Come join us tonight for fun and memory’s of days gone by!  But, also take a minute and read this thought provoking article by James Spencer in the Christian Science journal where he discounts the idea that the “good old days” of Christian Science healing is a thing of the past.

The good old days
By James Spencer
From the December 2016 issue of The Christian Science Journal

A friend of mine told me, after a church service, that he had formerly been a member of a branch Church of Christ, Scientist, in the Midwest. Everyone there knew of a woman who had come to a service painfully lame, leaning on a cane, and left the service completely well. He said she hadn’t known anything about Christian Science at the time. That was in the early days of the Christian Science movement, and my friend said with awe: “That’s the way it used to be. Those were the good old days!” Then he said sadly, “Those days are gone.”

“But they’re not gone,” I told him. “Christian Science, Divine Science, the Comforter, is no different today!” I quoted a familiar passage to him from the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures—a passage that shelves forever the “good old days” syndrome, where its author, Mary Baker Eddy, writes: “It is not well to imagine that Jesus demonstrated the divine power to heal only for a select number or for a limited period of time, since to all mankind and in every hour, divine Love supplies all good” (p. 494).

“Even in our everyday experience, we would never believe the principle of mathematics to be less viable or available today than in the “good old days.”……..

That universal, divine power has its source in God, divine Principle. That power, so freely and fully demonstrated by Christ Jesus, is actually God’s timeless law of good that reforms and restores those in need of healing. The Master’s mission didn’t terminate with time, because God, infinite, eternal Love, doesn’t stop being Love. And spiritual law doesn’t stop being law. Even in our everyday experience, we would never believe the principle of mathematics to be less viable or available today than in the “good old days.” And that’s what I told my friend.

True, if a mathematician stops taking the study of math seriously, stops consistently applying the math he knows, decides not to go forward to pursue higher forms of mathematics, or is diverted from his study and application by a flood of activities, there probably won’t be much progress in his understanding of mathematical operations and the relationship between numbers and the principle of math. That, however, could not destroy, or even attenuate, the law of mathematics. But it would undoubtedly make a significant impact on the mathematician and his ability to serve those in need of the science of numbers.

Mrs. Eddy draws an interesting comparison between Christ’s practical Christianity and mathematics when she writes, referring to relying on divine Principle, God: “If we work to become Christians as honestly and as directly upon a divine Principle, and adhere to the rule of this Principle as directly as we do to the rule of mathematics, we shall be Christian Scientists, and do more than we are now doing, and progress faster than we are now progressing” (Christian Healing, pp. 8–9).

The perfect, timeless law of good to which we need to apply ourselves is the law of the divine Principle, Love—the Science that governs God’s universe, maintaining the harmony and order of His infinite creation. The Psalmist said: “The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul” (Psalms 19:7).

Divine Science, the Holy Ghost, is ever operative and ever effective.
One reason the healings attributed to “the good old days” might seem a thing of the past is that there does appear to be increased resistance to the study and application of Christian Science, brought about partly by the antagonism of materialism to things of the Spirit, by ignorance of what Christian Science is, and by a misconception of its Discoverer and Founder, Mary Baker Eddy. The basis of the resistance is the age-old belief in a power and presence apart from God. It has been given many names in the Bible: Lucifer, deceiver, antichrist, liar, adversary, serpent—to mention just a few. This impersonal, lawless antagonism changes its name and method from year to year, and from moment to moment. It claims to be something when it is actually nothing. But the subtlety of it is that its claim often tempts one to believe in its somethingness. It could be likened to darkness, which is only the absence of light, although the darkness may seem very real to one who has lost the path of light. Jesus was well aware of such temptation, and called it “a liar, and the father of it” (John 8:44). The liar even tried to tempt Jesus to believe that it was his own thinking (see Matthew 4:1–11).

Despite the remarkable success of Jesus’ mission, he still had to deal with the constant heaviness of the world’s resistance. It culminated in the final attempt to destroy him through the crucifixion. But hatred, envy—material mindedness—couldn’t terminate the effect of his God-mission. His disciples continued to do good works, though they also had to handle the resistance to Truth and Love. And so must we. The Master gave us this admonition: “Whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:27).

The Christian Science textbook explains: “The real cross, which Jesus bore up the hill of grief, was the world’s hatred of Truth and Love” (p. 50). I have often felt that the same type of resistance aimed at the Christ, the power and presence of divine Love that Jesus so fully expressed, is the figurative cross we bear today. It often appears as a relentless, patient, silent, systematic, ongoing presentation of materialism, projected before individuals generally or to some individuals specifically. Not everyone picks up or is aware of the suggestions, but everyone is subjected to them. Persistent spiritual alertness, purity of thought, unselfed love, and an understanding of the actual allness of divine Mind, resists the suggestions, or enables one to be completely immune to them.

