IS THE CHURCH OF CHRIST SCIENTIST A CULT?

THE CHURCH OF CHRIST SCIENTIST
The Church of Christ, Scientist (AKA. Christian Science) may have the word Christian in its name. Yes, they do talk about God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. However, once you dig deeper in to their beliefs and doctrines the similarities cease and the blasphemous teachings begin.
Mary Baker Eddy, their most notable teacher, was born in 1821. At the age of twelve young Mary was already rebelling against orthodox Christianity even though she had been admitted to the Congregational Church of Tilton, New Hampshire. In 1843 she married George Washington Glover who died the following year. In 1845 their son was born. He however was sent to boarding school or to live with relatives most of his life. In 1853 she married a dentist named Patterson, but he soon abandoned her due to her chronic illnesses. In 1862 she was said to have been healed by Phineas P. Quimby, a man she would later plagiarize to produce her writings. Quimby is said to have “healed” using a certain amount of psychology mixed with mesmerism (later known as hypnosis).
She is said to have discovered Christian Science in 1866. Her most notable literary work, and the chief teaching tool of the church, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures was published in 1875. As the number of readers of Science and Health grew, Eddy established a Church organization to communicate the ideas in Science and Health for humanity’s benefit. The First Church of Christ, Scientist located in Boston, the “Mother Church”, was incorporated in 1879. The Church is still in existence and has 2000 branch churches in 80 different countries. The Church is designed, “to commemorate the words and works of our Master, which should reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing.”(From Eddy’s Church Manual). The Church has no ordained clergy, and 1895 Eddy declared the Bible and Science and Health to be the Pastor of the worldwide Church.[1]
Since the death of Mary Baker Eddy in 1913 the movement has suffered several divisions. Despite this, the church has continued to grow. Shortly before her death Eddy saw her church grow to some ten thousand healers servicing some six million followers. By 1920 there was estimated to be ten million followers in the United States, and another three million in Great Britain.

Christian Science and the Bible
Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures was copyrighted by Mary Baker Glover (later to become Mary Baker Eddy) in 1875. It is supposedly a companion to the Holy Bible. In studying the Bible no particular version is specified or recommended. Eddy discovered this information following a near fatal accident in 1866. However, many believe it to be the plagiarized work of one Francis Leiber, a German – American philosopher.[2] Walter Martin includes accusations, and documentation, of how Eddy plagiarized several others, including Leiber, in the production of Science and Health. Others she stole from include Dr. Phineas Parkhurst Quimby and his writing The Science of Man, and Lindley Murray and his work The English Reader.[3]
The relationship between the inspired Bible and Science and Health can be seen in the following quotes in relation to the creation account, specifically Genesis 2:7. Genesis 2:7 reads, “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”(NKJV). In Science and Health (p.524) Eddy writes, "“s this addition to His creation real or unreal? Is it the truth, or is it a lie concerning Man and God? It must be a lie."[4] She also writes, “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.”[5] It is obvious that though she promoted Bible study and considered the Bible and Her work to the actual “Pastor” for the Church, Eddy did not hold to verbal plenary inspiration.

Christian Science and the Trinity
The teachings of Mary Baker Eddy and Christian Science represent on example of using Biblical names and terms, but defining them in another way. If asked, Who is God or What is God? The answers a Christian Science practitioner would give would vary. God is the Universal Principle. Science and Health 331:18-24 reads, “God is individual, incorporeal. He is divine principle, Love, the universal cause, the only creator, and there is no other self existence. He is all-inclusive, and is reflected by all that is real and eternal and by nothing else. He fills all space, and it is impossible to conceive of such omnipresence and individuality except as infinite Spirit and Mind.”[6] Other designations for God include Mind (S&H 330:20-21), and Father – Mother (S&H 331:30).[7]
Jesus is merely seen as the spiritual idea of sonship (S&H 331:30&31). Other definitions go even father afield from evangelical Christianity. Science and Health 333:3-15 says, “The word Christ is not properly a synonym for Jesus though it is commonly used.”[8] Science and Health 361:9 to 13 says, “The Christian who believes in the First Commandment is a monotheist…and recognizes the Jesus Christ is not God, as Jesus himself declared, but is the son of God.”[9] Mary Baker Eddy’s teachings even deny the death of Christ (S&H 46:3), and they consider his sacrifice to be insufficient to save (S&H 25:3)
In Christian Science there is no person of the Holy Spirit. He is instead simply divine science (S&H 331:31). The Trinity is not the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Instead the Trinity is made up of Life, Truth, and Love.(S&H 331). Our traditional view is considered polytheism, Eddy writes. “The theory of three persons in One God suggests polytheism, rather than the one ever-present I Am.”(S&H 256:9-11).[10]

Christian Science and Various Other Doctrines
One of the most notable beliefs held by those who practice Christian Science is the denial that there is such a thing a sickness or sin. This leads them to deny the need for formal medical help. They believe, “When sin or sickness — the reverse of harmony — seems true to material sense, impart without frightening or discouraging the patient the truth and spiritual understanding, which de447-19447-20stroy disease. Expose and denounce the claims of evil and disease in all their forms, but realize no reality in them. A sinner is not reformed merely by assuring him that he cannot be a sinner because there is no sin. To put down the claim of sin, you must detect it, remove the mask, point out the illusion, and thus get the victory over sin and so prove447-24447-26447-27 its unreality. The sick are not healed merely by declaring there is no sickness, but by knowing that there is none.”(S&H 447:24-29)[11] With no sin it is easy to understand that they would also deny the existence of the Devil. There definition of devil is as follows, “DEVIL. Evil; a lie; error; neither corporeality nor mind; the opposite of Truth; a belief in sin, sickness, and death; animal magnetism or hypnotism; the lust of the flesh, which saith: " I am life and intelligence in matter. There is more than one mind, for I am mind, a wicked mind, self-made or created by a tribal god and put into the opposite of mind, termed matter, thence to reproduce a mortal universe, including man, not after the image and likeness of Spirit, but after its own image."(S&H 584:17-25)[12]

MY CONCLUSIONS
I believe it should be clear from even this brief presentation that Christian Science is far from orthodox, conservative Christianity.

[1] This information was gleaned from the Official web site of the Mother Church.
[2] Larson, Bob, Larson’s New Book of Cults, (Wheaton, IK., Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1982)p. 165
[3] Martin, pp.250-252
[4] Ibid, p. 259
[5] Ibid
[6] Glover, Mary Baker, Science and Health with Key To The Scriptures, (Boston, MA., The First Church of Christ, Scientist, 1934) p.331
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid. p. 333
[9] Ibid. p. 361
[10] Ibid. p. 256
[11] Ibid. p. 447
[12] Ibid. p. 584