Century Of Christian Science Healing example essay topic

Christian Scientists When I was first assigned this report I had no idea what Christian Science was. I researched for hours on the religion, and tried to find anything I could on it. I found out that Christian Science was a religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. As quoted from a Christian Scientist " This religion is based on the words and works of Christ Jesus, and draws its authority form the Bible. Its teachings are set forth in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy.

Although a distinctive part of Christian Science is the healing of disease be spiritual means alone, it's higher purpose is universal salvation from every day evil-including sin and death". Christian Scientists particularly believe in the healings attributed to him in the New Testament. According to the founder of the faith, Mary Baker Eddy Jesus' healings were not miraculous interruptions of natural law, but the operation of God's power, as seen in spiritual law. She attributed her sudden recovery from a severe injury in 1866 to her "glimpse of the great fact" that life is in and of God.

Hence forth, she taught her students through prayer that they could heal sickness. That is why today Christian Scientist turn towards prayer rather than conventional medicine. All by the thoughts of Mary Baker Eddy. Mary Bakers early years were spent on her families farm in Bow, New Hampshire. Her childhood and much of her adulthood, before 1866, was spent in ill health. Although she was raise with puritan values, daily Bible readings, and even the talk of God's healing power, she spent many years looking for healing in many remedial ways available in her time.

There she found no permanent help. In 1866, she was healed from a serious injury as she read the account of Jesus' healings in the New Testament. This led her to discover what she came to understand as the Science of Christianity, which was named Christian Science. In 1875, she wrote and published Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, the handbook of Christian Science (a book which late was published in over 17 different languages and Braille, and in audio cassette, CD, and computerized form. In 1992 she was named one of the 75 books that women wrote whose words have changed the world). In 1879 she established the church, after a vote she took with her student to organize a church designed to commemorate the word and works of our Master, and founded various activities and periodicals.

In 1892 her chuch was reorganized, and in 1895 the church manual was printed to provide a structure for church government and a blueprint for future development of the religion. In 1910 Mary died leaving behind an entire religion. In 1995 she was inducted into the women's hall of fame. (All the following information were told to me in a interview with a pastor form the Christian Science Church in Glen Cove) Christian Scientists do not drink, smoke, or use social drugs because they fell that addictive substances can enslave a person, and the persons moral judgement, and it can impair the persons ability to understand God.

Drugs can give the promise of a good life but that is just a hallucination, and drugs can never give the joy of a spiritual life. The religion brings about a sense that give peoples the peace and satisfaction founding God and his love. Therefore this frees them from having to rely on any other substance. Christian scientists use the word science because it is the systematic application of rules based on a fixed principal.

Much like Newton's theory. Their ideas sys that we are healed through divine laws. They consider it the Science of Christianity. That Jesus taught to his early disciples. The proof is in changed and improved many people's lives. Yes, its foundation is the teachings of Jesus Christ.

We take Christ's promise seriously, that Christians should heal the sick as well as the sinning, in God's name. Christian scientists agree anyone you know. They aren't selective. They are all students of the Bible and Science and Health. They greatest numbers of their churches are in English speaking countries. The second largest is in Germany.

Christian Scientists have a religious creed: 1) As adherents of Truth, we take the inspired Word of the Bible as our sufficient guide to Eternal Life. 2) We Acknowledge and adore one supreme and infinite God. We acknowledge His Son, one Christ; The Holy Ghost or divine Comforter; and man in God's image and likeness. 3) We acknowledge God's forgiveness of sin in the destruction of sin and the spiritual understanding that casts out evil as unreal. But the belief is sin is punished so long as the belief lasts. 4) We acknowledge Jesus' atonement as the evidence of divine, effacious Love, unfolding mans' unity with God through Christ Jesus the Way-Shower; and we acknowledge that man is saved through Christ, through Truth, Life, and Love as demonstrated by the Galilean Prophet in healing the sick and overcoming sin and death.

5) We acknowledge that the crucifixion of Jesus and hid resurrection served to uplift faith to understand eternal Life, even the allies of Soul, Spirit, and the nothingness of matter. 6) And we do somlenly promise to watch, and pray for that Mind to be in us which was also in Christ Jesus; to do unto to others as we would have done to us; and to be merciful, just, and pure. They view God as a sprit or Supreme Being, as a governor of the universe. God is always present, all knowing and all-powerful and holy. God has many names such as love, life, truth, soul and spirit. They believe that every person is a child of the Father-Mother, God.

Everyone's spiritual identity is the image and likeness of God, as told in the first chapter of Genesis. To the Jesus Christ are their redeemer, savior and the Son of God. The word Christ describes Jesus' divine nature. He was the mediator between God and man. They also believe that Jesus was born to the virgin mother Mary. They fully accept the accounts of his birth, victory over death, and his final accession as fulfillment that he was the Son of God.

They use the King James Version of the Bible and reading the weekly Bible Lessons, in Church, in the English speaking countries. They often use Bible translations in their individual Bible study. Other areas of the world use the Luther Bible. Christian Science loves and practices the sacraments of communion, and baptism but they did not practice them outwardly with a large ceremony. To them Baptism id the ongoing daily purification of thought and deed.

Eucharist is spiritual communion with God, celebrated with silent prayer and Christian living. Like those of other Christian faiths Christian scientists pray the Lords prayer. They turn to God, divine Love, to learn more of his power and presence, and to listen for his directions. The prayer that affirms and understands God's goodness and allies, changing whatever appears to be the opposite, is a powerful force. To them Heaven and Hell are not regarded as specific destinations one goes to after death, but it is a state of mind and though, varying in degrees of experience here now and then, as well as after death.

