 Posted Tuesday, August 02, 2005 11:48 AM
|
|
|
|
| Square Peg, would you email me personally at rubyndora-junk@yahoo.com? I want to ask you about the death of the relatively young friend of yours.
|
|
|
Posted Tuesday, August 02, 2005 8:21 PM
|
|
|
|
Ive been reading this thread thru again...thanks everyone, for your comments. Thought I'd reply to a few things.
Confused Wife....we have much in common. I know how you feel. I finally stopped going to church with the family too. Took a lot of gumption to do it too.
Jean...you mentioned the "rush and awe of gratitude". My husbands mother was constantly reminding him that she prayed for him daily and has been since the day he was born. She also often reminded him of the difficulty of his birth. *sigh* I saw this kind of talk as manipulation...and I must say it really worked for her. She achieved a position just shy of Eddy in her family. Im sure they all felt this "awe and gratitude" towards her...because they surely would not be still alive without her. This is maybe why people find themselves "worshiping" their teachers and practitioners. Now I know this is not how it is SUPPOSED to work...but it seems to BE that way...SOMETIMES.
I DO agree with you about adult CSers having the right to suffer and die if they chose it. I believe this about my friend. Radical reliance was his choice. BUT, I DO find myself very angry with the people who perpetuate the myth of healing....who cause this to happen....and in the long run its all CSers. Some to a larger degree than others. Ummm am thinking that would make another thread...the specific things that perpetuate the myth of healing.
Im vague now about the legal specifics of the case against the Twitchells and the Swans. But, I DO know that one of the shocking things about the Swans was how much and how long that baby suffered, especially in light of the fact that Mrs. Swan herself sought out medical care for herself for a painful condition. Mainstream America cant help but be shocked at what happened to this child. Only people closed up in the CS community can think this is normal and loving behavior. This is a great country, and I believe we try to tolerate wierdness whenever possible. But there is a point where a human being must draw the line, and so the courts. I could allow my friend the adult to kill himself for his religion, but if it had been his child I would have called the police if necessary...undoubtedly losing my lifelong friends. Sooo... yes, let people try to cure through prayer...let people go without immunizations, but it does not follow that we should stand by and see children suffer. Again, this is CULTISH...to be SO blinded by a religion that you can watch your own child suffer and die. Who wouldnt go to the ends of the earth to relieve the suffering of their child? Well, we know who.
Yeah, I know what you mean by no casual Csers. Yes, maybe you are right about Jews turning Catholic. Judiasm is another religion that can be more of a lifestyle... like CS.
I just seems like, with most religions, people grow to adulthood and practice to a lesser or greater degree the religion their parents introduced them to... or end up going to another church when the get married and its no big deal. With CS its like being in a box you cant get out of. I cant IMAGINE my husband ever giving up CS.
|
|
|
Posted Wednesday, August 03, 2005 6:10 AM
|
|
|
|
the specific things that perpetuate the myth of healing.
Square Peg,
Some possible explanations for CS healings are discussed in the last question of the Q&A section on CS on the Christian Way web site (the question is entitled: "If a Christian Scientist gets well after treating a problem with Christian Science prayer, doesn’t that prove that Christian Science is a spiritually scientific system of healing?")
Regarding why many CSists will allow themselves to die under CS care when they are obviously not getting a healing: You might get some insight into this by reading the case history of Suzanne Buckingham in my article, "Christian Science: Attempting a Comeback." I was in touch with Suzanne's daughter throughout the worst of Suzanne's dying process, and it would have been unbelieveable to me if I hadn't previously talked with several other people who had watched loved ones suffer terribly -- or suffered terribly themselves -- under CS treatment. What made Suzanne's case unusual was that her daughter tried to get CS Church officials to intervene. It was a unique look at the CS Church in action (or inaction). Near the end of my discussion of Suzanne's case, I make the following comment regarding Suzanne's decision to hang onto CS to the end:
"Suzanne Buckingham “could” have sought medical treatment. But as a mature and dedicated believer, could she really choose the medical option? She was sure that Christian Science could heal her if only she understood it well enough. She believed that her practitioner could help her achieve the required level of understanding. She knew that going to a doctor would damage her spiritual life and deprive her of any Christian Science care. And she had been taught to deny the physical evidence in front of her and to emotionally minimize her physical situation. No, Suzanne could not go to a doctor; she was trapped in an emotional and spiritual box that prevented her from considering any care other than Christian Science treatment."
