, and denying the possibility of death.”
Selene was not born into Christian Science. When she first heard about it at intermediate school she thought it was almost the “dumbest thing” she’d ever heard. She used to tease her friend about it, saying “so you think that if I shot you, you wouldn’t die?! Unbelievable!” She used conventional medicine for more than half her life, her mother was a nurse, and she is knowledgeable about medicine. She had a diagnosis of connective tissue disease from the Mayo Clinic. Selene says Christian Science can be “very hard to practise,” and there is no way she would ever do it if it weren’t for two things: 1) on a memorable occasion, she “got a very strong impression that it was TRUE,” and 2) it has worked for her. “I have been healed of things or had enormous improvement using Christian Science, when doctors had said that there was nothing more they could do.” She also says Christian Science has made her a nicer and happier person. She likes the God of Christian Science, who she says is about “universal salvation and unqualified love for everyone.” She also likes how the congregation run their own services: the church has no clergy. She says the church encourages people to be actively working on improving themselves and giving back, and learning to be better people.
Some members become “practitioners”: healers who are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week by phone who give Christian Science treatment (prayer) to bring healing to members of their congregation who have something appearing to go wrong with their mind, body, or anything in their life. The practitioners aren’t allowed to work at other jobs, so they charge money for their healing sessions.
I spoke to Anne Melville, the media representative for Christian Science in New Zealand. Anne is a practitioner (a healer) and a “certified teacher of Christian Science.” She explained death in the Christian Science thought. “Death we would explain more as passing on. You might not be seen here but you still exist.” She said Christian Scientists know and accept that we “continue on” after we die, but not in the sense of a ghost or spirit that can be contacted by the living. Instead, you “continue to work out life’s problems” although you might not be here. After death you can come to understand more of your relationship with God and your spirituality.
I asked Anne why Christian Scientists do not like to take medicine to help their body, when they still eat, drink, and keep their bodies warm and sheltered. She answered that people can only “take one step at a time,” and that Mary Baker Eddy, the “discoverer and founder of Christian Science,” had said it would be unwise to give up food and drink. In a perfect state, a person would be able to survive without any earthly means.
The religion stems from Boston, Massachusetts, where the first Christian Scientist church was built. Mary Baker Eddy, the developed a theory of “divine Mind” as a healing force. In 1866, Eddy injured her internal organs when she fell on the ice in Massachusetts. After three days of suffering she reports to have consulted her Bible. On reading Mathew 9:2, where Jesus heals a man who is “sick of the palsy,” she realised the healing truth of the words. She claims to have got up, dressed herself, and felt in better health that she had been in before her fall. She devoted the rest of her life to teaching others the secrets of “Health”. She interpreted the King James Bible and wrote the central text of the Christian Science religion – Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, first published in 1872.
Numbers of Christian Scientists grew rapidly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Mary Baker Eddy’ wrote that her followers could have broken bones set, have dental work done, wear reading glasses, and visit obstetricians. Everything else should be treated with Christian Science prayer alone. These were actually pretty good choices on what doctors could be trusted to heal at the time. Modern medicine was still in its infancy. Before 1920, medical knowledge was bad enough that if you were sick or injured, you were better off doing nothing than going to a doctor in many cases. Despite huge advancements in germ theory, sterilisation, and pain control, medical practitioners were still often doing more harm than good to their patients. However, after the discovery of penicillin, improved hygiene in hospitals, advances in surgery, blood transfusion, physiotherapy, and myriad other things, numbers of Christian scientists began to decline.
At Wednesday night services, the congregation share stories from their recent and distant past that demonstrate what they believe to be the power of Christian Science to heal as Jesus was said to heal. I had a headache and a twitchy eye, so I decided to go along and allow the Christ to heal me.
I found the session distressing. One woman had a terrible, persistent cough. Another had visible tremors. A man from the congregation who I had spoken to over coffee told a story about an episode he had had recently which sounded to me like he had suffered a minor stroke. He said he felt like a deflating balloon, sinking lower and lower until he had to lie on the floor. His arms went limp. He and his friend went through hymns that seemed appropriate to them for about at hour, by the end of which he was able to sit up and go to bed. In the morning he felt recovered. After a long pause, Sarah, my friend, told a story of healing from the day of the session. She had something at her house break down which a neighbour was able to fix easily. Later, she was outside and fell down. She said out loud:
“NO, there’s no sensation in matter, NO, I’m not going to accept anything like that.” She said she is grateful for the practicality of Christian Science that it doesn’t make that statement seem absurd because she has come to understand that there is no matter. Silence and waiting, then a man told a story from 20 years earlier when he had to fix a broken boiler that was almost too hot to enter. He had covered himself in protective clothing and completed the job without harm save a touch of browning on the back of his neck, which did not hurt or rub on his clothes. These are all considered healings by God in Christian Science. I looked around at the tiny, aging congregation and felt sad. Selene sees it differently, pointing out that “The fact that there are lots of old people in the congregation, who have been Christian Scientists for all their lives or at least many decades, maybe indicates that it isn’t a ticket to an early death after all.”
When I left the service my eye was still twitching and my head still hurt. I decided I needed to lay off the coffee and get some sleep more than I needed prayer.