The opportunity is ever available to neutralize the aggressive arguments and resistance to Truth, to uncover and remove the diversions that would aggressively attempt to tamp down the practical progress of the Cause of Christian Science. The opportunity is right at hand to defeat the false sense that attempts to delay and reverse the advancement of spiritual good in the individual Christian Scientist. The success of both the beginner and the seasoned worker is assured as each becomes aware of the guidance and comforting love of divine Love, our Father-Mother God. No one can actually be separated or isolated from the comfort and care provided by the loving ministrations of divine Science, the Holy Comforter.

Science and Health explains: “The real man being linked by Science to his Maker, mortals need only turn from sin and lose sight of mortal selfhood to find Christ, the real man and his relation to God, and to recognize the divine sonship” (p. 316).

Mortals are the direct contradiction, the counterfeit, the non–image and likeness, of Spirit, God. Christ, the real, ideal man, is the direct image and likeness, the self-expression, of divine Mind, the all-knowing God. I have found much inspiration in the realization that as mortals recognize, accept, and understand the real man that Jesus exemplified, this humble acceptance and understanding unfolds the Science of Christ to consciousness. This Christ Science operates as law, with the reliability of law, and heals all manner of sickness and sin today as it did in Jesus’ day.

The Science of being that demonstrates our eternal life in God, Life, is here for everyone. But it needs to be understood and practiced.

Here is how one individual turned to this Science when faced with a very pressing need. “In my country,” he related, “if you want to renew or update a prescription for your glasses, it’s mandatory that you see a medical doctor. I had just gone to one to have him give me an eye exam. He diagnosed a cataract in my left eye, and told me I needed to have a surgical operation right away, as the cataract was increasing. I didn’t have the surgery. I asked a Christian Science practitioner for treatment about it. After a short time, I felt free and discontinued treatment. Some time later, I returned to the doctor for the mandatory examination. His answer was that I would never need surgery, as the eye and vision were normal. The healing has been permanent.”

The practitioner prayed to see, or understand, the ideal man as the creative self-expression of God. It became evident to the practitioner that true vision is the outcome of clear spiritual understanding. Even in our everyday experience, when we don’t understand something, we might say, “I just can’t see it.” Then when the understanding comes we say, “Now I see it clearly.” Divine Mind perfectly knows, sees, understands, all, because it knows itself and its perfection. Therefore, for divine Mind to know is for divine Mind to see—and for man to know, because he reflects Mind, is for man to see, because he reflects Mind.

It was clear to the practitioner that human vision is no more dependent on a material eye when we’re awake, than when we seem to see objects when we’re asleep. The practitioner had a clear perception that man is not mortal, but immortal, spiritual, perfect, and whole; that spiritual man, the ideal man, is eternally governed by divine law. Every law of divine Principle that governs the spiritual idea, man, is effective right here and now, as Jesus proved by healing all manner of sickness. The practitioner understood that a medical diagnosis couldn’t outline a course of development for the patient, that it had no authority to dominate, or to impose an outcome. Resistance to the timeless, healing Christ couldn’t delay or obviate the present operation of spiritual law. Divine Science, the Holy Ghost, is ever operative and ever effective.

The fact is, we actually live in the eternal now of God’s ever-presence. Therefore, this healing, and every Christian Science healing, teaches us not to look longingly to the past. This brings the assurance that the “good old days” are truly the “good present days,” and are a promise of all the days to come!

By Ethel Baker with contributions from Scott Preller

From the March 2022 issue of The Christian Science Journal

“If you took a poll and asked people what the single most destructive power in the world is, they might come up with interesting answers such as nuclear war, disease, pandemic, climate disaster, economic collapse, hatred, and so forth. But Christian Science helps us realize that actually the single most destructive force in the world is Christ……..”

It’s hard to read a newspaper or turn on the TV without hearing not just bad news, but devastating and seemingly insurmountable news, from the pandemic to civil wars to political divisions to climate disasters. These events raise a big question for many people: Where is God when bad things happen? Recently Ethel Baker, the Editor of the Christian Science magazines, explored this topic with Scott Preller, a Christian Science practitioner and teacher. Scott is currently serving on the Board of Directors of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts. The following is adapted from the recording of their conversation featured on JSH-Online.com.

Ethel: Let’s begin with that big question: Where is God in bad times? 