|
|
|
Posted Wednesday, August 03, 2005 5:02 PM
|
|
|
|
Square Peg, you hit the nail on the head (only slight pun intended) with this sentence in your last post:
<< Only people closed up in the CS community can think this is normal and loving behavior. >>
What people are most closed up in the CS community? People like me who were raised in it and multi-generational in it! Linda's post captures it so well, we are (or in the case of ex-ers, were) stuck in that box, and cannot see outside it.
Second sentence that hit home:
<< Who wouldnt go to the ends of the earth to relieve the suffering of their child? >>
Well, inside that box, where you believe that if you don't rely on CS, you are giving up your best chance at genuine healing, that's what you think you are doing... avoiding the temptation to try something that you've been taught your whole life doesn't really work anyway (medicine)! This is of course from my own perspective, but I have to believe that Mrs. Swan was under severe internal pressure to use CS for her child in part because she failed to do so for herself! As astonishing as that may sound to you, inside those warped walls of the believers, she probably was blaming herself for her own abandonment of CS, and trying to do better by her child.
By "submitting to community opinion / pressure", i.e. taking my son to a doctor to try to get a diagnosis I felt I was under an extreme cone of silence within the CS movement. Why? Because what I was doing was not in accord with how I was raised or what I was taught! If I would say anything to my fellow CSists, I would be giving a voice to error, making it real, and harming their ability to "keep their thought clear." It's pretty weird, now, looking back 3 plus years, to see how stuck I was. I was a "failure" in my own mind, for not being able to heal him myself, and I was a bad CS mother because he was not a believer.
What was really bad, though, was that I was relieved that CS did not take with my son. I had a sense of guilty joy that he would not be stuck in the same mental maze that I was in! Only as I began to acknowledge how much I was being helped by non-CS therapy was I able to admit to myself that I had ceased believing, probably 10 years earlier, and been going through the motions, in denial of my own feelings (what? You don't believe CS can heal X? You must correct your thought, my dear!)
Now it looks so clear that I was numbed and in denial, but from inside that box, as Linda notes, it just is not that easy.
I've really enjoyed your posts, Square Peg, and I'm sorry you are having to deal with these issues... but glad you found this forum in which to vent, discuss, resolve, and find support!
- Jean W.
|
|
|
Posted Wednesday, August 03, 2005 5:16 PM
|
|
|
|
Linda,
I think Suzanne Buckingham's illness and death is very tragic, and have felt bad about it from the first time I read your article on CS attempting a comeback. You quote a paragraph in this thread in which you essentially describe Suzanne's mind-set as a Christian Scientist, and I fell sure that that there are Christian Scientists out there with that mind -set. However, what you describe as her mind-set seems very foreign to me. I don't feel that I think that way, and at the same time, I feel that I am doing my best to follow Mrs. Eddy's teachings.
tmcl
|
|
|
Posted Wednesday, August 03, 2005 7:34 PM
|
|
|
|
what you describe as her mind-set seems very foreign to me.
tmcl,
I'm truly glad for you. You seem immune to what I have seen in so many current and former Christian Scientists from literally all over the country.
|
|
|
Posted Wednesday, August 03, 2005 8:05 PM
|
|
|
|
Jean, tmcl, Linda, everyone....
