Fast Facts on False Teachings

Introduction

C.S. Lewis was once involved in a debate with a gentleman promoting the position that matter doesn’t really exist. As this man finished his opening comments, for effect he proclaimed "I don’t really exist."

Lewis just sat there, not getting up to respond. After an uncomfortable silence, the moderator asked Lewis if he had a response, to which Lewis said, "How can I respond to a man who doesn’t exist?"

There is a category of cults, the "mind sciences," that claim matter does not really exist. Christian Science, the most well-known of them, says this about the material world:

"There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestations, for God is all-in-all. Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 21).

Among the conclusions from such a belief is that sickness and disease are really just illusions:

"The cause of all so-called disease is mental, a mortal fear, a mistaken belief or conviction of the necessity and power of ill-health; also a fear that Mind is helpless to defend the life of man and incompetent to control it" (Science and Health, p. 377).

Once a person realizes that sickness is nonexistent, for matter itself does not exist, then one will also realize that one is not, nor ever has been, sick in the first place. Death itself is an illusion because it pertains to the physical body – which is not real. What makes sickness and death seem real is your wrong belief.

Mind sciences like Christian Science are popular to many because they claim to have restored a lost element in Christianity – healing – that when applied, demonstrates itself to work. Sadly, many of them withhold necessary medical treatment in favor of their "science," and people – usually children – have died unnecessarily.

Where did such an idea come from? Where does it lead? Let’s look at the background and beliefs of Christian Science, and some of the other mind sciences more briefly.

The founder of Christian Science was sick! I mean that literally. Her early years were marked by frequent illnesses of both a physical and emotional nature (Walter Martin). Mary Ann Morse Baker Glover Patterson Eddy was born in Bow, New Hampshire in 1821, to Mark and Abigail Baker. Her parents were members of the Congregationalist church which upheld a strict doctrine of predestination that unsettled young Mary.

"The doctrine of unconditional election or predestination, greatly troubled me: for I was unwilling to be saved, if my brothers and sisters were to be numbered among those who were doomed to perpetual banishment from God" (Mary Baker Eddy, Retrospection and Introspection, 13:5-9).

In December of 1843, at the age of twenty-two, the future Mrs. Eddy was married to George W. Glover, a neighboring businessman, whose untimely death of yellow fever in Wilmington, South Carolina, some seven months later, reduced his pregnant wife to an emotional and highly unstable invalid, who, throughout the remaining years of her life, relied from time to time upon the drug morphine as a medication (Walter Martin).

Mrs. Eddy was not a "dope addict," but much evidence is available to show beyond doubt that throughout her life Mrs. Eddy made repeated use of morphine.

A decade passed in the life of Mrs. Glover during which she had many trying experiences. Then on June 21, 1853, she married Dr. Daniel M. Patterson, a dentist, who, contrary to the advice of her own father, Mark Baker, took the emotionally unstable Mary Glover for his bride.

The advice of Mark Baker was indeed ominously accurate, for some years later Mrs. Eddy divorced Dr. Patterson, who, she claimed, had abandoned her, and thus her second attempt at matrimony met with disaster.

In 1866, while still married w Daniel Patterson, she discovered the principle of Christian Science after a serious fall allegedly brought her near death. Her account of the severity of the injuries was contradicted by the attending physician. Nevertheless, the principles supposedly "discovered" during this time were to be the basis of Christian Science. In 1875, her work Science and Health was published with the additional Key to the Scriptures added in 1883. For this work she claimed divine revelation.

"I should blush to write of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures as I have, were it of human origin and I apart from God its author, but as I was only a scribe echoing the harmonies of Heaven in divine metaphysics, I cannot be super-modest of the Christian Science Textbook" (Christian Science Journal, January 1901).

In 1879 in Charlestown, Massachusetts, the Church of Christ Scientist was organized and was then changed in 1892 to the First Church of Christ Scientist. The Church Manual was published in 1895 establishing the procedures of governing the church.

The third and last marriage of Mary Ann Morse Baker Glover Patterson was to Asa G. Eddy when she was fifty-six years of age. Asa Eddy's death of a coronary thrombosis prompted Mrs. Eddy to commit a nearly fatal mistake where Christian Science was concerned. She contested the autopsy report and the physician she chose confirmed her conviction that Asa died of "arsenic poisoning mentally administered." Such a radical report prompted an inquiry into the credentials of Mrs. Eddy's physician, Dr. C. J. Eastman, Dean of the Bellvue Medical College, outside Boston. It was found that "Doctor" Eastman was running a virtual abortion mill, and had no medical credentials whatever to justify his title. He was sentenced to ten years in prison upon his conviction, and the Bellvue Medical College closed. Mrs. Eddy had contradicted her own advice concerning autopsies. And she would have been far better off to have practiced in this instance what she preached and to have abandoned Asa's remains to malpractice, but the error was virtually unavoidable since Mrs. Eddy was not to be outdone by any medical doctor. She was an expert healer by her own admissions; the autopsy was therefore inevitable.