Scott: To come up with a meaningful answer to that, we first have to spend a little time looking at the question itself. If it’s coming from the position of someone who’s convinced that there is no God, that everything is horrible and dark, then the question can feel more like an accusation than a real question. But I think most people who are asking that are coming from a position of faith. They have actually experienced something more than just the limits of material living. They have felt a sense of love, for example, that they recognize is more than anything a material sense of life can know. Or they’ve experienced the inspiration of individual creativity in a way that makes them realize they’ve encountered a source of intelligence beyond anything the human mind can discern. Or maybe they’ve experienced physical healing through prayer in a way that made them feel utterly overwhelmed with gratitude for the nature and power of good.

In other words, they’ve experienced God’s presence as a real thing, not just as a topic for discussion. And yet at some point they’ve also had to come face to face with a situation that didn’t readily yield to prayer. Or they saw or experienced some tragedy or disaster that naturally made them ask: “If God is wholly good and all-powerful, why is this terrible thing happening? Why did God allow it?”

Now, that’s an honest question, and one each of us has to face and think through. In fact, I don’t know anyone of any real depth of faith who hasn’t had to wrestle with that question, and sometimes repeatedly. But the short answer is, God is right here. And God is continuing to be all-powerful, all good, and is loving us. Asking that question is like asking on a cloudy day, Where did the sun go? It’s there. What has to be explored and answered is what is demanded of us in order to be able to feel God’s presence despite the events being reported in the news.

You’ve mentioned that God is omnipresent and omnipotent. Those words are used to describe God in many faiths. And yet there’s also the impression that God is kind of a big human being in the sky, and we’re pleading with God to help us. But what you’re describing is a different sense of God. Can you elaborate on what God is in Christian Science? 

Christian Science is wholly based on the Bible, particularly on the ministry and teachings of Christ Jesus. You see in the Gospels the force, the power, the presence of good being supreme in everything Jesus did when he encountered disease and other evils. You never see Jesus saying, “Well, that one’s too big. I’m sorry, I can’t do anything about it.” Rather, what yields is the magnitude of the problem, whatever it is.

And according to the teachings of Jesus, we too are expected to experience this presence of the kingdom of God. That’s what faith is all about—the conviction that there is something more than just what you can perceive in the material surroundings we face, and that something more is really substantial. Christian Science explains that in Jesus’ ministry, you see this good operating as law, as an operative divine Principle.

Would you talk a little more about the foundation for this sense that Christian Science puts out there about the reliability of God? 

One of the things I love about the Bible is that it really covers the whole of human experience, and it shows that the questions we wrestle with today about existence are not new. There are so many instances where individuals in the Bible had to wrestle with the question of “Where is God when bad things are happening?”

Take the story of Job, for example. Job is depicted as a person of perfect faith, totally upright, loves God, hates evil, and has all the blessings that you expect would come with that. He has great wealth, a healthy family, lots of kids, and lots of possessions. The book of Job relates a kind of challenge between God and the devil, where the devil says, “Well, sure, he believes in You, God, because everything is going great. But what if things don’t go so great?” And in the course of just a few opening chapters of Job, you see this man going from everything being just wonderful to finding out that all of his possessions are stolen and wiped out, all of his children are killed in a violent storm, and eventually he himself becomes diseased. And the whole rest of the story of Job is about his wrestling with “How is this right? How do I make sense of this?”

Job’s friends offer conventional theological explanations for why bad things are happening. They represent the same kinds of arguments that we may go through when we’re wrestling with “How do I explain why everything was going so well and now it’s going so badly?” And “Why isn’t God fixing this?” The friends come at him with arguments like “You must have done something to deserve this. We just don’t know what it is.” Or “Maybe if you ask God just right, He’ll fix it.” And “You can’t know the ways of God. Since God is good and punishes only sin, the fact that you’re going through this means, of course, that you’ve sinned.”

This is all bad theology based on the assumption that the things Job is going through are valid. But Job doesn’t yield to any of it. He continues to defend his faith, his uprightness before God. And in the end, what happens with Job is something that I think happens with most of us when we’ve had to wrestle with this question. That’s why I say it is a question of faith, because when we really wrestle with it, it often becomes the occasion for strengthening our understanding of God. It did for Job. He had to realize that no matter what he’d been through, the infinitude of God was an actuality that he just had to yield to. And as he did, everything changed. In other words, he had to make sure the whole of his heart was on that faith in God, rather than being impressed by all the things that had happened to him. The Bible account ends with saying that God blessed him even more, and he ended up with twice as much as he’d had before.

According to the teachings of Jesus, we too are expected to experience this presence of the kingdom of God.

