, William E. Moody, Editor of The Christian Science Journal, had the privilege of talking with a Protestant minister who has been studying Christian Science for more than five years now. He currently serves an urban Methodist congregation in a large metropolitan area in the southern United States.
Editor, the Journal: I think our readers would be interested in how you first learned of Christian Science.
Methodist minister: Bill, it was on my day off and I walked into the public library. In the "religion and philosophy" section I saw the Christian Science textbook and started reading it. This led me to go down to a Christian Science Reading Room. And when I found out there was such a thing as the daily lessons, that was what really interested me.
Journal: The Bible Lessons for each week from the Christian Science Quarterly?
Minister: Yes. I saw them in the Reading Room window. I hadn't been satisfied with my own daily devotions. Since the 1970s I've probably always gotten up in the morning and done some daily devotions, but I've never been satisfied with my system. Yet this daily system of Bible Lessons in Christian Science worked. It seemed to fit the rhythm of my life better than what I had been doing.
That's really how I got into it—those daily lessons. That was in April of 1987. I have been studying those lessons, with the exception of Sundays, when I have other duties, every day since then. Then I started going sometimes to Wednesday night services at the Christian Science church—still do.
Journal: So your interest primarily developed through reading Science and Health and the Bible Lessons?
Minister: Yes. I've used the lessons to set the tone for my day. It just undergirds my day. I sensed very early that this was more than something I did for a short time in the morning. It affected how I lived throughout the day. I still keep old copies of the Quarterly. I hardly ever throw one away. I'll put some in the trunk of my car, some in my notebooks that I take with me, in briefcases. Sometimes when I'm traveling, I'll find an old one, maybe two years old, in the back of my briefcase, and I'll just read in it.
Journal: The lesson provides a real focus to our Bible study, doesn't it? And it does have direct application to our daily lives.
Minister: One experience was when I had to be in traffic court one morning. I knew about it two months earlier and had been concerned about it. I read the lesson that morning right before I was to go down to court. In the lesson there was something from Zephaniah, that little book in the Old Testament. It said something to the effect that you have nothing else to fear, and "The Lord hath taken away thy judgments, he hath cast out thine enemy: the king of Israel, even the Lord, is in the midst of thee: thou shalt not see evil any more. In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear thou not:..." It just spoke so strongly to me. I got down there and the whole thing was resolved. I was not in any trouble, and they threw it out of court. I didn't have to pay any court costs or fines. I don't know what you make of that, but it left an impression on me.
Journal: Well, it is the inspiration of God's Word speaking to us with direct application to our daily lives. I think sometimes people have had a sense of the Bible as being an ancient book, a book from the past without much immediate or practical application to people's experience today. Contemporary life seems so different from the life of Bible times. And yet, that Word of God speaks right down through the ages.
Minister: I can't always tell you tangibly how it's going to relate to the day, but when I've read the Bible Lesson, I know that regardless of what the news says or how bad things seem to be, the day is going to be all right. I will be able to have the strength to get through the day. That's what it means to me.
Journal: This leads to another question. It seems to me what you've said is that the Christian Science Bible Lessons have opened up a new way of Bible study. But do you feel that what Science and Health itself teaches really cuts across denominational lines? You've come to it as a Methodist minister, and, of course, you're still a Methodist minister.
Minister: Yes, Bill, I think it does. It lifts your thinking. I think the reason that I was kind of at a dead-end street with my devotional life is that I came to a place where just creeds and beliefs, per se, were not speaking to me. Intellectually that had survived, and in seminary it was kind of fun studying the creeds. But I could not always relate that to day-to-day things. What I began to see, through reading the Bible Lessons, was that my thinking was being lifted. Instead of fretting and worrying about how to solve some problem, whatever the problem was, I found more and more that I was just going about my work and doing what was laid out for me that day and having confidence that everything was going to be all right.
Journal: It sounds to me as if you are talking about genuine inspiration and the kind of conviction that comes from knowing that there's a power beyond our own human ability—a divine power that really does direct our lives and that we can trust. What does the Bible say—"Now is the day of salvation"? We can live right now having the trust that God is working with us.
