 Posted Monday, September 03, 2007 11:55 AM
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Dear Members of the "Christian Way" Church..
I am Isabella from Germany and i found your website on the internet and am i pretty much asking myself how you can refuse the principle of Christian Science if it proves itself day by day? I mean, in the past three months i've been healed by the praying of my mother once and twice by praying myself. I was seriously ill and i should have gone to hospital, but as i truly used the given structure for praying by "Science and Health" i gained a understanding that healed me and left nothing back but health and comfort and joy. I am not an idiot and i am a very critical person, but i simply have to admit that this is the truth about life. It all makes sense, there is no mistake in it, and once tried, it is proven. It is so easy and so refreshing to work with Christian Science.
I understand the jokes about it though, because I, myself, am not very friendly with all the many cults and different churches and believes. But as you think about it logically they all have somewhere a mistake, a finish, because they dont know answers to the further questions. Thats why people mistrust the believes and prefer to care for their health by reliable material medicine. The mistake is, that people don't even try to gain a more spiritual understanding and test Christian Science. But every human being will find out, as we are all included in Spirit, that CS leads far on, it leads to an understanding of God and His creation. I am working with Christian Science for some years now, and i could answer questions or lead ways to solve issues in any situation, because there are ways to reach happiness and complete health through prayer.
I dont understand your way of thinking and your problems with CS, and i'd be thankful for answers, so we could discuss the issues and maybe solve them, also maybe privately: i_hansche@hotmail.de
Sincerely,
Isabella R.
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Posted Monday, September 03, 2007 12:37 PM
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| Isabella R., Welcome to the Christian Way forums. Thank you for your openness to seeking answers. Dear Members of the "Christian Way" Church..
Christian Way is not a church. We are former and current CSists who work together to better understand our common backgrounds in CS. ...how you can refuse the principle of Christian Science if it proves itself day by day?
The former CSists on these forums found that CS ultimately did not prove itself in spite of many decades of study and experience. Those of us who found and were found by the real Jesus Christ, found that He does prove Himself every day. The mistake is, that people don't even try to gain a more spiritual understanding and test Christian Science.
Please pardon my apparent impatience. Nearly every CSist who finds this site claims that the former CSists here did not ever have or somehow lost our understanding of CS. As I recently wrote, none have ever addressed the fact that many of us were class taught, studied CS for decades, some were CS Journal-listed practitioners, some were recognized at the highest levels of the church to have an understanding of CS worth passing on. We tried and gained an understanding of CS that ultimately failed to meet the tests of compliance with God's word and practical application. Do Go Be Man
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Posted Monday, September 03, 2007 3:26 PM
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| Hi Isabella. I understand your dismay. I myself use to feel the same way. The unfortunate thing is that by the time you realize that CS is not the "Comforter" it is usually too late. If you read many of these posts, you will see that many of us have lost loved ones who were life long, devoted and loving Christian Scientists. Many suffered terrible pain and died agonizing deaths....all the while holding to their "truths". The tragedy is that who knows how many would be alive today if they had paid attention to their bodies (which we know is not in accord with Christian Science) and had heeded warning signs of disease. One cannot watch these terrible deaths and think..."my, this must be the promise contained in Science and Health!" Furthermore, too many of the "healings" people think they have can only be a remission and resurface with vengence later. The majority of the healings are not medically diagnosed so there is no real way of knowing WHAT the condition truly was. Christian Science is not the only religion that has healing and beautifully answered prayers, although its teachings tend to lead one to believe there is no other answer. One of the most liberating feelings about leaving CS is to realize that it is ok to be in our bodies, on this beautiful earth, and to be free to feel and think AS WE CHOOSE. To think that everything that happens is a result of your thoughts will eventually lead many to unstability. While there is some truth to keeping thoughts pure, you do not have to "THINK" your wholeself out of existence. WE ARE NOT ILLUSIONS! God knew what he was doing and has not made any mistakes by creating me in the form I now appear. We have lessons to learn in this mortal existence and to spend your life trying to "overcome" the belief is a waste of this experience....with all the bad and good. Jesus also knew what he was doing and did not need MBE to improve, clarify, modify, or change any of his life's work. Please read the stories on this website. Do not be afraid to look. Any truly intelligent study involves looking at all points of view and not being afraid anything contrary would be animal magnetism, error, mortal mind or any of the other "scarey" things that keeps Christian Scientists in their blinders. Reasoned, informed decisions are far better than being ruled by the fear of discovering what you don't want to believe or that something bad will happen to you if you dare question or look.