In the Gospels, God’s consistency and goodness are affirmed throughout Jesus’ ministry. In Mark there’s the account of Jesus in a storm with the disciples, and Jesus is asleep in the back of the boat. His disciples come to him and say, “Why aren’t you concerned about us? Don’t you see our storm?” And he basically says, “No, don’t you see my peace?” and he calms the storm. This teaches us that when we’re faced with horrible things, we’ll either be impressed by them or we’ll work to be impressed by the presence of God. And that can make all the difference.

Christian Science endeavors to approach Jesus’ teaching with the scientific method—you test it, you experiment, you explore, but you do it based on understood laws. Christian Science comes at this with a sense that God is wholly good, is all-powerful, and that God therefore has nothing whatsoever to do with troubles or calamities. Evil is not God’s raw material for doing God’s will. God’s way is to let us experience the spiritual qualities of God.

When we’re wrestling with questions like “Where is God when bad things are happening?” the need is for us to turn those questions and the assumptions they’re based on upside down. So Christian Science invites us to change the perspective that we’re thinking from. Rather than looking at the dire circumstances surrounding us and then deciding, based on those circumstances, how we feel about God, we instead need to look at God, understand and feel the presence of God, and let the reality of God challenge how we feel about the circumstances we’re in. That’s what brought healing in the Bible, and it’s what has brought healing to generations of Christian Scientists.

A majority of people may be feeling that the world, including us, is a mixture of good and evil that we’re trying to juggle all the time. When it gets out of hand, we may reach for this supreme being that seems far away. But you’re talking about God being right here. 

This idea that we’re in the midst of a kind of endless tennis match between evil and good is exhausting and doesn’t get us anywhere. But when you look at the nature of the claims of the material world, and the nature of the claims of God, they don’t really allow space for each other. There’s nothing about them that seeks to cohabitate in any realistic way.

The material world says everything is matter. That’s all there is; that’s all you can know; that’s all you’re subject to. But Christianity shows us that that’s completely upside down. The reality is God and God’s creation, made like God and expressing the same love and goodness. That’s why, when we talk about this different reality, it’s not really an unknown. You can talk to anyone and they know what love feels like. They know what honesty feels like. They know what intelligence feels like. These are the qualities of God, and they are the reality right now.

How does this work in our individual lives? 

When I was serving as a Christian Science chaplain in the United States Air Force, I was asked to attend a conference where there would be chaplains from many other faiths, but I was going to be the only Christian Science representative. I had been dealing with an ear infection for a while, and I’d asked for help from a Christian Science practitioner. I was not looking forward to this conference, to put it mildly, because I was in quite a lot of discomfort. When I got there, I went to the conference center by taxi, and by then the pain in my ear was so great that I had lost my sense of equilibrium. I remember getting out of the taxi and falling into the gutter.

I eventually did make my way to check-in, and then I found a quiet corner and called the practitioner who was praying with me. I spilled out my tale of woe about how awful this situation was. It wasn’t getting better, and what was I doing wrong, and why wasn’t God healing me? She listened patiently, and then after a bit, one of the things she said to me was, “There’s nothing there.”

As I walked to my room after that, I was thinking, “She just doesn’t get it. She doesn’t realize how much pain I’m in, and there is something there.” Then I got into my room and sat down on my bed and thought, “Well, wait a minute now. If I am ever going to heal this through prayer in Christian Science, through my understanding of God, at some point I’m going to have to see that there’s more reality in God’s goodness and the identity God has given me than there is in this infection that’s arguing that all I am is matter.”

I just kept exploring that question, thinking: “I am going to have to get to the point where I realize that there is, in fact, nothing there. There isn’t any authority, there isn’t any truth, there isn’t any reality, in this depiction of me as a suffering mortal. What is real is God’s presence in my life and my own identity as God’s child.” I just kept going deeply into that thought until I felt the reality of God’s presence more than I did the problem. And the pain left. It wasn’t just improved; it was gone. According to Christian Science, the disappearance of the pain was evidence of the fact that it never had the authority it claimed to have in the first place. But I had to see it. I had to listen for that voice of Christ assuring me of the reality of good and the emptiness of the claim of evil. And when I did, the error was destroyed.

Christian Science has a history of people relying on prayer for healing, but I think it’s important to remember that healing isn’t fundamentally about using faith to fix up a material body or to fix material problems. Rather, when we do deepen our sense of God’s presence and really listen for and rely on Christ to animate our lives, to give us our sense of reality irrespective of the material picture, the healing that results is evidence of what Jesus said about the kingdom of heaven—that it’s present and it’s within you.

