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PART IV: THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE TEXTBOOK

John L. Morgan

All that any one of us knows and understands about Christian Science comes direct from God. As students of the Word of God, the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy are our guides. Mrs Eddy says of the textbook that it "contains the full statement of Christian Science, or the Science of healing through Mind" (S&H 456:28).

For many years we have heard people say such things as: Science and Health is too difficult and abstract, give me something simpler and relevant; or they ask: What is the basis for your attitude that this book has divine authority, spiritual sanctity, and a healing effect?

Christian Science teaches that healing is as possible today as it was in Jesus' time. Jesus healed by knowing the divine Principle of wholeness; and this knowledge was not something exclusive to Jesus and his immediate followers. When one investigates this barrier that so many people believe is between themselves and the message of Science and Health, one finds that the book is not seen first as a textbook to be read from beginning to end before being used as a reference book. The Bible is so often treated in a similar piecemeal way. The power of these books lies in their coherently integrated wholeness. It is only from the standpoint of the whole that a detail remains valid and powerful and not self-contradictory and self-destructive.

In Christian Science we refer to the Bible and Science and Health as our twin textbooks. The latter shows us why the former is truly the 'book of life.' When Mrs Eddy discontinued personal pastors (including herself) in the churches she ordained the Bible and Science and Health to take their place, calling them "Your dual and impersonal pastor" (Mis 322:10). She said in an article called "Science and Philosophy," "I foresee and foresay that every advancing epoch of Truth will be characterized by a more spiritual apprehension of the Scriptures, that will show their marked consonance with the textbook of Christian Science Mind-healing, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (Mis 363:30). On another occasion, in a letter to a New York newspaper, Mrs Eddy said, "Christian Science presents the demonstrable divine Principle and rules of the Bible, hitherto undiscovered in the translations of the Bible and lacking in the creeds" (My 299:13). In no place in her writings does she indicate that Science and Health supercedes the Bible, supplements or replaces it. Indeed its full title, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures clearly states its relationship.

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Published by
Elmdon Publications
Elmdon, Saffron Walden, Essex, England
1989
In association with Christian Science Foundation, England