Minister: I have come to see more and more that we create a lot of our own deadlines and a lot of our own pressure and limitations. It seems to me the more I accept the Genesis 1 idea of "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness" and look at that logically and understand it, the more I realize that whatever I need I have and that I'm complete. You're just able to do what you have to do.
Journal: That's very helpful.
Minister: Yes, this understanding transcends so many denominational lines. For instance, in my church I work in a hard part of the city. And I've had people, even ministers, tell me that there's not much hope for that area anymore. Perhaps at one time there was, but not anymore. There's a temptation to believe that, yet what I have started learning in Christian Science is that, although of course I don't know the future, I certainly don't have to accept any limitation. I can love the people who are there and take care of the needs that are there day to day.
Journal: And you can accomplish whatever good there is today. Someone once said, "Do all the good you can, and you'll be amazed at how much good there is to do." You just do what you can, and then you see that there's more to do— and you just keep doing it!
Minister: Absolutely! Really, all of this thinking about tomorrow and what's going to happen—all that is worry stuff. It's all just worry stuff.
Journal: In a way, worry is sin because worry is really a denial of the presence of God. If we have assumed that God isn't present to assist us or direct us or help us in what we need to do, then we may worry. I think if more people realized they could be denying God when they worried, they might see a way to break free from it.
Minister: I think worry is sin, and I think that's part of what the First Commandment means. I know Mrs. Eddy brought this out; that was her favorite commandment—to have no other gods before the one God. And fear would be a god if it's placed before God.
Journal: When we were talking about cutting across denominational lines, I was thinking that all Christians have much to learn from one another. From your particular perspective, what do you think the Christian community might learn from Science and Health? Mrs. Eddy originally wrote the Christian Science textbook with the hope that it would help Christians in all walks of life.
Minister: For one thing, I think it would reduce the stress level of people in any station in life. I am much less stressed since I have come into this understanding. I've had two healings that I'm aware of—two physical healings. And there are a lot of other things I could mention in some other areas. Yet I never sought out Christian Science for physical healing—that was not why I came to study the lessons or the book. I had checked into a hospital fourteen years ago, trying to find an obstruction; it was actually my prostate gland. They couldn't find anything to do about it. For years I lost sleep and was irritable a lot of the time, fatigued and tired. I took medicine every month; very expensive medicine. What I noticed two or three years ago, I'm not even sure just when it happened; the condition eased up and I haven't been to a doctor now in a long time for that. I used to go regularly—at least once a month. I don't buy the capsules anymore. The problem no longer troubles me. Also, I used to go to the chiropractor. I remember exactly when it was—from the summer of 1972 until fairly recently. I went to the chiropractor either once or twice a month, both for my neck and back and also hopefully to help with the prostate condition. About a year or two ago I noticed I no longer had to go to the chiropractor. I just looked back and noticed I wasn't going. I realized, "Hey, I'm not taking medicine anymore. I haven't been to the doctor, and I'm not going to the chiropractor." The condition with my neck and back and that gland have directly been affected by the study of Christian Science, because I made no other outward changes in my life.
Journal: So it was just a natural result of your developing spiritual understanding of divine reality?
Minister: I think it was. I never prayed about it in what might be called traditional terms. I never sat down and said, "God, please heal this gland or heal this neck." Instead, I think it was this gradual taking in of the understanding of God that I was gaining. I've come to understand what Mrs. Eddy means—the difference between believing something and actually understanding the truth. When you merely believe something, it's subjective and depends on your emotions. One day you may believe something and the next day maybe not as strongly. But with understanding, you just release your life to what you see is really solid and substantial and dependable, and I think it's that release that starts moving us in the direction of the healing.
Journal: It's a yielding, isn't it? A yielding of some old, rigid ways of thinking—limited ways of thinking—for a sense of the power and vitality of Truth, or Christ, in our lives. As that yielding comes, I think it's natural that these limitations, which in a way we've imposed on ourselves bodily as well as mentally, will just start to lift.
Minister: I think that's what has happened with me. There's something else, too, which I'm somewhat reluctant to mention because I don't want it to sound like bragging in any sense. And if I thought it was, I wouldn't even say it to you in private, let alone in an interview like this. And I'm very sympathetic with people who have lost jobs and who have had a hard time the last few years, but, in my own experience, financially, I have gotten better, stronger. It has had nothing to do with me personally or any expertise I have. I know virtually nothing about investing, and I have no background in it. But my financial condition has steadily improved. It just has.