So this understanding of God as purely good, as always present, really changes what prayer is often assumed to be. 

Well, prayer can be whatever we do to reach out with a desire to know God better. But if prayer is “Oh, look how awful things are. Please, God, fix my problem,” we’re putting just as much power and faith in evil as we are in God. And it doesn’t tend to get us very far. But another way to think about prayer is that it’s a very active alignment of thought with God and God’s sense of reality.

Christian Science turns on its head the idea that the material world has authority and power over us. If you took a poll and asked people what the single most destructive power in the world is, they might come up with interesting answers such as nuclear war, disease, pandemic, climate disaster, economic collapse, hatred, and so forth. But Christian Science helps us realize that actually the single most destructive force in the world is Christ. Because Christ is the only force that has shown it can destroy those things that seem to destroy good. Christ can destroy disease; Christ can destroy death; Christ can destroy distrust and dishonesty, and so forth.

Christian Science helps us understand the nature and presence of Christ to bring healing in our lives and to get us through those moments when it seems like bad things are happening around us. Mary Baker Eddy, a devoted Christian and the Discoverer of Christian Science, includes a glossary in the Christian Science textbook that gives spiritual definitions of biblical terms. She defines Christ as “The divine manifestation of God, which comes to the flesh to destroy incarnate error” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 583).

You see right there the sense of the Christ being the most destructive force. And while Jesus fully manifested the Christ in all he did, the encouraging thing is he made it clear that the power of Christ is always present for us to experience in our own lives. When we stop thinking of Christ as some person in the Bible or some unattainable
presence that’s not part of our experience, but rather as this manifestation of God, which comes to us to destroy incarnate error, we begin to look for more of the presence of Christ in our lives.

In another place in Science and Health Mrs. Eddy talks about Christ as “the true idea voicing good, the divine message from God to men speaking to the human consciousness” (p. 332). So in any situation, even in horrible situations, we can always listen with a sense of “I know what the material world is screaming at me right now, but what is God saying to me? What is God showing me of the presence of Christ? Because I know that the Christ is the power that can destroy incarnate error.”

Mrs. Eddy includes that same sense of Christ being destructive in her definition of Jesus as “The highest human corporeal concept of the divine idea, rebuking and destroying error and bringing to light man’s immortality” (p. 589). The wonderful thing is that the more we think and live from the basis of God’s allness and our own identity as the expression of God, the more we become conscious of Christ animating our lives, speaking to us, reassuring us in times of challenge, of the presence of good and the power of love to transform the situation we’re in.

So “error” in the passages you quoted is really the same thing as evil, whether it’s illness, or harm, or any phenomenon that’s not good, that’s not of God. Can you explain how this kind of praying that you’re talking about works? 

Sure. I’ve found it tremendously encouraging to look at Mrs. Eddy’s own experience in discovering this scientific sense of Christianity that is anchored in an understanding of the allness and goodness of God, and evil’s lack of authority. She didn’t come by that understanding through some rose-petaled life herself. In her spiritual autobiography, Retrospection and Introspection, she writes, “The trend of human life was too eventful to leave me undisturbed in the illusion that this so-called life could be a real and abiding rest.” She talks about life’s lessons becoming both clearer and sterner, and then adds, “Previously the cloud of mortal mind seemed to have a silver lining; but now it was not even fringed with light” (p. 23).

Here was a woman who had spent most of her young years as a semi-invalid and had experienced the loss of her mother, her brother, and her husband. Later her son was taken away from her when he was a child. So she really went through a lot. And yet she discovered the Science of the Christ, and it changed everything. She realized that the experiences that forced her to lean on God were what opened up to her the reality of God in a way that transformed everything. She couldn’t think or live from a different basis once she saw the allness of God, good.

I thought of another example when I came across a family photo as I was preparing for our conversation today. It’s a picture of my dad as a young teenager sitting at the piano, and my grandfather is standing next to him accompanying him on a violin. My family’s from Germany, and this photo was taken when they were living in Berlin. It was in 1941, and World War II was already going on. But looking at this photo, you would just think it was a happy family occasion. They didn’t realize what was coming. They didn’t know, for instance, that my grandfather, who was a Christian Science practitioner, would very soon be put in prison when the Nazis outlawed Christian Science. They didn’t know that the Allies’ bombing would intensify over Berlin very shortly. My dad certainly didn’t know that he was going to be put in a forced labor camp for refusing to be part of the Hitler Youth.

Evil is not God’s raw material for doing God’s will.