Mrs. Eddy's letter to the Boston Post dated June 5, 1882, in which she accused some of her former students of mentally poisoning Asa Eddy with malicious mesmerism in the form of arsenic mentally administered is one of the most pathetic examples of Mrs. Eddy's mental state ever recorded and one which the Christian Science Church would like to forget she ever wrote.

Although she taught that death is "an illusion" (Science and Health, 584:9), Mrs. Eddy passed away December 3, 1910. Today there is a self-perpetuating board of directors which governs the church. There is no way to get an accurate number of Christian Scientists. The Church Manual says,

"Christian Scientists shall not report for publication the number of the members of the Mother Church, nor that of the branch churches" (Article VIII, p. 48).

"The Bible has been my only authority. I have no other guide in 'The straight and narrow way' of Truth" (Science and Health, 126:29-31).

Although she claimed that the Bible was her guide, her view of Scripture was something less than desirable:

"The material record of the Bible,... is no more important to our well-being than the history of Europe and America" (Mary Baker Eddy, Miscellaneous Writings, 1833-1896, p. 170:19-21).

"The decisions by vote of Church Councils as to what should and should not be considered Holy Writ; the manifest mistakes in the ancient versions; the thirty thousand different readings in the Old Testament, and the three hundred thousand in the New - these facts show how a mortal and material sense stole into the divine record, with its own hue darkening to some extent the inspired pages" (Science and Health, 139:15-22).

In actuality, she does not obtain her teachings from the Bible. The teachings of Christian Science are in direct contradiction to the Bible. The real authority in Christian Science is not the Bible, but the writings of Mrs. Eddy. She has this to say about her own work, Science and Health:

"...It is the voice of Truth to this age" (Science and Health, 456:27, 28).

"...The revealed Troth uncontaminated by human hypothesis" (Science and Health, 457:1-2).

"No human pen nor tongue taught me the Science contained in this book, SCIENCE AND HEALTH; and neither tongue nor pen can overthrow it" (Science and Health, 110: 16-19).

Christian Science, like many other cults, claims goes "beyond the Bible" - that is to say, new divine truth previously unrevealed.

On page 107, in her work Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy quotes the Apostle Paul:

"But I certify you, brethren, that the Gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ."

She follows the quotation with this claim:

"In the year 1866, I discovered the Christ Science or divine laws of Life, Truth, and Love and named my discovery Christian Science. God has been graciously preparing me during many years for the reception of this final revelation of the absolute divine Principle of scientific mental healing" (Science and Health, 107:1-6).

"Whence came to me this heavenly conviction… when apparently near the confines of mortal existence, standing already within the shadow of the death-valley, I learned these truths in divine Science" (Science and Health, 108:1,19-21).

"I won my way to absolute conclusions through divine revelation, reason, and demonstration. The Revelation of Truth in the understanding came to me gradually and apparently through Divine Power" (Science and Health, 109:20-23).

Mrs. Eddy's claims are clear: The revelation she received while supposedly near death was divine. She also claims exclusive truth:

"Is there more than one school of Christian Science?...There can, therefore, be but one method in its teaching" (Science and Health, 112:3-5).

Needless to the one method is her method!

The Christian Science Church Manual states their purpose as

"to commemorate the word and works of our master, which should reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing" (The Christian Science Church Manual, 89th ed., p. 17).

The following paragraph reveals Mrs. Eddy's monumental claims:

"Late in the nineteenth century I demonstrated the divine rules of Christian Science. They were submitted to the broadest practical test and everywhere, when honestly applied under circumstances where demonstration was humanly possible, this science showed that truth had lost none of its divine and healing efficacy, even though centuries had passed away since Jesus practiced these rules on the hills of Judea in the valleys of Galilee" (Science and Health, 147:6-13).

This is a mark of a cult: Claiming a second source of authority beyond the Bible which overrules and supercedes the Bible.

It is interesting to note that, though she claims divine revelation, Mrs. Eddy’s ideas bear a striking resemblance to those of another man! There is strong evidence that Mrs. Eddy's "divine revelation" is not original to her, but is a plagiarism of Phineas P. Quimby's writings and ideas.