Journal: Well, that's evidence of another limitation lifting, another fear removed that really besets humanity today— the fear of lack, or of not having enough to provide for our needs. You're really talking about freedom, aren't you? One of the best-known statements from Science and Health is "Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need."
Minister: Yes. You see, Paul in the New Testament says, "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." In the Old Testament that concept of liberty has to do with going out and coming in. The Hebrews had this very phrase "Going out and coming in." And a person who is able to go out and to come in has liberty. You can actually have the resources, which include financial resources, to be able to go and do what you have to do and come back in. I think that's where I've increasingly been. I mean, outwardly, I don't know that I look any different than I ever have. But I know inwardly when I have to do something or pay a bill or go somewhere, I can do it. It's no strain, and there's no worrying about getting things accomplished.
Journal: I think that would be very helpful to a lot of people. People today often feel so trapped by a sense of limitation—the kind of economic problems society is facing, as you said, people without jobs, unemployment going up—and there doesn't seem to be much personal liberty. Here in the United States people have wonderful liberties established in the Constitution and all of the laws intended to enforce equal rights. Yet people are still struggling in their own lives with a sense of inadequate liberty, inadequate freedom. And again, doesn't that yielding to the Christ just free us in all sorts of ways? What did Jesus say? "If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."
Minister: It's almost an indirect approach to it all. Instead of saying, "I want this problem solved or this thing fixed" or praying in this kind of traditional way, you just yield your life to God. You do that first, and then the other things follow, which is really what Jesus said. He said, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." I think that's the way it really works.
Journal: We've been talking about healing in different ways—healing that is freedom from limitation—and a natural growing into liberty. And, I was wondering, as a Methodist minister today and some years after you've begun the study of Christian Science as well, how do you view the purpose and role of Christian healing in the Christian Church? Is there a larger place for it?
Minister: Yes, I see a larger place for it. Again, I'm just going to talk freely here. When I was in seminary, I was told that two out of ten people in our churches would have mental distress, or mental disease—whatever word you want to use—severe enough to require professional help. I thought that was an incredible figure—20 percent, two out of ten. This was in a counseling course I took in the 1960s. I didn't really believe it, but I have seen some churches—and it may be equally true in other institutions, I just happen to know church life because that's my work—I've seen churches where I would say 40 or 50 percent of the people have significant stress levels with what's called dysfunctionalism serious enough that they really do need professional help. I don't know of any greater service we could provide —because I see families under such pressure—than to provide a way they could live in greater love for each other and in harmony. I see people with so many material things, but they are very restless. I see people almost unable to sit down and be still.
Journal: There's such a need for more peace.
Minister: That's right. And even in families that go to church every Sunday and appear to be Christian and are, you still see so much disjointedness and stress and pressure. And that's not even getting into the resulting physical diseases. Maybe that's just a part of what it means to live in the last part of this century. I don't know.
Journal: And the Christian Church needs to respond to that. I think that's what you're saying, isn't it? That this is a need which is present in every Christian community, and there is a way to respond that doesn't just institutionalize people or merely provide a short-term fix but something that can really reorient their lives. Something that gives them real peace and purpose in their lives.
Minister: Without that today, you just become rudderless. There is so much mail coming at you every day, so many images from television and radio and newspaper, so many demands. People wanting different things of you. You can easily become lost if you don't have that inner place of quiet and peace from which you can work, so you can see what's important. You have to know what the priority is. I don't know if I'm making sense here.
Journal: Absolutely. People need a focus to life. So many things would pull on us today, and we end up not knowing who we are, not knowing where we're going, not knowing what we should do with our lives. Sometimes people just seem to have lost all sense of focus and are missing what God really means in their lives. But there's a spiritual substance to life that is so much deeper and more meaningful than anything on the surface—than those things you talked about, the material things that would so fill our lives and sometimes consume our lives.
Minister: I have had such a need in my own life the last few years, and I couldn't give up that hour I take early in the morning, or really the first hour of my workday. I sit down with the Scriptures and those Bible Lessons in the Quarterly. I just ponder what's there—it's not just reading words. It's never any less than forty minutes to an hour. Regardless of deadlines and the pressure and what I have to do that day, this just has to have priority with me. I find that when I do this, I worry much less about what people are going to think or if I'm going to be able to get something done or if I might forget something that I need to do. I just realize this time with God and the Bible is important. This is what's going to get me through the day.
