 Posted Sunday, July 05, 2009 7:22 AM
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One of my relatives has let it slip that they are going to CS class instruction. I had been praying for her release from CS, so didnt expect this! Please pray that the Lord will change her mind about going.
Thank you,
Starfish
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Posted Sunday, July 05, 2009 7:31 AM
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Starfish,
I will pray that your relative's heart, eyes, and mind are opened to God's word. Taking Christian Science class instruction is not necessarily as bad as you may feel. As I have mentioned on this site occassionally, God used some aspects of my class instruction experience to other purposes.
Do Go Be Man
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Posted Sunday, July 05, 2009 8:59 AM
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| Starfish, I too will pray with you for your relative's spiritual well-being. Many of us here have been through class instruction, and we have found our way out of Christian Science and into more healthy and healthful spiritual environments. It is possible God will use this opportunity to open the eyes of your relative to His Truth in a very meaningful way.
I also pray that your relative has been careful about the selection of her teacher, as I know one who is not fit for instruction of any kind. The Christian Science church has not been careful enough in the certification of teachers (or practitioners), and has authorized at least one man with exceptionally bad moral character to teach CS to unsuspecting young men and women.
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Posted Monday, July 06, 2009 8:21 AM
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Starfish,
You and your relative have my prayers as well. I think Mere Kat said it very well.
Only God knows the bigger picture and where all of this all fits in to His Divine Plan, but everything we learn in CS can be used to help someone else get OUT of CS. Just hang-in-there and be a good Christ-like example to this person, knowing that a lot of us have lived with the same issue regarding many of our loved ones who are still hanging on to CS for dear life and getting deeper and deeper into it. Don't be too shy to share your own spiritual path with this person, as well as your insights and concerns with them in a non-judgmental way of course (you already knew that, I'm sure.)
I think we are all works in progress and as such God isn't finished with any one of us yet, and this person may be further along the trail in her inner sanctuary than anyone realizes and just has to go through with certain side trips (CS Class Instruction) before giving it all up and heading straight for the real thing! None of us knows the hearts and souls or the future of anyone else, so we just have to lighten up, study, think, pray, meditate, fast, share, give aid to the poor, visit those in prison, mentor at risk kids, help the widows ... those examples of true Christlike activities which is our Testimony and something that most CSers are never taught to do. We all have a lot of work ahead of us!
I believe that God works through people, so stay connected and keep sharing; it helps if you allow it ...
no more CS4me
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Posted Monday, July 06, 2009 11:33 AM
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I agree with many of the posters on this issue. Although you often come home on a kind of "high" after class instruction, I found over time that my doubts actually more or less were started during class. There were anomalies and unexplained issues that came up and were not resolved. I mean, I had assumed that all those mysterious understandings (like how come we live in physical bodies if we're spiritual and matter does not exist) would be clarified once I was one of the "elite", the initiated, the class-taught. But it wasn't like that. It was cool to spend two weeks with like-minded people talking about CS all day long, but I didn't really learn anything new. I mean, really, nothing I hadn't heard before. And some of the things that happened were actually rather disturbing.
There was a woman and her husband who were signed up for the class. Three days before class started, the husband died suddenly (they were only a few years older than I was, probably still in their 20's.) The wife came anyway, "healed" of her grief. Even then, fresh out of Principia and only 23 years old, I knew better than that. First comes shock. Then denial. Then later, the other stages of grief. You can't escape it. I saw my aunt go through it. Her husband died while she was in the middle of class instruction. She finished out the two weeks, persuaded to do so by her teacher -- while my grandparents had to come get my orphaned cousins (6 and 9), who had discovered their father's dead body in the bathroom, and now their mother wasn't even coming home to be with them. So that very disturbing issue obviously stayed with me -- that, and the fact that when the new widow in my own class told her story, the whole class and the teacher were very approving of her "complete healing".
And our teacher hammered home the "sex for procreation only" issue, which I and my friends had taken quite lightly before this. I began to feel guilty, as I was engaged to be married.
So class is not necessarily to be avoided at all costs -- it can start the questioning process.
Ann
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Posted Monday, July 06, 2009 4:44 PM
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I can only give you my own perspective and experience on Class Instruction in the CS Church today. The CS taught today is so watered down, I don’t think your relative will get much out from it. It would be interesting to know who the teacher is. Most of the teachers, including those on the Board of Directors, are not good. People in my class were very concerned about who they selected for a teacher because of this dearth.
I felt I had a very good teacher, but I got no more from Class Instruction than reading the chapter in S&H on “Christian Science Practice.” The teachers don’t even demand that you come to Association Meetings. I know I skipped a lot of them.
What I never liked about Class Instruction and Association meetings is how so many people acted like they were “reunions.” They would get together before or after and make it a real social event with dinners and other things. Then and now there’s a lot of cliquishness in the movement. It’s sort of like a country club.