I always feel badly after making a post, because I go from a calm and thoughtful question to a rant. So many memories of unsavory or unintelligent CS behavior get dredged up from the past. I know all of you are or were CS and have families that are or were and I dont mean to attack you for who you are or who you were. You have ALL been so kind and loving in your replies. I just want to hug you all when I read the things you say. Especially you tmcl, because it must be really hard for you to read all this. *chuckle* Its much more typical of a Cser to grab the mute button and not listen to anything that might influence them to some sort of error eh? So you are a real crusader for being here. I have read all of what you have said with much interest. Thank you! And thank you all so much for listening. Its really helping me to talk, to get it out.
This is what is puzzling to me...that we have basically good people here who are stuck in this box and making bad decisions...silly decisions by anyone's standards, but sadly, deadly decisions too. Thats why I have decided CS is a cult. The people who followed Jim Jones werent bad people. They were in a box too, they couldnt think for themselves. Its like pack behavior. Things people wont do on their own, but as part of a pack they act in abnormal ways...taking cues from others in the pack..acting abnormally.
I have lots of compassion for Mrs. Swan. I love a lot of people who are CSers. They are good and kind people. But there is just SOMETHING about this religion that puts people in that close minded place and wont let them think like a normal person. SO much pressure to behave. I remember that when we would call my husbands parents once a week, after we were married...for as long as we were married, he would always be sure to tell them that he went to church. Like...Ive been a good boy this week. Just odd ...
Heres another story....
My poor practitioner mother in law...the walking talking Christian Scientist, after all the years of criticizing me for going to doctors and treating me as if I was a heathen, after refusing a prayer request for my father, who was in the hospital with a heart attack, after years of speaking of materia medica as if it was the spawn of an alien race come to conquer the world, she was in terrible pain and went to the hospital. I never liked my mother in law. But I sure felt sorry for her...after a life of trodding on materia medica, she suddenly needed it, and it sure helped with the pain. And now there was no one to pray for HER. SHE needed the help of doctors. She was getting a much needed lesson in humility, in compassion, in reaping what you sow, to say nothing of what a bit of morphine can do. But I just felt horribly sad. This is not what Christianity ought to be. Im not a very religious person, but I dont dismiss the power of prayer. How terribly sad that these church members couldnt get together, in this, her greatest hour of need, to pray for her. What would Jesus do? How do you spend a lifetime of going to church every Sunday and Wednesday night, reading the lesson every day, and somehow miss the mark of the LOVE that Jesus showed and tried to teach...doesnt it all boil down to this? ...It doesnt all boil down to not using materia medica, it all boils down to love. My husband was left with the responsibility of "saving his mother" through prayer...finding the words of some old teacher who said it was Ok to mix CS and prayer...they clung to that. She died of pancreatic cancer. My husband feels guilty. And I wonder if they considered that she had to eat all her own lifetime of words in the end. That her church was not there for her after years and years of membership, it turned its back on her. I am not much of a fan of organized religion, but if I have observed one redeeming feature of belonging to a church...its how much it helps in tragic times, to have all the parishoners standing behind you, supporting you. How do CSers love a church like this? Its all just wrong wrong.
*hugs* to you all....
Square Peg
|
|
|
Posted Tuesday, June 06, 2006 8:05 PM
|
|
|
|
I was just reading a testimony on the internet entitled "But is it Christian" Testimony of Kathy, and she mentioned this...which certainly is exactly what I have seen so much of in my experience with CS.
"We also had a lodger in the house who was a Christian Science practitioner. I found his presence very disturbing and I felt that he exercised a lot of control over mother. "
|
|
|
Posted Saturday, September 23, 2006 6:24 PM
|
|
|
|
As a Christian Scientist for thirty years or so I think a lot of what is described as CS here is foreign to what Mary Baker Eddy taught. She was constantly warning about "personal sense", against setting people up on pedestals etc. (Read the biographies of her by Robert Peel to see what I mean.)
I've had many healings that I ascribe to CS prayer, either my own or that of practitioners. I've also had conditions that were only partially alleviated, and other things that went away of their own accord in the course of nature.
However, one experience stands out as a warning. I was having dental treatment (some root canal work as far as I remember) and I had a practitioner treating me (either for the tooth problem or something else--I don't remember). Unwisely, I had | | | |