Q: How can I understand the By-Law about consulting with an MD?
“Duty to Patients. sect. 23. If a member of this Church has a patient whom he does not heal, and whose case he cannot fully diagnose, he may consult with an M. D. on the anatomy involved. And it shall be the privilege of a Christian Scientist to confer with an M. D. on Ontology, or the Science of being” (Church Manual, Art. VIII, p. 47).
A: Many students of Christian Science have found that to understand any particular passage in the Bible or in Mrs. Eddy’s writings, you want to see that passage in the context of the whole Bible or all of Mrs. Eddy’s published works. For example, in the “Science, Theology, Medicine” chapter in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mrs. Eddy writes of divine Science as being the leaven that is leavening, and will transform, the human disciplines of science, theology, and medicine. In that chapter she speaks a lot about physicians, and says that great respect is due the intentions, philanthropy, and motives of the “higher class” of physicians (see p. 151). But throughout her writings, she states that the methods of physicians are radically different from those of Christian Scientists, whose methods are based on the supremacy of God’s healing power.
