Studying to be a Chaplain for the Armed Forces is a good way for a Christian Scientist to find out how much he holds in common with other Christians and for others to see the essential Christianity of Christian Scientists.
One young man, a Scientist who has just completed a three-year course at Boston University's School of Theology as part of the Chaplain training program of The Mother Church and now looks forward to a commission in the United States Air Force, sees it this way: "All of us had a deep love for Christianity and the meaning of its gospel. We were strongly in tune when it came to the power of the Word of God to redeem men, although we had various views on the nature of Deity. And we all agreed that human experience must be improved."
The Armed Forces require ninety semester hours of graduate study for all Chaplains. This Scientist took the same courses to qualify for the Chaplaincy as do regular ministerial students at the Methodist-related seminary. He studied the Prophets, the New Testament, Christian Education, Theology, Psychology, and Sociology and Social Ethics, to name a few courses. In the summer he served as a Christian Science Minister for the Armed Services at a military installation, holding Christian Science services and giving treatment on request to service personnel.