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Posted Wednesday, September 05, 2007 7:05 AM
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Hello.
Thanks for your responses.
I really feel sorry for those who have lost loved ones by restraining from using medicing or seeing doctors. They have my true compassion.
I am old and conscient enough to decide on how to pray to God.
And I am also convinced that this is a thought that we all share: That God is true and always present, there to help us and there to love us all the time. I'm sure that nobody on this discussion board wouldn't have faith in that. And isn't that a great gift, to know that there is a God and that He is good? Do we need to know more at the moment? I am very grateful that the Scriptures could assure me of those facts, because it makes me feel good and helps me in many cases.
So many people share this one thought, and they may give their believe different names and it may differ in particular point of views, but this is the main thing that we all can feel and notice in our every day life.
I don't want to dispute with anyone here, because everybody has his own way to go.
All I wanted to do is to disclose that I have never been disappointed when I prayed about certain things missing in my life (be it health, sense of well-being, lack of money, lack of love or any other deficit) and maybe I could share some thoughts about God in here.
But I am not willing to have an argue between "two different religions" because I don't see that difference on the whole.
Isabella
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Posted Friday, July 25, 2008 1:52 PM
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I was heavily into CS during my younger days. I went to Sunday and Wednesday serviced, served on committees, relied on CS for healing; i.e., the whole works, for lack of better word. I never observed a healing in many years in my own family, as I grew up.
I liberated myself from it by suddenly ceasing to go to the services anymore. I'll have to admit that I led a double-life for a while, after I first thought about how CS wasn't working. I was going to doctors, and never told anybody about that, and I made up excuses for not participating at church anymore. At last, people stopped sending me letters about it being my duty to come back.
I knew of the many failures of CS to heal helpless children, trapped with parents who thought CS was more important than their own children. What kind of parent chooses to let their children languish in pain, when simple everyday medical cures would relieve the problem? I think, whether the parent knows it or not, he, she, or they, are quite satisfied to watch their children suffer when the evidence is overwhelming that CS has failed them. It makes me ponder how an adult's mind can be so manipulated, as to go against everything a parent should do to protect their own child. Protecting a child is innate, and even the most primitive person will instinctively do that. If that logic is accepted, then can a CS parent fall below that level of primitivity? Or, are they like a missle that has taken in incorrect data, which makes that missle spin out of control. I think it is the latter, but how far away from the former is that latter state of being?
