Q: Is it appropriate for speakers addressing Christian Science associations to offer their personal opinions on issues, including Church policy? I thought association meetings were for sharing metaphysical ideas and not a venue for promoting personal opinion about church issues.
A: “In Christian Science mere opinion is valueless,” Mary Baker Eddy explains in the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (p. 341). And on the first page of this book she writes, “The time for thinkers has come” (p. vii), so she has invited us to be thinkers, not mere listeners or proponents of human opinions.
Your question speaks to me of a deep love for the purity of Christian Science Primary class instruction and the uniquely special annual association day that follows. Association could be described as God’s gift to us, through Mary Baker Eddy’s humble listening to divine Mind’s guidance as she established a never-ending, lifelong, and life-giving continuing spiritual education system in Christian Science, lasting from Sunday School all the way through class instruction and the annual association meeting.
