Growing up in a devoted family of Christian Scientists, I resonated positively to this call to duty—to love God with all my heart, to faithfully follow the Leader of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, to serve The Mother Church and my branch Church of Christ, Scientist, consistently, and to embrace the healing practice of Christian Science.
In her writings, Mrs. Eddy repeatedly refers to “duty”—10 times in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, 32 times in her Prose Works, and 34 times in the Manual of The Mother Church. 34 times! It might be said that the Manual’s major theme is that of duty.
And on top of these direct references to duty, there are clarion calls like this one: “Will you give yourselves wholly and irrevocably to the great work of establishing the truth, the gospel, and the Science which are necessary to the salvation of the world from error, sin, disease, and death? Answer at once and practically, and answer aright!” (Mary Baker Eddy, Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 177). My love for Christian Science as the very Science of being, the absolute truth of life in and of God, has made me thrill to these statements and long to answer, Yes!
