Church of Christ, Scientist 
An organization founded by Mary Baker Glover Eddy in an
effort to reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing. In
1876 Eddy formed the Christian Scientists Association and three years later
chartered the Church of Christ, Scientist. The church was reorganized into its
present form in 1892. The First Church of Christ, Scientist of Boston is known
as the mother church, and other Christian Science churches are considered
branches, although each is independently governed. The tenets and bylaws of the
church were incorporated by Eddy into the church manual of 1895. The church's
fundamental theological teachings are presented in Eddy's Science and Health
with Key to the Scriptures.
Theologically, the Church of Christ,
Scientist, does not concur with the basic tenets of historic orthodox
Christianity. It is purely Heretical, from start to finish! Although it uses the theological vocabulary
of traditional Christianity, it assigns metaphysical meanings to the terms. The
sources of authority for the church are the Bible and Eddy's writings. Members
accept Eddy's writings as divine revelation and interpret the Bible
allegorically through her works. The most significant authority for the church
is Science and Health, which was published in 1875 and regularly revised until
Eddy's death in 1910. Eddy referred to this volume as containing the perfect
word of God, and thus was divine and infallible teaching. Christian Science's
view of God is monistic. God is divine principle, not a supreme being God is
mind, and mind is all. Nothing possesses reality or exists which is not mind.
The characteristics and attributes of God become God. The Trinity is
constituted by the threefold nature of divine principle (God): life, truth, and
love. God, Christ, and Holy Spirit are not persons. The Christology of
Christian Science denies a physical incarnation of Christ and insists Mary
conceived Christ only as a spiritual idea. Since God is mind and spirit, and
nothing exists which is not spirit, there can be no matter or flesh; these are
only illusions. Thus Christ did not possess a body and did not die on a cross.
The need of an atonement is nullified since sin, evil, sickness, and death are
delusions, not reality. God is good, and nothing can exist which is not good. Christian
Science teaches man is created in God's image as spirit, mind, and good; thus
man is incapable of sin, sickness, and death. Man is placed on a plane of
equality with God in his origin, character, and eternity. The metaphysical
presuppositions of the church insist that heaven and hell are present states of
man's thoughts, not real future dwelling places. (What a surprise is waiting!)
They focus upon the uniform lesson-sermons which are read aloud from the
Bible and Science and Health by readers elected from the congregation. There is
no clergy or priesthood. The sacraments are not special rites. Baptism means
the spiritual purification of daily life and the Lord's Supper is silent
spiritual communion with God. No visible elements are used. Salvation to the
Christian Scientist is the gaining of the understanding that man's life is
wholly derived from God the spirit, and is not mortal and material. EDDY, MARY
BAKER