Good health is difficult to define in itself, being more an absence of unwanted things. Christian Scientists print collections of “testimonies” – reports of members who have experienced healings – you can read them at open library sessions on Wednesdays and Fridays. The testimonies are stories of disappearances – disappearing headaches, pain, bumps, addiction, anger, coughs, rashes, and even scar tissue. Sickness can appear like the arrival of something on or into the body that needs to be abolished. In this sense it could seem as though healing involves the dissolution of matter.
But there is another conspicuous absence in the books of testimonies. There are no stories where healing does not happen, when the prayers fail to alleviate sickness, when people live with chronic pain, discomfort, congenital disease, disability, depression, or illness. Turning to the chapter on pregnancy and childbirth I expected to find advice on coping with labour without pain relief. Instead I found stories of painless, blissful childbirth, and of babies cured overnight of incurable disease. There are no stories of people who suffer and then die. Selene finds this criticism unfair, saying they are “clearly, deliberately selected as success stories. At the Oscars, do they talk about the dreadful films?
No, because they are a celebration of success. So are the testimonies.”
In strict Christian Science churches, adherence to the faith and their way of healing can harm children. There are many stories of American children who have died from preventable causes because their parents have failed to get them medical attention, sometimes as a result of pressure from their church. The American foundation “Children’s Healthcare Is a Legal Duty” (CHILD) was set up by Rita and Doug Swan: ex Christian Scientists who left the church after their baby son, Michael, died from complications resulting from spinal meningitis. Though the couple did manage to get their son to hospital, treatment was delayed for two weeks while practitioners attempted to cure Michael with prayer alone. According to the Swans, the practitioners demanded more faith and gratitude from them. They complained that the Swans’ fears and other sins were obstructing their treatment.
Selene contends that there are also many instances of children being healed through the use of Christian Science. There are also children who died even though they were receiving medical attention. Many have died because of medical malpractice, adverse reactions to drugs, or complications in surgery. These, too, are tragedies, and, as Selene points out, we don’t blame the parents in those cases. “Medicine says those deaths under Christian Science were preventable. Christian Science says that deaths under medical care due to a belief that the child’s cancer or whatever is incurable were preventable. They have opposing world views.”
The Swans now work to protect children from harmful religious and cultural practices, especially religion-based neglect. Their website and others like it have many stories of terrible suffering children have endured in the name of the religion. Two-year-old Robyn Twitchell died of peritonitis and a twisted bowel after a five-day illness in 1986. He received Christian Science prayer instead of medical treatment. Andrew Wantland, 12, died in 1992 of untreated diabetes. He could have been saved hours from his death by a shot of insulin. There are many more of these stories. A few Christian Scientist parents have been convicted of involuntary manslaughter for failing to get medical help that could have saved their children’s lives.
Most of the tragic stories are from the ‘80s and ‘90s. Anne didn’t want to comment on these children’s deaths, other than to say she doesn’t know of any of them personally. She told me: “we love our children, we don’t take risks with our children.” Anne got her children vaccinated and took her son to the doctor when he was sick as a baby. He had pain in his stomach and wasn’t eating or drinking, and her husband (who is not a Christian Scientist) asked her to get him looked at. She was clear with the doctor that “there could be nothing wrong” found with her baby. The doctor examined him and said he had an “unexplained fever.” Anne said at that moment her son ran out of the room and asked for a drink of water, and appeared cured. She believes that taking her son to the doctor abolished her fear, which could be what was making her son appear to be sick.
I asked my friend Sarah how Christian Scientists feel about aging, when most people expect to experience more sickness and pain. She replied: “that is the belief isn’t it.” Christian Scientists believe that as they progress through their spiritual journey they become better equipped with dealing with physical and emotional suffering. Some keep records of past “healings” so they can reflect on them and remember if they are in periods of intense suffering when they may struggle to believe that relief will come. Anne and several other Christian Scientists said virtually the same thing: that although Christian Scientists can’t expect to go through life without experiencing hardship and physical problems, they are more equipped to deal with them when they do happen. This synchronised thinking may be the result of the identical lessons each church reads around the world every week. I can’t say if this is true or not, but the idea of needing to watch your thoughts when feeling suffering and hardship makes me uneasy, and the prospect of illness without pain killers, drugs or surgery terrifies me.
Everybody I talked to insisted that seeking medical care is a personal choice in Christian Science. There is no rule against taking medicine or visiting a doctor. However, doing so will make the prayers of the congregation less effective, and a person can’t receive treatment from their practitioner if they are getting medical treatment.
Sarah said that she couldn’t imagine her life without the knowledge of Christian Science. One time she was badly beaten and realised she was looking down on her body from above. She thought “but my eyes are down there on the ground, I can’t be looking at myself.” She felt no pain after the beating. Sarah did say that there could be limits to her reliance on Scientific Prayer: “If I went outside and got hit by a car, and my body was squashed, I don’t know if I would rely entirely on Christian Science. I may, but I may not.”
The Christian Scientists were very welcoming and said they are inclusive of all faiths and all people, “even if they don’t all accept us”. They acknowledged that many people think they are weird. I didn’t find them weird: their beliefs are weird, but they were kind, intelligent, caring people who told me their honest thoughts on my questions. They said they love to have visitors as they learn from other people and do not try to push their faith on others, even though they are delighted when somebody joins them. One said over coffee he was “absolutely terrible” at languages at school, another said, “only God is absolute, so you must have only been reasonably terrible.” We all laughed.