My family’s accounts of that time during the war certainly depict what we’re talking about today, the sense of “Where’s God when bad things happen?” What I find helpful is thinking about the answer that my family experienced. After my grandfather was let out of prison, the Nazis eventually came and grabbed him again and forced him into military service. They placed him as a guard on a bridge in a fairly remote area. So he spent a portion of the war just sitting there, supposedly as a guard of this bridge, but he actually spent that time writing poetry.

Interestingly, at some point the bridge was overrun, and my grandfather was shot in the leg and was taken to a field hospital, where he asked if he could be left alone to pray for a while. The doctors had told him they were going to have to amputate the leg, but by the time they came back, they realized they didn’t need to. And he eventually had a complete healing through Christian Science treatment.

Now, it would be easy to look at that account of such a turbulent time and think, “Well, that’s not very reassuring.” Because it could feel like things are going just great, but you don’t know what disaster’s coming. Yet for my grandfather, it was evident that this became a time of deepening his understanding of the presence and power of God as a reality, as something he could rely on completely and utterly. And it comes out in some of the poetry he wrote during that time. One of the poems was put to music in our new Christian Science Hymnal. Here is the second verse of Hymn 476:

Of course, he wasn’t talking about victory of one combatant over another. He was talking about the victory over feeling forlorn and without hope—victory over the material sense of existence. So there was a case where my grandfather was faced with great evil, and through what Christian Science had told him about the presence and allness of God, he found in his own experience why it made so much sense to challenge the authority of the circumstances he was in within his heart, rather than to challenge his faith and his understanding of God. And that brought healing. It brought a stronger realization of good.

Then we can expect healing—for ourselves and in the wide scope of things. Can you give us an example of how one might pray about, let’s say, the upheaval in Afghanistan? 

What we’re seeing in Afghanistan is a great example of news that can overwhelm our hope, our sense of humanity’s great promise. But everything we’ve been saying about prayer and what it shows us about the nature of reality, the nature of God, has to do with the basis from which we’re thinking. In my own prayers about the situation, I’ve been realizing that if God is the author of creation, if the true nature of men and women is as spiritual ideas of God, and if God truly is the cause of our identity, then there is no darkness that can snuff out our ability to hear that true identity, that higher self that is animated by good and knows how to love.

I keep affirming that the only real intelligence is the intelligence coming from God; that the only real power is the power coming from Love; and that every single individual—whether it’s someone trying to find safety, someone trying to help those trying to find safety, or even someone who is trying to prevent people from feeling safe—each one has that capacity to hear Christ speaking to consciousness. Christ lets people think from the basis of intelligence and care and love, rather than fear and darkness and oppression.

Well, Scott, let me ask you one final question. For some, this may be a totally different idea of God or prayer from what they’ve heard before. Is it out of reach for people who are just hearing about it for the first time? 

Not at all. The actuality of God and the infinite, unlimited power of God’s goodness and of our true identity as children of God animated by Christ is true for everyone. If people stop and think about this enough, they will discover within their own heart a sense of “Yeah, that’s what I’ve always believed. I’ve always known that love is more who I am than anything else. I’ve always known that good is what defines life and makes it really worth living, and I am not powerless to experience that in my life.”

So it’s not something foreign to anyone. It’s what’s already there. I mean, if what we’re saying has any validity at all, it’s founded on the premise that Christ is speaking to human consciousness, and if we’ll listen for it, if we’ll then act on it, we’ll experience the power of it, and we’ll find new capacities to do and be good. Life will feel like what it’s meant to be. And that’s each of us being an expression of God, an expression of Love and Truth and Spirit.

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The Encinitas Christian Science Society is having a movie night this Friday, April 15th. The society will show the movie Luther at 7:00 pm in the Reading Room and there will be pop corn and drinks. Everyone is welcome.

Luther is a 2003 historical drama film dramatizing the life of Protestant Christian reformer Martin Luther. It is directed by Eric Till and stars Joseph Fiennes in the title role.

Plot:
The film begins during a thunderstorm in 1505, as Luther is returning to his home. For fear of losing his life in the storm, Luther commits his life to God and becomes an Augustinian monk.

Two years later, Luther is a monk at St. Augustine’s Monastery in Erfurt. During his time at the monastery, he is constantly troubled by viewing God as a God of hate and vengeance. Martin is encouraged by Johann von Staupitz, an elder monk who is his supervisor and mentor. Staupitz tells Luther to look to Christ instead of himself.