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Posted Friday, July 25, 2008 6:38 PM
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| Hello Isabella, I have never been a CSist but I did marry one. When I met her she was a Baptist like me and she has just recently rejected the teachings of orthodox Christianity and returned to CS. I have learned alot about CS and its teachings and it could not be further from orthodox Christianity. I have not been a Christian my whole life. I personally experienced an unexplained healing when a massive bump on my right arm grew over a period of three days suddenly went away while I watched. I was about ten years old at the time I didn't attend any church and the last place I would have looked was God. He may have been the source or maybe it was just my body doing what it was designed to do but either way I have no medical proof of what it was or why it appeared and went away. I have also seen many healings in New Age metaphysics as well as disaplines such as reflexology aromatherapy and acupuncture but that doesn't mean I'm willing to surrender my faith in Christ Jesus to find a way to twist scriptures and make any of them a Biblical science. God made His Word simple so that we could understand the basic principals as a child would. We shouldn't and don't have to dig under rocks to locate simple Biblical Truths such as found in John 1:1 (The Word God Became Flesh vs. 14). I don't have to understand how He does it just that it is so, I do however believe that one should seek the answer as to how even if we conclude that we could never do this ourselves. If the Bible offers us the answer we should accept it and stand corrected if we are wrong. Every one does have their own way to go but the Bible says that there is only one way to God, in John 14:6 Jesus says "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me". He is not just a guide that was sent here to be "The Way Shower" but the only path to God the Father. May God Bless you Swingdancer
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Posted Friday, July 25, 2008 9:23 PM
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It seems to me that many of you posting here think CS endorses letting people suffer. Based on my experience I feel strongly this is just not true, however. I have been CS for 50 years and my parents, who are in their 80s have been in CS their whole adult lives, and we have always used CS because it prevents us from suffering. Many times when I was growing up I was healed much more quickly through CS treatment than I could have been through medical means and this, of course, meant that I did not suffer in the same way that most of my friends had to. When my friend broke her arm she was in a lot of pain and had to go through an even more painful and difficult bone setting at the hospital. Afterwards she was still in pain which gradually lessened over the next week or two, but even after the pain left, she still had to wear a cast for half the summer when it was hot and itchy and uncomfortable and she couldn’t go swimming. I had two fingers that seemed to be broken when I jumped off the school swings and landed on them (the school nurse also told me they were broken, although I did not have them x-rayed). They were healed after about 10 minutes of praying. My parents would not have left me to suffer if they had not been quickly healed, though. In fact, they asked me as soon as I got home (I think I was between 8 and 10 years old) if I wanted to go to the hospital right away or if I wanted to work with them to “know the truth” about it. I am sure if the fingers had not been quickly healed my parents would have taken me to a doctor to see what could have been done, but it wasn’t necessary and all my suffering was relieved almost instantly because of the CS treatment.
I remember only two times when problems did not seem to be responding to prayer during my childhood, one time for my brother and another time for my sister, and in both cases my parents took my siblings to a doctor to see if they could be helped that way (because, just like other people, they did not want their kids to suffer). In my brother’s case, the doctor prescribed some antibiotics that my brother had a violent reaction to, and he ended up having to be hospitalized because of that. It took several days for him to recover from that, which made me think his suffering was increased because of the medical intervention, not decreased. In my sister’s case, they told her she needed an operation and that this still might not solve the problem, and it might even result in having to amputate one of her limbs, so she decided to work some more with a practitioner, and she eventually got her complete healing though it took a little longer (that was thirty-some years ago,, so I don’t think we have to worry about it resurfacing either). Somewhat more recently, when my daughter was about 5 years old and I took her to the dentist to have her teeth cleaned for the first time, the dentist noticed a growth under her tongue. He said we should have it removed because it would only get bigger, but I had always had good results from prayer so I decided to pray about it instead. It did not get healed right away, though, and it did get bigger, and when it got big enough that others started to notice it, my husband and I decided to go ahead and get it removed (even though it wasn’t causing any pain). When she got it removed it wasn’t a huge deal, but the anesthesia did make her sick to her stomach afterward, and she had a big hole in her mouth for a week or two so she had to rinse with something and couldn’t eat solid foods for a while, and she was uncomfortable afterwards until it healed up. But we were pretty upset when afterward the oral surgeon told us that while they had removed the growth, they could not prevent it from recurring, so that we would have to come back again and again. The next time I saw another growth I asked my daughter what she wanted to do and (not surprisingly I guess) she said she wanted to pray about it. This time it was healed in a day or two with no pain or suffering, and it never recurred after that. That was 20 years ago.
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Posted Friday, July 25, 2008 9:27 PM
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Please let me add that I realize some (or maybe all) of you have seen some bad abuse in the name of CS, and that you have seen failures of CS to heal. But Mrs. Eddy worked hard to provide CS for the world so that suffering would be reduced, not increased. She expected CS healers to heal quickly and effectively and certainly did so herself all the time. She did not recommend that people go to doctors, of course, but that’s because she didn’t expect doctors to be able to relieve suffering. She expected CS to do that, and for her, it always did. I don’t understand why someone who has studied CS, has been class taught, and has even been journal-listed would find CS doesn’t work because I have always found that it works better and faster than anything else. But for someone who is not finding healing from it, I think even Mrs. Eddy would say that it is not in line with the teachings of CS that people should be made to just sit and suffer.
