Primary Practice: Healing

Healing is an extremely important part of the Christian Science faith. To Christian Scientists, healing is not altering the state of one’s body. It is realizing the truth about man and his place in the universe. This realization is not simply an intellectual one, but it is the true realization of spiritual ideas of Life and Truth that can only be found through God. Christian Scientists attribute all true power, goodness, and intelligence to God and the divine Mind. What the divine Mind knows is pure goodness as it is its own universal perfection. There is nothing else outside of what God knows. Thought that is tied to the all-loving Mind must in turn be good; it can give us strength. In essence, knowing that which is truth for the purpose of spiritual healing is knowing who we innately are. The realization of this truth makes us free in every aspect of the word: spiritually, morally, physically and mentally.

The Christian healing treatment works with the Mind, and not with material objects. Although the effects of the treatment may appear to be in the physical realm, it is carried out completely in the mental realm. The treatment that Christian Scientists seek is the correction of false thought with that which is true. The choice of thoughts then, and in turn choosing which thoughts are actually true is the underlying concept of Christian Science healing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0B9oUPoxrSU

Primary Practice: Sunday School

Sunday school is an extremely important part of the Christian Science faith, as teaching and learning are crucial to the religion. Each Sunday school class is designed to serve and educate the needs of each individual student. The material covered in the classes is based on the Bible, and the goal is to gain new insight into the Bible through the help of Eddy’s Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. Students of every age are taught the Lord’s Prayer and Eddy’s spiritual interpretation of it, the Ten Commandments, and the Sermon on the Mount. In the classes, there is a strong emphasis on the idea that everyone can practice the spiritual healing ideas that are brought up in the sessions.

Sunday School begins with the Superintendent calling all the students together. Next, there is singing and the group begins to focus on a certain theme of the week’s Bible Lesson. Everyone is encouraged to read together, pray in private, and then pray the Lord’s Prayer out loud. Students are then divided into different classes, which each class time spent differently on every Sunday. These classes are a time for healing, learning, study, questioning, and practicing. After the classes finish, everyone gathers together to sing again and to read the “scientific statement of being” that can be found in Science and Health.

Primary Practice: An Overview

The central focus of the Christian Science religion is spiritual healing for its own sake and for its redemption from the human form. Most members of the Church refuse any medical health or assistance. This being said, the religion does follow local laws such as certain vaccinations that may be deemed necessary as required by law. Christian Science does not have any clergy, but does have members who become part of a full-time healing ministry as Christian Science practitioners. Practitioners heal and treat church members through prayer. Elected Readers conduct services, which are held every Sunday. They lead the Sunday services based on readings in Eddy’s Science and Health and the Bible. Lesson-Sermons are also used in individual study and are developed by the Mother Church. Christian Scientists do not take part in the sacraments of the Eucharist or baptism, as they are affirmed in spiritual terms. Christian Scientists claim, “Our baptism is purification from all error…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 the Master drank and commended to his followers” (Science and Health, Mary Baker Eddy, 35).

The Order of a Christian Science Sunday Service:

1. Hymn
2. Reading a Scriptural Selection.
3. Silent Prayer, followed by the audible repetition of the Lord’s Prayer with its spiritual interpretation.
4. Hymn.
5. Announcing necessary notices.
6. Solo.
7. Reading the Explanatory Note on first leaf of Quarterly.
8. Announcing the subject of the Lesson-Sermon, and reading the Golden Text.
9. Reading the Scriptural Selection, entitled “Responsive Reading,” alternately by the First Reader and the congregation.
10. Reading the Lesson-Sermon. (After the Second Reader reads the BIBLE references of the first Section of the Lesson, the First Reader makes the following announcement: “As announced in the explanatory note, I shall now read correlative passages from the Christian Science textbook, SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES, by Mary Baker Eddy.”)
11. Collection.
12. Hymn.
13. Reading the Scientific Statement of Being, and the correlative SCRIPTURE according to I John 3:1-3.
14. Pronouncing Benediction.