Science and Health
and the
Church Manual

Jesus: Pentecost: Mary Baker Eddy: Today

W. Gordon Brown

PART II CHURCH MANUAL

THE SIXTEEN SETS OF BY-LAWS

5. Church Services

"I am among you as he that serveth, "Jesus said (Luke 22:27). Like the non-schismatic body of Christ, the church in its unity lives to serve the human race by imparting to it the truth of man's being as the "structure of Truth and Love." Hence the greater part of the Christian Science church service consists of the two Readers reading to the congregation the Word of the Bible and Science and Health, as signifying the oneness of the manhood and womanhood of God, or the unity of Truth and Love.

An outstanding feature of the service is the absence of any kind of officiating priest. In consequence, that to which the congregation listens, and of which it partakes, is "a sermon undivorced from truth, uncontaminated and unfettered by human hypotheses, and divinely authorized," as says the Christian Science Quarterly. This unmasks and forestalls the personal encroachments of animal magnetism in accordance with the fifth chapter of the textbook, "Animal Magnetism Unmasked." The Word of the Bible and Science and Health does not sound through human personae, fallible priests, or any other kind of error-concealing mask.

Masklike animal magnetism (what the textbook calls "masked personal sense," and Paul calls "spiritual wickedness in high places") is that which (in the fifth section of "The Apocalypse") would devour the woman's child as soon as it is born. The purpose of the dragon is to cut man off from direct communion with God, and generally to disintegrate the unity of being. Hence the need to eat up the "little book" from which the First Reader reads, in order to prevent this from happening.

In the words of Paul, what the church membership is called upon to do is to present itself "a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God" as its "reasonable service" to mankind (Rom 12:1).

That the two textbooks, according to the By-laws in question, shall "continue to preach for this Church and the world," and shall do so without interruption "throughout the year," identifies the real Church of Christ, Scientist, with the continuity of the human race in its nonsectarian reality.

There must be no sense of exclusiveness. Strangers shall be welcomed to the church services, even if this means self- sacrifice on the part of members in giving up their seats! "In honour preferring one another," and being "not forgetful to entertain strangers" (Rom 12:10, Heb 13:2), is what Paul demands of the members of the early Christian church.

Note that at the Christian Science church service, the Word of God is read to the congregation objectively, collectively, audibly, whereas at the point of the sixth main heading of the By-laws, which we come to next, it is read subjectively, individually, silently.

6. Reading Rooms

In other words, when a Christian Scientist or a member of the public enters the quiet sanctuary of the Christian Science Reading Room, he does so in order to read and study Truth for himself individually—that is, to make it his own subjectively, and in this way bring forth the Christ-idea out of his own spiritual loins, and as his own true being.

While, in the church, the Word of Life, Truth, and Love comes to the congregation collectively, objectively, in the Reading Room the same universal truths are conceived of individually, subjectively. This latter circumstance of deep consecration, in what might be called the "secret place of the most High," makes it possible for the Christ child to be spiritually mothered and individually born.

Hence, in the sixth chapter of the textbook, "Science, Theology, Medicine," Mary Baker Eddy records how, in the year 1866, as the result of her single-minded devotion to Truth, and her individual communion with God, she discovered and birthed the Christ Science, and named her discovery Christian Science. Precisely correlatively, in the sixth section of "The Apocalypse," as a result of_being clothed with the sunlight of the divine Principle Love, the woman brings forth her man child.

Under the heading "Solitary research" (S & H 109), suggestive of the purpose of the Reading Room, Mrs Eddy writes, regarding her original discovery, of how she "searched the Scriptures and read little else," how she "kept aloof from society, and devoted time and energies to discovering a positive rule." "The search," she says, "was sweet, calm, and buoyant with hope, not selfish nor depressing." She concludes: "When a new spiritual idea is borne to earth, the prophetic Scripture of Isaiah is renewedly fulfilled: 'Unto us a child is born... and his name shall be called Wonderful.'" This sixth section of the unfoldment has basically to do, therefore, with the individual birth of universal Science.

"The Bible was my only textbook," Mrs Eddy declares when, alone with God, she spent three years searching the Scriptures. The corresponding By-law regarding Christian Science Reading Rooms reads in part as follows: "The literature sold or exhibited in the Reading Rooms of Christian Science Churches shall consist only of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, and other writings by this author; also the literature published or sold by The Christian Science Publishing Society" (Man 64).