Phineas P. Quimby was a self-professed healer who applied hypnosis and the power of suggestion in affecting his cures. He called his word, "The science of the Christ" and "Christian Science." Mrs. Eddy became a enthusiastic follower of Quimby in 1862 after her back injury was healed by him. She wrote letters to the Portland (Maine) Evening Courier praising Quimby and comparing him to Jesus Christ.

Upon his death she eulogized Quimby in a poem, titling it, "Lines 0n the Death of Dr. P. P. Quimby who healed with the truth that Christ taught in contradistinction to all Isms." Eventually she attempted to separate any connection between herself and Quimby when charges of borrowing his ideas surfaced. However, the facts are otherwise.

In 1921, Horatio Dresser published The Quimby Manuscripts, which when compared with Mrs. Eddy's writings, revealed many parallels leading some to comment,

"... as far as thought is concerned, Science and Health is practically all Quimby" (Ernest Sutherland Bates and John V. Dittermore, Mary Baker Eddy: The Truth and The Tradition. 1932, page 156).

Mrs. Eddy received the principles of Christian Science from some place other than the God of the Bible. Since her teachings contradict the teachings of God as revealed in the Bible, they are thereby condemned by the Bible and she is therefore a false teacher.

Mrs. Eddy defined God as,

"The great I Am; the all-knowing, all-seeing, all acting, all-wise, all-loving, and eternal; Principle; Mind; Soul; Spirit; Life; Truth; Love; all Substance; Intelligence (Science and Health, 587:5-8).

The God of Christian Science is pantheistic. Pantheism is the belief that God is all of existing reality, including the material world. She clearly identified him with the creation. She said,

"God is a divine Whole, and All, an all-pervading intelligence and love, a divine, infinite principle" (Mary Baker Eddy, Miscellaneous Writings, p. 16:21, 22).

The God of the Bible is the Creator, but He is not the creation (Isaiah 44:24). The God of the Bible and the God of Christian Science are not the same. The Apostle Paul declared the true God:

"The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven does not dwell in temples made with hands; neither is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all life and breath and all things..." (Acts 17:24, 25).

"Christ is the ideal truth that comes to heal sickness and sin through Christian Science, and attributes all power to God. Jesus is the name of the man who, more than all other men, has presented Christ, the true idea of God... Jesus is the human man, and Christ is the divine idea; hence the duality of Jesus the Christ" (Science and Health, 473:9-16).

Eddy attempts to make a distinction between "Jesus" and "the Christ" as if they were two separate entities. This distinction is not possible for Jesus Christ is one person. Jesus is His name meaning "Yahweh is salvation; "Christ," His title, meaning "The Anointed One."

Since Jesus and Christ are two different entities in Christian Science, the doctrine that Jesus Christ is God is rejected:

"... the Christian believes Christ is God... Jesus Christ is not God.. :' (Science and Health, 361: 1, 2, 12).

Jesus was a man who taught mankind that any and all sickness is an illusion. He used the principles of Christian Science, what we might simply call "mind over matter," to heal – principles we can all use. Thus the Christian Scientist denies that Jesus performed any physical miracles. He simply had the correct understanding of disease and death – it was an illusion.

Was the death of Lazarus an illusion? Did Dr. Jesus apply "the Christ" to heal Lazarus? On the contrary – Jesus waited four days so there would be no question Lazarus was truly dead. Jesus did not consider the death an illusion; He said plainly, "Lazarus is dead" (John 11:14).

Mrs. Eddy had a unique view of the death and resurrection of Jesus:

"Jesus' students, not sufficiently advanced to understand fully their Master's triumph, did not perform many wonderful works until they saw him after his crucifixion and learned that he had not died" (Science and Health, pp. 45, 46).

"His disciples believed Jesus to be dead while he was hidden in the sepulchre, whereas he was alive, demonstrating within the narrow tomb the power of Spirit to overrule mortal, material sense" (lbid., p. 44).

As you might suppose, to the Christian Scientist the Ascension of Jesus was not physical:

"... until he himself ascended - or, in other words, rose even higher in the understanding of Spirit, God.... Jesus' unchanged physical condition after what seemed to be death was followed by his exaltation above all material conditions; and this exaltation explained his ascension.... In his final demonstration, called the ascension, which closed the earthly record of Jesus, he rose above the physical knowledge of his disciples, and the material senses saw him no more" (Ibid., p. 46).

"Man as God’s idea is already saved with an everlasting salvation" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 261).

To the Christian Scientist there is no such thing as sin; salvation in the biblical sense is therefore totally unnecessary. She stated over and over again that sin is just an illusion (Miscellaneous Writings, 27:11-12, Science and Health, 71:2, 287:22, 23, 480:23, 24).

