 Posted Thursday, October 29, 2009 9:21 AM
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1) Good point Do Good.
2) Several posts up, there was reference to what the CS Youth are doing. I'm always curious, how many CS Youth are there really? I mean, you'll get the occasional Rabbi support, etc etc. But seriously, the "meat" of the movement is the youth. And I'm not seeing youth. Where are they? Maybe just not around the CS churches where I live. How many are there? I've read 2000 max under 18. Is that even possible?
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Posted Thursday, October 29, 2009 10:04 AM
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"Anonymous" (04/29, above, "Joy!!")
That's a great and insightful post up above. Missed it last Spring and read it just now.
Moving on, Kaballah is an occultic/mystic belief system that originated in the Middle Ages, although (like many other mystic systems) it claims a more ancient, pre-Christian beginning. People are attracted to these NewAge belief systems for various reasons, and it's fascinating that CS finds a compatibility with it. Paging Ginny Harris!
Forum readers who would like to know more can go to:
http://www.apologeticsindex.org/k03.html
A good site, worth bookmarking.
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Posted Thursday, October 29, 2009 11:04 AM
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followingHim (10/29/2009)
"Anonymous" (04/29, above, "Joy!!")
Forum readers who would like to know more can go to:
http://www.apologeticsindex.org/k03.html
A good site, worth bookmarking.
I went to that site, and did a search on Christian Science, and a page came up that included an ad by a practitioner I went to Principia with! I've been out of the church for so long that it looks weird to me to see web sites of CS practitioners. Interesting.
Ann
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Posted Friday, October 30, 2009 5:50 AM
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Anonymous above, asks:
I'm always curious, how many CS Youth are there really? I mean, you'll get the occasional Rabbi support, etc etc. But seriously, the "meat" of the movement is the youth. And I'm not seeing youth. Where are they?
You don't see them, Anonymous, because they aren't there! A statistic I encountered, perhaps ten years ago (and I could not possibly cite, now) stated that CS --at 33%--had the 2nd lowest retention of children who followed their parents' denomination into adulthood. (The lowest was Unitarian-Universalism, at 31%.) When you consider CS is dealing with a measly 33% retention of an already very low birth rate, and factor in a virtual absence of evangelism, well you have powerful negative growth.
So visit a CS church and look at the gray heads scattered around the large edifice.
Ann-I searched CS at apologeticsindex.org, and no pro-CS ads came up. It's just the way google's ad matching happened to match your search. Ironic, and a bit weird, huh?
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Posted Friday, October 30, 2009 6:01 AM
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I've been out of CS for years (Prin College grad), but I still track church issues. Here's a link to a "next-generation" CS church in the St. Louis area. While there is a traditional service, there's another, more casual one on Sundays, too. It's an attempt to attract younger people.
http://nextgencsfellowship.com/index.html
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Posted Friday, October 30, 2009 6:01 AM
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The question about the number of youth in CS reminded me of my husbands church. I recently noticed a flyer that told who the children and teachers were at various grade levels in his CS Church. The church had 15 children in total from newborns to freshman in college. Of those children, 14 were in grades 6 or higher, only 1 was younger.
I don't know how this church will ever survive especially if only 33% are remaining members of CS and all the grayhairs are passing on. I don't imagine the church will be around another 10 years.
Happy and Healthy
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Posted Friday, October 30, 2009 3:11 PM
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Here is some interesting info from childrenshealthcare.org:
"The church will not disclose how many members they have,but they have to disclose circulation figures for their literature because of the class of postage they use.
This month the church mailed 22,979 copies of the CS Sentinel throughout the entire world.
While many members of mainstream denominations do not subscribe to their church's periodicals,CS founder Mary Baker Eddy ordered her followers to subscribe to and read the church's periodicals and members take Eddy's commands very seriously.
We think it's likely that there are fewer than 50,000 Christian Scientists in the world."
childrenshealthcare.org just this week sent a petition to the House of Reps to remove the mandate to reimburse religious and spiritual health care from the House bill.
The petition was a success!
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Posted Friday, October 30, 2009 6:27 PM
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1) Thank you, Happy and Healthy. Your spouse has a "huge" pop. of children in his church. The one nearby that my spouse attends has 2-3. In addition, my in-laws are attending memorial services left and right this year. I know they write a ridiculously large check each Sunday as they and their smaller and smaller group are maintaining a way too big church and also a reading room.
2) Good for Children's Healthcare! I think the tide is turning on CS's influence. That is the best news I've heard all day.
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Posted Friday, October 30, 2009 6:31 PM
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One more post. I'm the same Anonymous that posted requesting an idea of number of CS children left. Besides Healthy and Happy, could 5 or so others quickly post a number here?
Usually tough and pragmatic, I've always had this heart string tug for the children of CS. Have this desire to know how many more are being brainwashed and tortured. One sentence would suffice, how many children under 18 at their/their spouse's local CS church? I'm doing a quick straw poll. We could very roughly and unscientifically extrapolate a number based on total number of churches.
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Posted Friday, October 30, 2009 6:40 PM
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I've attended a Christian Science Sunday School with perhaps hundreds of students. Of course, that was at the Church Center during an international conference. Would be interesting to compare the current total Sunday School or Christian Science College Organizations populations to those attending Christian Science College Organization Biennials at their peak.
Do Go Be Man
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