7. Relation and Duties of Members to Pastor Emeritus

The relation of man (idea) to God (the divine Principle of the idea) consists of idea obeying absolutely the Principle which forms it and births it. In the founding of the Christian Science church, the Pastor Emeritus, Mary Baker Eddy, stands for the Principle itself, and an obedient church membership for the idea.

The relationship in Science is that of Christianity, the church body, to Christ, the head of the body. Hence what is basically at work at this point is Christ in its aspect as Christianity, the physiological counterfeit of which is handled in detail in the textbook's seventh chapter, "Physiology," as the relation of brain to body.

Messages which flow from head to body spiritually, are the divine counterfact to nerve messages that flow from brain to body physioloically.

The same idea is dealt with also in the seventh section of "The Apocalypse," where the children of Israel, typical of the total church membership (therefore of all humanity), are seen coming up out of Egypt (slavery to physiology) and being conducted by their leader, Moses, through a transitory human wilderness prior to taking possession of their promised land, or what body (church) truly is.

The first of this set of By-laws accordingly stresses the need for instant obedience on the part of the church membership to the Pastor Emeritus as Leader, but no longer as personal mother. The latter title is required, at this point, to be dropped. In fact, if members do not thoroughly understand the communications that come to them from their Leader (the Pastor Emeritus) the Clerk of the church shall immediately inform her of this, and, says the By-law, ''await her explanation.''

Much is made in these particular By-laws of the duty of members (when called upon) to serve the Leader in her home, signifying the fact that idea must always be located in and of the heavenly Principle of the idea. Home is heaven, the textbook teaches. Hence, in the Apocalypse, the woman's child must be found caught up unto God and to His throne, where it is absolutely governed by divine Principle alone.

In her home, Mrs Eddy, we are told, was exacting in her demands that in every detail the order and precision of divinity itself.

8. The Mother Church and Branch Churches

While the previous tone (Christ as Christianity) demands immediate obedience on the part of members to their Leader (particularly with regard to serving her in her home), this eighth tone (Christ as Science) demands, in consequence, through an eighth set of By-laws, absolute self-government, complete democratic freedom, for all branch churches from control either by The Mother Church, or any other church. That is to say, strict obedience, in the seventh instance, is the divine prerequisite for individual and collective self-government, in the eighth.

The By-law in question says accordingly, "The Mother Church of Christ, Scientist, shall assume no general official control of other churches, and it shall be controlled by none other" (Section 1)". "...each branch church shall be distinctly democratic in its government, and no individual, and no other church shall interfere in its affairs" (Section 10).

Clearly, the note which is being sounded is that of individuality spiritually self-governed in its relationship with the collective church body.

The same idea characterizes the textbook's eighth chapter, "Footsteps of Truth." Here, as the result of being founded on, and obedient to, divine Principle, humanity is led (at the end of the chapter) to the "Horeb height" where the I AM THAT I AM is revealed as the I, the Ego, of each individual. Hence, on the chapter's final page, Christian Science is spoken of for the first time in the book as absolute - that is, wholly independent of outside control, and therefore deathless. The five or so references in the textbook, to "absolute Christian Science" show this to be the standpoint of resurrection, or where the last enemy, death, has been overcome. Nothing can devour or destroy the God-idea once its foundations are, in this way, secure.

Correlatively, the true branch church, being dependent on, and subordinate to, nothing outside itself, is likewise safe and secure—is likewise absolute—for it is founded on the rock of divine self-government, self-completeness, or on the Christ in its absolute Science.

In the eighth section of "The Apocalypse," Michael and Gabriel, God's two foremost angels, vanquish the great red dragon. That is to say, they overcome malicious animal magnetism as that which would cause men to control one another despotically, devour each other's God-given identity, and so trespass on the rights of individual self-government.

The human parallel to this would be a Mother Church illegally controlling branch churches, instead of leading them to, and granting them, spiritual and scientific independence, such as is bestowed on them by the Mother Church Manual at this eighth stage of the development.

Published by
Gordon and Estelle Brown
England 1988
© Copyright W. Gordon Brown 1988
ISBN 0 904320 05 7
Printed by Villiers Publications Ltd 26a Shepherds Hill, London N6 5AH