"Life, Truth, and Love understood and demonstrated as supreme over all; sin, sickness and death destroyed" (Science and Health, p. 593:20-22).

Apparently, when you are liberated from the illusion of believing in matter and sinfulness, you are "saved."

The Christian Science view of sin and salvation is a far cry from the Bible that teaches the reality of sin (Romans 3:23) and the need for a Savior (Acts 4:12).

The central claim of Christian Science is that Mrs. Eddy has restored to Christianity the power of healing "lost" since the days of the early church. It is continually reiterated in the literature of the cult that their "leader" healed as Jesus did through Divine Science. Concerning her relationship to Jesus, Mrs. Eddy wrote,

"Our Master… practiced Christian healing… but left no definite rule for demonstrating this Principle of healing and preventing disease. This rule remained to be discovered by Christian Science" (Science and Health, 147:24-29).

Not only this, but Mrs. Eddy herself boldly asserted that she healed all types of diseases including cancer, tuberculosis and diphtheria. Mrs. Eddy wrote to the New York Sun, December 19, 1898:

"I challenge the world to disprove what I hereby declare. After my discovery of Christian Science I healed consumption in the last stages that the M.D.'s by verdict of a stethoscope and the schools declared incurable, the lungs being mostly consumed. I healed malignant tubercular diphtheria and carious bones that could be dented by the finger, saving them when the surgeon's instruments were lying on the table ready for their amputation. I have healed at one visit a cancer that had so eaten the flesh of the neck as to expose the jugular vein so that it stood out like a cord."

Notice here Mrs. Eddy gives no particulars, names of patients, localities, dates or witnesses. Indeed the only persons who ever witnessed her "miraculous" cures were either lackeys of Mrs. Eddy's without medical training to justify their diagnosis of disease, or Christian Scientists of another era who unfortunately believed as God-breathed truth any claim that either Mrs. Eddy or her contemporary worshipers have conjured up.

Walter Martin writes:

"Mrs. Eddy's claim of the power to heal presents us with a challenge. Since she denied all of the cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith, we know that her so-called power to heal did not come from God. We are left, then, with two alternatives. Either the so-called healings were not supernatural at all (being actually fraudulent, spontaneous, psychosomatic, etc.) and Mrs. Eddy stands condemned as a fraud; or they were accomplished by the power of Satan, in the pattern of the magicians of Pharaoh's court in Moses' day (Exodus 7:11, 22)."

It should be noted that in the process of investigating Mrs. Eddy's healing claims that she refused outright to treat identical cases of diseases she claimed to have cured. Even when a prominent Cincinnati physician offered her every such opportunity, Mrs. Eddy remained strangely silent. This is hardly the attitude one would expect from the alleged "successor to Jesus Christ." The foregoing is only one fact of a large number which proved beyond doubt that Mrs. Eddy did not heal as she claimed. During her long life Mrs. Eddy allowed her own little granddaughter, her beloved brother Samuel's wife, and her close friend, Joseph Armstrong, all to die painful deaths of cancer, pneumonia and pleurisy, and never, to any known evidence of the contrary, did she ever lift her "healing" hand to save them. Instead she recommended "absent treatment" in all three cases, which consisted of reading her book, Science and Health, and concentrating upon mentally repulsing the organic deterioration. Mrs. Eddy could have at least paid a call on them, and if her claims were true, healed them "at one visit," but she did not because she could not!

This publication was established in 1908 by Mrs. Eddy in order to offer an alternative to the bias and sensationalism of conventional newspapers. It became highly respected for its journalism, and widely read, featuring regional editions in major metropolitan areas. It has little religious content.

One of the most important factors in the development of Christian Science is the popular ignorance of what it really teaches. It makes effective use of literature, mass media, and reading rooms. It does not spread by means of missionaries as such.

There are other groups similar to and influenced by Christian Science who are collectively called "mind sciences." They all in their own way emphasize the power of the mind to help and heal.

#1 The United Church of Religious Science is different from Christian Science, but it, too, relies on the power of the mind for healing and happiness. Founded by Ernest Holmes, it’s major book is The Science of Mind, published in 1926. It contains ideas and teaching that parallel Phineas P. Quimby and Mrs. Eddy.

Like Christian Science, Religious Science teaches that evil is the result of ignorance. People are inherently good. Positive thinking plays a prominent role. God is Mind; Jesus was a man who was extremely advanced in the mastery of mind science techniques; the Holy Spirit is a force; there is no need for salvation since there is no sin. Robert Young (Father Knows Best) and Robert Stack (The Untouchables; Unsolved Mysteries) embraced Religious Science.