They believer that sin, disease and death do not originate God, because God is good. They ate ultimate realities of God' creation and are to be overcome as Jesus taught and illustrated. Those evils resulted form the be leif that man is separated form God and that life and things in matter, therefore limited and temporary. Instead, life and things are seen in spirit, God therefore unlimited and eternal.

They explain suffering in the world by saying that the result that believing that God, who is good, is absent from our lives, that evil is real, and that it is our equal to God. The awareness that God is not evil but Good and the belief and faith in goodness can overcome suffering and evil in the world. To solve problems like poverty, racism and war they believe that prayer is the root to the solution. Its shows people as children of God, and it challenges the belief that we are separated from God. They refute hatred, envy, limitation, or greed that now govern people lives, individually or group wise. This shows that none of those negative traits can overpower Love, and Prayer.

To show concern for the world's problems the Church publishes the "Christian Science Monitor" and international newspaper, which brings the national problems to the reader by maintaining a healing point of view. A reading room is a combination of a bookstore, library, and study room, where the public has free access to reading all the time. The services include a congregational singing, a vocal solo, organ or piano music, silent and collective prayer, the audible praying of the Lord's prayer, Scriptural readings from the Bible and Science and health, as well as testimonies of healing form he congregation. The Sunday services are conducted by lay readers. The two readers read a Lesson-Sermon consisting of passages form the Bible and Science and Health with Key to Scriptures.

The churches government is set forth in the Church Manual, a constitutional document that has remained unchanged since Mary Baker Eddy completed it in 1910. In this manual she wrote that its Board of Directors transacts the worldwide business of The Mother Church. The mother church democratically governs each local church. They don't have ministers because each member of the church has equal standing with God.

They turn to prayer toward to Bible and Science and Health as their pastor. The church itself doesn't counsel its members on personal matters. The teachings show strict adherence to the moral code of the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount. Christina Science practitioners are available to help individuals find healing through prayer of such problems as infidelity, sterility, indifference, and abuse, but not marriage, birth control, and divorce. For the local Community the Church offers healing for various crimes going on at the time. Each Wensday public healing services are held on issues in the community.

For young people the Church has Sunday school where children up to age 20 learn to apply their knowledge of Christian Science. Christian Science differs from faith healing, psychotherapy, Scientology, and positive thinking in many crucial ways. The practice does not involve hypnotism, spiritualism, or suggestion. It is not the control of one human mind over another, nor the exercise of human will.

It employs no formulas, chants, or rituals, no esoteric practices, or secret writings. Although faith is an important element in this healing process, it does not rest on the blind belief, but on an ever-increasing understanding if the present perfection if God's spiritual creation. This is a practical and essential difference between Christian Science and what is generally considered faith healing. The relationship between theology and the healing ministry of Christian Science is that they are inseparable. One is proof on the other.

Jesus, their Exemplar and Savior showed that his theology and ministry include healing the sick. Christian Science is seen as the rediscovery of the divine laws that Jesus understood, taught, and proved: and these laws are as applicable today as they were 2,000 years ago. A Christian Science praticionar is a person who devoted full time to the ministry if Christian healing. TO be a practitioner requires study, consecrated prayer, and a demonstrated ability to apply spiritual understanding to the overcoming of human ills.

Preparation includes a course study and a record of successful healing's of others. TO be a nurse the person must be prepared to apply physical care and spiritual reassurance. Nursing does not include any type form of medical treatment. It does not require practical except for bedside care, bathing, dressing wounds, turning, lifting, modification of food, etc.

To go about healing the sick Christian science healing come through scientific prayer, or spiritual communion with God. It is specific treatment. Such prayer recognizes a patient's direct access to God's love and discovers more of the constant operation of God's law of health and wholeness oh his behalf. It knows God, is the only healer.

They do not mix with medical treatment because the two ideas proceed from opposite standpoints. Christian Science is based on the laws of God that all cause and effect are spiritual. Medicine primarily deals with matter as both cause and cure. To try to hal form opposite systems may be unfair to the patient and could be counterproductive to healing. They obey the rules of vaccinating children. If it is compulsory, then they see that it is done.

They do realize that the immunity form disease is in the understanding of God's laws and freedom from disease. In case of communicable disease they are careful to report symptoms of contagious or infectious disease, when they are required, they quarantine people. Christian Scientists feel that healing does not depend on age or experience. Little kids respond naturally to God's love and the mental environment surrounding them.

As their parents pray, their thoughts are freed from fear and filled with a sense of God's loving care. Both parent and child are benefited. Infants and children are often healed more than adults are. In case of a broken bone some choose to choose a surgeon to set the bone but really on prayers to heal the bone, although there have been many reports on healings of broken bones solely through prayers.

The record of success with Christian healing is that it has; been practiced efficiently for more than 100 years. In some families, Christian Science has been the means of healing and care for five generations. During the past 112 years, more than 50,000 authenticated testimonies of healing has been publishes in the monthly and weekly Christian Science periodical. Many of these have medical verification. In addition, thousands of accounts of healing are given each week at Wensday Testimony meetings in Christian Science Churches around the world.

Three books "Healing Spiritually", "A Century of Christian Science Healing", and "Spiritual Healing a Scientific Age". All have given verified accounts of healing through prayer. There are some people who do not believe in the religion as proven. I learned a lot from this project. I never knew that there was such a strong faith of people out there of who believe in God do much that they heal through prayer.