One more thing I want to say is that, like other CS people who have posted on this discussion board, my heart goes out to those of you who have lost loved ones and who have had to watch loved ones suffer. I don’t think that is right or that this should have happened to you any more than you do. I wish I could explain why such awful things could have come to pass, or, better yet, know of some way to make things better, but I simply don’t. In my family, though, it has been the non-CS people who have suffered much and died early deaths, not the Scientists. In my extended family my parents are the only couple in their generation who have not lost a spouse or child to cancer or heart disease. Of those in my generation, I have one cousin who died of AIDS, another cousin who has multiple sclerosis, another whose wife has chronic fatigue syndrome, another with cancer, and one more whose husband died of a heart attack. They are all non-CS. There have been cases of diabetes and miscarriages and many other things that aren’t necessarily life threatening, but my brother and sisters and I and our spouses and our kids (all the CS relatives) are fine. My parents are too, and they are living in their own home where my mom keeps house and my dad does the lawn and shovels the snow in the winter, and they are still active in their communities (my dad is working fulltime and not because he has to but because he wants to). My non-CS grandfathers both died of heart attacks in their forties, on the other hand, and my non-CS grandma was sick and in and out of hospitals for a year when she finally died at age 70 from complications caused by exploratory surgery which still did not help them figure out what was wrong with her. My CS grandma, though, lived in her own home by herself into her 90s and was only sick for 3 weeks before she passed on quietly in her sleep. So even though your experiences cause you to believe that CS doesn’t work and makes people suffer, my experience leads me in completely the opposite direction. I know there are other people who have had experiences like me because some of them are friends of mine, and I believe CS has lasted as long as it has because there have been many more like us too. While I understand that CS doesn’t seem to be an answer for you, I wish that you could at least consider the possibility that CS has done good things for some people and not keep trying to destroy it for those of us who wouldn’t be alive today without it.
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Posted Saturday, July 26, 2008 7:20 AM
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| Glad to hear you've had such a good experience with CS, Anonymous. I see why you support it so strongly. I loved CS but left when I discovered that Mrs. Eddy's spiritualized definitions for words actually contradict (not illuminate) their original meanings, so the healing issue was secondary for me in my decision. She expected CS healers to heal quickly and effectively and certainly did so herself all the time. Can't let you get away with this. Mrs. Eddy had at least one recurring health problem during her later years and sometimes required morphine for relief. She also had members of her staff hold "watches" for her as she slept because she often had problems at night, and she held them responsible if she had a bad night (for example, see Dickey's Memoris of Mary Baker Eddy).This indicates that she did not heal "quickly and effectively...all the time." I'm not trying to bash Mrs. Eddy here -- just to set the record straight.
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Posted Saturday, July 26, 2008 9:54 AM
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Thanks for posting my comments, Linda, and for such a kind response. About Mrs. Eddy healing quickly and effectively “all the time,” well, yes, you are right, but that is one of those phrases people commonly use to mean “again and again” or “very, very often” (see http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/all+the+time), and that is what I was really trying to say. But I understand why you would want to clarify.
I appreciate, too, that you (and many others here and elsewhere) believe Mrs. Eddy’s interpretation of the Bible is problematic (at best). For me, though, it’s the traditional Christian view that causes me problems. I’ve read what people have posted about doctrinal issues on this site and have truly tried to consider your views with an open mind, but I just can’t see the logic in it, nor does inspiration lead me to have faith without understanding as sometimes seems to be required. Still, I do recognize that I can only decide what is right for me, and that everyone else must do the same.
Thanks again for posting my comments. Your doing so has allowed me to better understand and respect what you are trying to do here with this site.
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