#2 Divine Science was founded by Nona Brooks in Denver, Colorado, in 1889. It mostly parallels Christian Science and Religious Science.

#3 The Unity School of Christianity is another mind science. It should not be confused with Unitarianism, a much different movement and not a mind science. Unity was founded in 1889 by Charles Fillmore (1854-1948) and his wife Myrtle (1845-1931). A failed real estate agent, Charles was also a cripple and nearly bankrupt. Myrtle was stricken with tuberculosis. In 1884 she moved from New England to Kansas City, Missouri, and shortly thereafter became a convert to Christian Science. Convinced that all sickness and disease was an illusion, she claimed to have been healed of her lung malady. That she believed her sickness to be an illusion can be derived from her words "I am a child of God and therefore I do not inherit sickness."

Charles, on the other hand, maintained an interest in the occult and spiritism. Eastern religion, particularly Hinduism with its concept of reincarnation, influenced him greatly. When he became converted to Christian Science by his wife, the blend of their diverse ideas eventually resulted in a unique form of harmonial religion known as Unity.

The growth of Unity (so named in 1891) was phenomenal. By 1922 it had far exceeded Christian Science in membership. After World War I the Fillmores began to build a headquarters known today as Unity Village, just outside Kansas City.

The core membership of Unity became known as Silent Unity. This group was originally called the Society of Silent Help and was the factor most responsible for the rapid growth of the movement. The idea was to offer twenty-four-hour ministry, which is conducted today through a large staff at Unity Village. Prayer, counseling, and correspondence is obtainable through Silent Unity. The volume of mail flowing into and out of Unity Village was so great that the United States government established a separate post office in Lees Summit, Missouri, to handle it.

Although Unity prefers to not call itself a religion, it has become its own denomination. As early as 1903, the Fillmores established an ordination policy. Members are not requested to leave their own particular denominational affiliations. The Fillmores believed that they had succeeded in producing a religion that effectively extracted the best elements from each of the existing religions. One may therefore retain ones own particular belief system or denominational affiliation and still be apart of Unity. The Fillmores wrote,

"We see the good in all religions and we want everyone to feel free to find the Truth for himself wherever he may be led to find it" (Modern Thought, p. 42).

The main focus is on achieving mental health and physical prosperity through the power of the mind. In contrast to Christian Science, sin and illness are believed to be real, but are an unnatural state of existence. They can be overcome by right thinking. Spiritual means of healing are sought after, but medical help is not discouraged. All men are said to have "the Christ" within them if they will only realize it. Jesus was a man who did realize he had "the Christ" within him. Thus anyone can attain the same perfection that Jesus attained if he will but gain control of his mind. Their belief in reincarnation separates them from other mind sciences.

The "mind sciences" appeal to many because they promise health and healing. They also capitalize on people's fear of sin, disease, old age, and death. Unity is especially popular because of its emphasis on tolerance of all other beliefs, and on material prosperity.

The fact that some people are healed does not mean that the mind sciences are right. Some illnesses apparently are caused by incorrect and unhealthy mental attitudes and are healed naturally when these attitudes are corrected. Also, many religions and cults (including Satanism) claim similar results. The question of authority must be resolved.

All of this has a very practical side; a tragically practical side. Caroline Fraser in a 1995 article in The Atlantic Monthly writes,

"Most people who have heard of Christian Science know one thing about it: Christian Scientists do not "believe" in doctors. More accurately, Christian Scientists do not believe in medical science, or what they call "materia medica." They generally do not accept medical care for themselves, and many do not permit it for their children. They believe they can heal through prayer. Had my brother or sister or I contracted a serious illness or met with a life-threatening accident while we were growing up, we would have been expected to heal ourselves, just as we were expected to heal ourselves of colds, flu, allergies, and bad behavior. That we survived to adulthood was a matter of luck."

Her article chronicles the 1992 death of twelve year old Andrew Wantland from treatable diabetes after months of illness. His father and grandmother were Christian Scientists who had custody of Andrew and allegedly withheld treatment. Such cases are not uncommon.

Jesus was not a "mind scientist." He was and is God in human flesh. We must reject the mind sciences as false systems.

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ISBN 0-89693-823-9.

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ISBN 1-56507-168-9.

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ISBN 0-87784-837-8.

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ISBN 0-8010-1149-3.

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ISBN 0-87123-796-2.

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ISBN 0-310-53100-4.

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ISBN 0-86605-093-0.