And, let me not forget the families who would come and sit together at Association--Grandma, mom and dad, the kids, and grandkids. Whew! I’m so glad I don’t have to deal with that anymore.
  
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Posted Tuesday, July 07, 2009 8:26 AM
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I'd have to agree with you on the assessment of teachers. My teacher is on the Board of Directors now, and I am very disturbed by some of the attitudes he has displayed over the years.
Ann
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Posted Tuesday, July 07, 2009 8:43 AM
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Thanks so very much for your prayers and replies - they have been so helpful.
I have no idea who her teacher is - I think she probably regretted even mentioning that she was going to class, especially to a lapsed CSer like me!
Starfish
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Posted Tuesday, July 07, 2009 2:54 PM
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Anonymous (7/7/2009)
Thanks so very much for your prayers and replies - they have been so helpful.
I have no idea who her teacher is - I think she probably regretted even mentioning that she was going to class, especially to a lapsed CSer like me!
Starfish
I remember that you're not supposed to tell anyone you're going to class instruction. In fact, my grandfather told my father to tell him when I went, so he could pay for it, but I didn't tell anyone because of that requirement. So I ended up going into debt to pay for it, never knowing until years later that my grandfather would have helped out, had I been allowed to tell him!
It's just silly.
Ann
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Posted Tuesday, July 07, 2009 10:01 PM
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I am glad that this thread has been of some help to Starfish. We are all there rooting for you, with the warmest of hearts, the best of prayers and good suggestions and ideas.
But as for me, I can barely get past Ann's story about the deaths of spouses just before the students went for Class! What a horrible thing for a young girl to go through, Ann. I am sorry for tribulations you have gone through at the hand of CS. Your contributions here are valuable, if that is any consolation.
Deaths of spouses before Class Instructions seems really sinister to me, like maybe a sign from the Universe??? And very disturbing about the quick recovery from grief. That's another CS thing that really gets me. If I hadn't had family death experience and "quick recovery" from grief syndrome in my own family I would think that all of these stories were just fiction from some kind of Alfred Hitchcock movie. Really. To us it is just the way things were, but reading other people's stories one after another on these posts, it begins to add up to be extremely suspicious, macabre and creepy.
My sister, a CS practitioner, got married at around age 45 to a good devout nice CS guy 7 years younger than she. They stayed married for over twenty years, more a testimony of his weakness than anything like being a warm, happy relationship. My sister boasted quite frequently saying "I'm the healer in the family!" and after 2 decades her then 57 year old husband got some lingering sickness, started turning pale and weak, ended up in the back bedroom for months, no discussion about it, no visitors and he finally died with only her in the house. How could you sit and pray at your husband's side and watch him waste away and not try anything extreme to save his precious life???? Ugh. So much for 4 months of trying to heal one's husband! .... Same week our dear mother had her eye removed due to unattended eye infection which my sister was also "treating through CS prayer." My sister the practitioner was too full of grief to come to cook and clean for Mother (her home was a 1 1/2 hour drive from mom's), so I gave up my job and drove 2 thousand miles to mom's house to take care of mom who was on death's doorstep due to SEVERAL YEARS of malnutrition and weakness....It was really pathetic. Sister had not visited mom for over 2 years, being mad about something. And after mom's surgery she never visited her for 5 months, claiming grief and probate/legal,/financial messes that kept her away. Ha. When she did finally visit, she came with a new husband, who moved right in to the same house, same bedroom, etc etc as the old husband had occupied just 5 months earlier! I mean the deceased husband's shoes were still under the bed and the clothes still in the dresser!
CS sicknesses and deaths simply creep me out! To this day I can't figure these CS people out. Things about love for one's very elderly mother, insisting that our Mother was doing FINE when the truth came out that sister, a holier-than-thou CSist hadn't even seen our Mother for over two years, but treating Mom's eye infection in absentia even though she was mad at Mother. (It was my CS nephew who was also "Treating" mom who told my sister about mom's problems, but both of them telling me over the phone that Mom was doing so well. I'd like to press charges against these lying people, except they are damaged so badly inside of themselves that I would never want to add to their hurt. Mother died recently so they can't hurt her any more.... I stayed and cared for my mother for almost 2 years and I was blamed for every thing that went wrong with her health so I bailed out before I ended in the hospital with a stroke or heart attack.
That was just 2 years ago. I haven't recovered from the devastating family sagas yet. If this was just an isolated story, I'd say, every religion has it's big failures, but CS has far too many freaky stories per person. Warning people by telling our stories is important. Thank you for sharing yours.
Anyway, gotta calm myself down from all these flashbacks. It would be nice if you remembered me also in your prayers tonight. I could sure use them right now.
Thanks everyone,
no moreCS4me
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