Journal: I think sometimes people labor under the notion that if they take that kind of time for themselves and their relationship with God, they're taking it away from something else that's important. People feel so pressed for time. But that time with God —really that kind of sacrifice— you never lose anything from it. It's such a blessing.
Minister: You not only don't lose, you always gain.
Journal: Well, we've talked about your own life and what the study of Christian Science has meant to you. Can you tell us anything about what it has meant to your ministry as a Methodist minister? Has it changed the way you approach that at all?
Minister: Bill, I can't interpret what other people may feel about me, if they've noticed any difference about me or if there's no difference discernible. I don't know. You never know what other people think. But I know in my own heart where I am and what I think. It's brought a greater sense of security to me. I say this sincerely, and I hope it's not taken in any arrogant sense. I don't worry about salary anymore. I don't worry about climbing the ladder anymore. I have come to see that I have as much opportunity where I am as I could ever have anywhere. And if God is as much in one place as He is in another, then I'm going to have the resources I need where I am.
Journal: That's an interesting perspective, because I'm not sure that a lot of people even think about that in relation to a ministry. Are you saying that there can be a sense of climbing up the corporate ladder in a church almost as much as in a business at times?
Minister: Well, yes, but I don't see it cynically or in any critical sense. I was not aware of it when I got into the ministry, but I quickly became aware of the fact that this is a dimension to the work, and that's one direction you can go in. And I have no criticism for anybody who chooses that route. I'm just saying that I don't have a personal need anymore to feel as if I'm being deprived of resources because I'm not somewhere else.
Journal: You're satisfied with the good you can accomplish where you are.
Minister: Yes.
Journal: Has your deepening sense of God and spiritual reality affected your preaching or your counseling as a minister? Do you see a difference in the sermons you prepare or how you help your congregation?
Minister: For one thing it has cut my sermon preparation time from twenty-five or thirty hours a week down to ten. I used to work five and six days a week on sermons from between seven and eight o'clock in the morning till noon. I only work on them now at most two hours a day. Some days not that much.
Journal: Does that mean you are feeling more inspiration?
Minister: Yes. I feel more inspiration, and it seems to come more predictably, or maybe I should say regularly. I don't fret about it as much. I still work hard at it. But I don't fret about it as much. It just seems to come quicker. Things that I need to remember seem to surface. I'll say two things. You know you always hear that as people get older their memory may get worse—my memory has gotten better. The neck and the back pains I used to have—the conventional thought is that these things would get worse as one gets older. And the gland which no longer bothers me, that supposedly gets worse too. Well, all of these things have gotten better with me. What it says to me is, whether it's in the realm of physical healing or memory or intellectual capacity, there is no reason to think that anything has to decline.
Journal: Belief in deterioration is another form of limitation, isn't it?
Minister: Yes. Now, I preach less from paper than I used to do. Simply because I can remember better.
Journal: What about the subject matter—the substance —of your sermons? Do you see any difference there?
Minister: I don't scold people anymore. I used to do that. I won't say I was the "hell-fire and brimstone" type, but I was somewhere close in that direction. I would get onto people a little bit. But I have moved from what I would call "legalism" to more of a direction of love and confidence in God. And in spite of the poor economy, and the problems of the cities, and crime and drugs and all the things that are listed as bad, I have moved in the direction of believing that God transcends. That He is here, and He is here now. Love and inspiration— that's the direction you want to go in preaching. That's where I am now. I no longer preach a sermon that leaves the impression that you've got to do this or you must do that. I try to share with them that God is Love—to share the message of His care for them. I might even say that I gently encourage them, or invite them, to respond to that love of God, but it's never in any heavy-handed way.
Journal: Isn't that leaving them with more of a sense of hope than desperation? People can approach religion out of desperation, and remain despaired, or they can come with a sense of hope that religion is actually going to mean something to their lives and give them genuine purpose.
Minister: Yes.
Journal: Thank you very much. I'm sure that what you've shared with our readers will prove very helpful. And again, great appreciation for taking some time to talk with us.