Later, Luther delivers a letter for Staupitz to Rome, where he becomes troubled by the wicked lifestyles of those in the city. He also views the skull believed to be that of John the Baptist and purchases an indulgence. It is during this time that Luther begins to question the veracity of indulgences. Returning to Germany, Luther is sent to Wittenberg, where he begins to teach his congregation that God is not a God of hate, but a God of love. Luther begins to emphasize the love of God instead of his judgment.

In 1514, Pope Leo X becomes the new Pope of the Church, and commissions Johann Tetzel to go throughout several communities, including Luther’s town, where he scares people into buying indulgences, which would be used to rebuild and renovate St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, and to recover the Hohenzollern bribes to the Holy See, advanced by Fugger, for the investiture of Archbishop Albert of Mainz and Magdeburg. In his church, Luther denounces the indulgences, calling them “just a piece of paper”. He then posts his 95 theses on the door of the church, calling for an open debate regarding the indulgences. For this act, Luther is called in 1518 to Augsburg, where he is questioned by Cardinal Cajetan among other church officials.

After his excommunication, Pope Leo X orders Luther to be delivered to Rome, but Prince-elector Frederick the Wise of Saxony becomes his protector. Frederick and Charles V decide that Luther will be tried at the Diet of Worms.

At Worms, Luther is brought before Charles V and the Cardinals for trial. The Cardinals demand for him to recant of his teachings, and Luther requests more time to give a decent answer, which is granted. The next day, Luther comes before Charles V and the Cardinals, who demand him to recant, and Luther refuses. After his trial at Worms, Luther is forced into hiding by Frederick the Wise who protects him by moving him into Wartburg Castle, while his former professor, Andreas Karlstadt, encourages the Great Peasants’ Revolt against the oppressive nobles. Luther, shocked by the revolts, encourages the princes to put them down. Meanwhile, Luther translates the Bible into German.

After Luther marries Katharina von Bora, a former nun, Charles V summons the evangelical Princes of the Holy Roman Empire to the Diet of Augsburg, so he can force them to outlaw Protestantism and the German Bible. The nobles refuse, and Charles is forced to allow the nobles to read their Augsburg Confession.

The film ends with the following words:

What happened at Augsburg pushed open the door of religious freedom. Martin Luther lived for another 16 years, preaching and teaching the Word. He and Katharina von Bora enjoyed a happy marriage and six children. Luther’s influence extended into economics, politics, education and music, and his translation of the Bible became a foundation stone of the German language.

Today over 540 million people worship in churches inspired by his Reformation.

Phone (760) 753 4545

912 S. Coast Hwy. 101, Encinitas, CA 92024

Driving Directions

If you would like to receive information from our Christian Science Society of Encinitas which includes notices about our events and services, please enter your email address to the right in the subscribe window.  It is free, and you will then be sent an email to confirm your subscription.

Come and join the Fun!

We need volunteers, Sunday school teachers, and or just come and be a part of the scene!

The Reading Room will be open from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM on Saturday and 10 AM to 4:00 PM on Sunday during the Encinitas Street Fair.  Parking is tight so it might be a good time to take the train!  Come by and say hi if you can.

We will have a hunt called “The God’s name game” in our Garden where the kids search for the seven synonyms for God.

 In our textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy she defines God in the glossary as:

God. The great I AM; the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-acting, all-wise, all-loving, and eternal; Principle; Mind; Soul; Spirit; Life; Truth; Love; all substance; intelligence.

So we place the names: Principle; Mind; Soul; Spirit; Life; Truth; Love around the garden to be found by the seekers.  Come by and join the fun and win a prize .

This game is based on ideas taught in a Christian Science Sunday school.  For more information about a Sunday School  click Here  .

 

A New View of God and its Effect on Well-being

Learn how divine Love
erases suffering from our lives
as naturally as
sunrise banishes night

You are invited to a Christian Science talk
by Phillip Hockley, C.S.

Listen to the introduction video above and
then sign-up below,

Saturday, March 19, 2022
11:00 a.m. Mountain Standard Time

Click here to sign up for the free webcast
(or to receive the recorded version later)

Click here to Facebook share with your friends

If accessing by phone
call: (312) 626-6799
then enter ID: 814 2892 9589

Sponsored by
First Church of Christ, Scientist, Tempe AZ.

LEARN TO PRAY AND HEAL
(A SPIRITUAL ADVENTURE)

Saturday, March 5, 2022

10:30 AM

One summer morning when I was school age, I was playing golf with three players who had retired from their jobs years before. They were happy to include me, and right from the start we were having fun together. After one player hit his tee shot, I pointed to where it had gone, and with a hint of wistfulness in his voice he commented admiringly on my “young eyes.”

