When Mary Baker Eddy wrote in the Preface to her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, "The time for thinkers has come,"Science and Health, p. vii. she was talking about far more than the need for a new intelligentsia. The thinkers she was looking for would come from all walks of life and have varied educational backgrounds. But they would all have one thing in common: a deep discontent with the materialism of the age and a willingness to live their lives in a totally new light—in the light of spiritual realities.
For Christian Scientists there must always be more to being a thinker than having mere intellectual curiosity about the admittedly fascinating—and sometimes disturbing—ideas and developments of late twentieth-century science, theology, and medicine. Christian Science is not for intellectual dilettantes or metaphysical theorists. Accepting the allness of Spirit and the consequent unreality of matter means proving this understanding in the laboratory of one's own life. It means confronting mankind's most deep-rooted assumptions about the nature of life and reality. It means healing.
That's why this revolutionary, uniquely spiritual outlook is so practical. It doesn't result in an ethereal detachment from the world and its needs. If anything, it makes Christian Scientists even more interested in the trends of human thought; first, because they care deeply about mankind's spiritual future and, second, because these trends often point to life's deeper issues.
