Last year I took a history tour of the Boston area with a friend of mine, a Presbyterian minister and scholar of American history. He gives these tours every other year. We started at Plymouth Rock and went to Salem and all over Boston, where we walked the Freedom Trail and made sure to visit The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist. From my standpoint, as a Christian Scientist, the tour was really inspiring and enlightening because it showed how God was preparing this nation for Mary Baker Eddy. She couldn’t have established her Church and her religion here in the United States if there wasn’t that love of liberty and love of God shown by our forefathers. Boston is often referred to as the
Cradle of Liberty for this reason, and it provided the avenue and the channel for Christian Science to be established and to grow.
I joined The Mother Church as soon as I could, at the age of 12. Nobody forced me to do it, nobody told me to do it, and nobody necessarily encouraged me to do it. I made it known quite early, before my 12th birthday, that I wanted to take that step. Even at that young age, it seemed to me like a natural progression in my spiritual growth.
From my earliest years my parents instilled in me that Church was the most important thing in our lives. Love for God and service to Church took precedence over every other activity growing up. I view Mother Church membership as the outward expression of an inward commitment to God and to the establishment of His kingdom here on earth—freedom not only from oppression, but from sin, disease, and even death. This is what Christian Science offers the world, and I am so grateful to be a part of this great Cause.
