MAYBE YOU KNOW THE OLD JOKE: A pedestrian in New York City asks a passerby how to get to the well-known Carnegie Hall. The person replies, not with directions to a street address, but with the answer, "Practice, practice, practice."
That's actually good advice for finding Church, too. We find real Church not on a street or avenue, but in our hearts, as we practice love for God and our neighbor. Real Church lives in every human heart, just waiting to be discovered.
We can think of Church as representing universal reality because the spiritual definition of Church (see Science and Health, p. 583) doesn't rely on denominations, dogmas, or rituals. As the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah wrote of such a universal understanding: "This shall be the covenant that I [God] will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them" (Jer. 31:33). The promise that everyone shall "know the Lord" is based on the fact that in their real being, as children of God, everyone does know the Lord—meaning divine Spirit.
In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul felt that the good news of Jesus and his Church was for everyone. Showing the inclusiveness of this Church, Paul declared to the Christian community in Rome, "I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise" (Rom. 1:14). In their totality, Paul's writings indicate that he thought that he was a debtor to both the Greeks and to the non-Greeks, to the learned and to the ignorant, not because he had received something from them, but because he felt a universal obligation to share the gospel message of God's love for everyone. At about that time, certain Jewish Christians tried to force other Christians to follow Jewish law related to circumcision (see Acts 15:1–31). But Paul fought this imposition successfully, helping all to see that Christianity is not about an external rite but is an internal progression to loving all that is pure and true—a progression that's natural for everyone.
Do we see all of God's children as having an innate understanding of Church, without imposing our own religious views?
In the same way that certain individuals tried to narrow Christianity in Paul's time, in our day wouldn't error—that which would oppose harmony—try to narrow Christian Science to being just another denomination or only for a certain language group or culture or even only for a certain time, instead of allowing that it is the universal law of goodness, written in everyone's "inward parts"? In contrast, the book of Acts (see chap. 2) recounts that on the Day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descended and those present from many lands heard the disciples speak, all in their own language. What an illustration, not only of how public true Church is, but of how Church embraces those of every language group, culture, and background!
But how do we see others from varied backgrounds, including different religions? If we are Christians, do we see all of God's children as having an innate understanding of Church, without imposing our own religious views? We can't achieve this view by papering over theological differences nor by watering down Christian Science to some lowest common denominator. Rather, we have to dig deep into the theology of Christian Science itself. As Mary Baker Eddy wrote, "It should be thoroughly understood that all men have one Mind, one God and Father, one Life, Truth, and Love. Mankind will become perfect in proportion as this fact becomes apparent, war will cease and the true brotherhood of man will be established" (Science and Health, p. 467).
For me, having one Mind means my supporting others in their highest sense of how to express their spirituality, and furthermore, my being willing to be inspired by that expression. It also means knowing that the Science of Mind is leavening other theologies and other approaches to science and medicine, just as we see in the account of the Day of Pentecost that the Divine communicated to everyone in a language that individually touched and transformed them.
Speaking of transformation, wouldn't history have been different—and can't the present be different—if we were to let go of the impulse to pull people into Christianity, and specifically into our brand of it? If, instead of this desire to make everyone conform to our own beliefs, we could see people as being embraced by universal Church and let our actions, including those related to the institution of church, flow from this perception. This approach would lift us from trying to correct and convert others to correcting ourselves and healing others—which, of course, is really the most effective form of preaching.
After Jesus' crucifixion, his disciples became afraid and huddled behind locked doors (see John 20:19). Do we today hide our concept of Church behind locked doors, both materially and mentally? Or do we have a post-resurrection concept of Church, elevated by the universal Christ?
Actually any wall that error would erect between the Church of Christ, Scientist, and others would be artificial. To use Bible language, it is the Christ that "hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us" (Eph. 2:14). Christ, as the universal idea of Truth, dissolves the belief of haves and have-nots—those who have an understanding of spirituality and those who do not—with the spiritual fact that everyone has one all-knowing Mind. When Jesus told his disciple Peter that he, Jesus, was founding his church, he also asserted that the gates of hell could not prevail against it (see Matt. 16:18). Perhaps we can understand those gates as self-imposed limits or fear, denominationalism, stereotyped views of others or even self-righteousness.
Over the years, I've had many experiences of the universal nature of Church. One time I invited a Muslim friend and his Muslim son and daughter-in-law to a Wednesday testimony meeting at The Mother Church. Almost a full year later, he was still talking about the meeting, conveying to me that he would never forget how he had felt the presence of God there.
On another occasion, when I was Committee on Publication in Canada (Committee on Publication is a church position that involves clarifying Christian Science to the public), the senior physician of Ontario's largest government ministry called me. Apparently someone who was practicing Christian Science was requesting a payment from the Ministry. The normal procedure would have been for the person to submit to a medical diagnosis, which would be the basis for the decision as to whether or not the person would receive the funds. But the doctor was calling me to confirm that such a diagnosis would be an imposition on that person's religious practice. This doctor was expressing universal love and goodwill by respecting the practice of Christian Science. That same doctor later read all of Science and Health, which I had given him. Still later, at a professional conference he said publicly how a particular passage had helped him in his practice.
In all time, will there ever be a more universal, a more public, concept of Church than that presented by the theology of Christian Science? Surely, through God's grace, we can be awake to this theology. Surely, too, through God's grace, our human expression of Church can flow from this theology into the world, bringing healing to all humanity.
DYNAMIC CHURCH AND YOUR PART IN IT
