Mrs. Eddy founded and designed the Church of Christ, Scientist, "to commemorate the word and works of our Master, which should reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing." Mary Baker Eddy, Manual of The Mother Church, p. 17.
Members of this Church know that their own individual works of healing and regeneration are based squarely on the example and the theology of Christ Jesus. And his works, even more than his words, illustrate divine theology. Jesus' demonstration of divine sonship left the whole world with an enduring example of unselfed love and compassion that has tremendous saving and healing power today.
In fact, the healing and regeneration taking place through Christian Science are signs that the same theology illustrated in the life of Jesus is potent in all ages and valid for all individuals. Christian Science gives the same concept of perfect God and perfect man that Jesus demonstrated. See Matt. 5:48 . When we reason from the basis of the revelation of Christian Science, we are reasoning from a spiritual and Christianly accurate standpoint.
Our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, gives spiritual rules for specific application of this divine Science to the human need. Her writings and her work in establishing Christian Science enable anyone who has spiritual interests both to grasp the truth of God and man and to demonstrate the law of God on a systematic, step-by-step basis.
Christian Science, then, is the very theology of Jesus, rightly interpreted. Just as he based his mission on Truth, or true theology, so Christian Science unfolds this Truth and its healing and saving effects. It is Truth that enables us to prove that God, divine Mind, governs man perfectly.
Our Leader writes: "The theology of Christian Science is Truth; opposed to which is the error of sickness, sin, and death, that Truth destroys." Miscellaneous Writings, p. 62.
Following the example of Christ Jesus, we "know the truth" John 8:32. in order to heal the sick and purify the sinner—to free them from error. The agent or power behind this healing and purifying action is God alone; and He is expressed through divine Science, His supreme law. Spiritual healing and cleansing are results of true theology, which brings individuals into accord with God's law. Then God's man, the Christ ideal, appears, and Truth, "the theology of Christian Science," is demonstrated.
This spiritual healing evidences God's knowing, not a mortal's reasoning about God. While reason plays a role in scientific argument, the use of reason serves only to uplift consciousness to the point of receptivity where Christ, Truth, governs the situation. Christ impels such reasoning but is not synonymous with it, since human mentality ultimately yields to God's—Mind's—oneness and everpresence. God alone is honored in the healing that shows man to be the glorious reflection of God.
All church activity needs to be based on just such spiritual insight and prayer. John wrote, for example, "Truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ." I John 1:3. Church membership is much more than just fellowship with other people. It has to do with our individual companioning with divine Love and with Christ, Truth. Such an approach demands reasoning from a spiritual standpoint—that is, thinking and living from the standpoint of the revelation of the allness of divine Love and its idea, man. This is not an abstract, cold approach to church activities! Church "work" demands demonstrated, proven love expressed toward others in all the particular deeds and demands of church activities, especially human relationships.
The Master's ministry exemplified this practical presence of the kingdom of heaven on earth. This same coincidence of the divine with the human is seen again today, as in the time of Jesus, to be the essence of authentic church activity. It is the product of prayer and God-inspired living, healing and purifying us. These proofs are signs that divine theology unfolds the deepest possible Christian fellowship and love. They reveal the spiritual idea of Church as intact and here, readily discernible to our spiritual senses.
Of course, the practice of Christian Science begins with the correction of our own lives according to the moral and Christian standard. It means proving one's genuine, God-given purity and deepening one's understanding of the universality of divine Love and its manifestation.
Jesus taught his disciples how to heal the sick and purify the sinner, and he said, "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also." John 14:12. We might ask ourselves, Why did Jesus expect his followers to do these works? And on what basis were they to be done?
He taught that his own real identity was at one with the Father—and he knew that this was true for his followers, too. See John 17:8-10 . He emphasized, as well, that God did the works. See John 14:10 . Thus we see that Jesus expected his followers to repeat his works because he had shown them who they really were—not lost mortals but sons of God.
As we learn from Christian Science that we, as well as all others, are in truth the sons and daughters of God, healing and redemption follow. Because each individual is in reality God's child, each is capable of turning to God face to face through scientific prayer.
Surely it is the will of God, expressed through divine law, that gently calls each member of the Church of Christ, Scientist, to be a better healer. Christ Jesus promised that the Comforter, divine Science, would come. Through accepting the Comforter—which is Truth—and living within its embrace, we realize God's omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence. The natural outcome is an ever-increasing capacity to heal.