It was the first time I really took note of how ingrained the concept is that pain, restriction, erosion of abilities, and so on are inevitable as time goes by. The belief that we are destined to live a life that ultimately goes downhill is so widespread—do we stand a chance at overcoming age-based limitations?

I’ve come to find that, yes, we certainly do. Maybe you’ve heard the saying, “One with God is a majority.” That certainly is encouraging. It hints at how we are effectively governed and defended by God. Christian Science teaches that God is without an adversary. God is the one and only legitimate power, authority, creator.

So, one with God isn’t just a majority; really, one with God is a monopoly. That is, the inherent oneness we all have with our divine Parent is a powerful foundation for experiencing goodness and strength in our lives.

When our heartfelt prayers are impelled not just by human hopes, but by an acknowledgment of our true, spiritual nature, then the power of God undergirds and is behind them.

That’s because God doesn’t actually see each of us as aging and limited mortals. The manner in which God, divine Spirit, has created us is not based in matter. God’s children, the reflection of divine Spirit, are gifted with ageless, entirely spiritual identities. Jesus stated, “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6).

And we don’t have to age or die in order to be spiritual. We have this status here in the present. Mary Baker Eddy asks an insightful question in her central work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: “Can there be any birth or death for man, the spiritual image and likeness of God?” (p. 206).

We each have the right to follow Jesus’ example and move beyond false beliefs (no matter how prevalent) about ourselves. Once even a little glimpse of our spiritual identity comes into view, we begin to recognize that there could be no aging process for what God has created.

The inherent oneness we all have with our divine Parent is a powerful foundation for experiencing goodness and strength in our lives.

And then we begin to experience victories over fear and limitations associated with aging—not because we’re trying hard to make this happen through willpower, but because our prayers are based in the goodness and rightness of God. When our heartfelt prayers are impelled not just by human hopes, but by an acknowledgment of our true, spiritual nature, then the power of God undergirds and is behind them.

The Sentinel and other Christian Science publications include many accounts of individuals who have experienced this firsthand. For instance, in “Our true selves—ageless and free,” a lifelong athlete shares how a better understanding of God’s nature, and of our nature as God’s spiritual offspring, freed him from painful symptoms he’d attributed to his age (see Bruce Butterfield, Sentinel, May 7, 2018).

Of course, much of what we see in the world around us would obscure the truth of our identity as ageless and spiritual. But it’s the spiritual fact for each one of us. We certainly could wait for everyone else to catch sight of this and then join them. Or, instead, we can humbly set our sights on this spiritual reality right now, and encourage others to, through our own prayerful efforts, based on God’s unchangeable truth, to live our inherent agelessness more freely.

As the Bible puts it, “God hath given to us eternal life” (I John 5:11). That’s a gift we each possess, and it never can be taken from any of us, God’s loved spiritual children.

You are invited to join us for our Sunday church service at the Reading Room in person or on zoom Sunday morning at 10 am PT. To let us know your coming, please email us at christiansciencenote@gmail.com and we can send a link to our meeting. We meet for an hour and then have an open discussion about the week’s Bible lesson and/or testimonies of healing and comments and questions about Christian Science. 

The Encinitas Reading Room is currently open by appointment only.

Phone (760) 753 4545

912 S. Coast Hwy. 101, Encinitas, CA 92024

Driving Directions

If you would like to receive information from our Christian Science Society of Encinitas which includes notices about our events and services, please enter your email address to the right in the subscribe window.  It is free, and you will then be sent an email to confirm your subscription.

E Pluribus unum, where have you seen this?  Well look no farther than your pocket, it is printed on our money and it is what our system of government is based upon and is it’s motto – Out of many, one.

Disturbing headlines about the state of the government in the US and other parts of the world can be paralyzing. But listen to this interview with Mark Sappenfield, Editor of The Christian Science Monitor, where he indicates that instead of being paralyzing, it can be galvanizing. What can an average citizen do to improve government? listen here to explore the possibilities.

Listen now

You are also invited to join us for our Sunday church service at the Reading Room this Sunday in person or on zoom at 10 am PT. To let us know your coming, please email us at christiansciencenote@gmail.com . We meet for an hour and then have an open discussion about the week’s Bible lesson and/or testimonies of healing and comments and questions about Christian Science. 

The Encinitas Reading Room is currently open by appointment only.

Phone (760) 753 4545

912 S. Coast Hwy. 101, Encinitas, CA 92024

Driving Directions

If you would like to receive information from our Christian Science Society of Encinitas which includes notices about our events and services, please enter your email address to the right in the subscribe window.  It is free, and you will then be sent an email to confirm your subscription.