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Adapted from a talk given at the Boston Church Alive Summit in June 2011. Some of you may be wondering why a trustee of The Christian Science Publishing Society has been asked to give a talk on Church.

My wife and I recently saw a play in Los Angeles titled 33 Variations, by Moisés Kaufman. In the program notes there’s a quote from the early 20th century Russian novelist Andrei Bely: “An instant of life taken by itself as it is deeply probed becomes a doorway to infinity.

One morning last winter, I discovered how stunning a New England beach can be in January. As I gazed down from the snowy edge of a sand dune, the water seemed like a huge sheet of cobalt glass stretching out before me, mirroring an equally flawless, porcelain-blue sky above.

The very first Christian Science church I ventured into was in Manhattan’s Upper West Side. I attended a Sunday service there with a friend who had grown up in Christian Science.

Anything that’s special or valuable must satisfy a need. In order to fully appreciate the value of Christian Science, its movement, and its Leader, it is imperative to understand the ultimate need or problem of the human condition and how only this Science solves it.

In her book,  Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896 , Mary Baker Eddy wrote the following: “The leading self-evident proposition of Christian Science is: good being real, evil, good’s opposite, is unreal. This truism needs only to be tested scientifically to be found true, and adapted to destroy the appearance of evil to an extent beyond the power of any doctrine previously entertained” ( p.

Over the past ten years, I’ve gained the most spiritual growth and understanding from attending a Christian Science summer camp for children. Each year, I’ve come home with a new, clearer view of my identity as God’s spiritual reflection.

The author notes that the “underlying unity of all creation is found in one common Creator," and that we are "forever united with each other now and always.”

At the end of the chapter “Recapitulation” in  Science and Health , Mary Baker Eddy laid out six tenets she deemed necessary for committed readers to adopt as their own, if they wished to seriously practice her teachings in their lives (see pages 496–497 ). They can also be found in the opening pages of the  Church Manual  (see pp.

In Science and Health, Mary Baker Eddy wrote, “Trials are proofs of God’s care” ( p. 66 ).