 |
Christian Science was my whole
life. I was a third-generation member of a branch church, The Mother Church
in Boston, and was Class taught. I fully practiced Christian Science by
reading my lesson each day, by not going to doctors or taking medicine, and
by serving on various committees. The latter included presiding as president
of the Executive Board. I thought we had the truth (that God is Mind and all
is mental). I believed that Jesus was human man who demonstrated the Christ
Truth just as you and I can when we become as spiritually advanced as he
was. Jesus was not the same as the Christ. He was the Way-Shower. I did not
know my religion was called a cult; that it was not considered Christian. In
1969 I went alone to hear Billy Graham in the Anaheim Stadium. I was curious
about him because he was famous. I do not know what he said or why I did
what I did, but I went forward and received prayer. After I sat back down,
an evil presence came to me. It told me I would be dead before the night was
over. I nearly panicked. I asked God to forgive me for my being there and
for being disloyal to Christian Science. The evil thing left me, and I
blamed it all on Billy Graham. After that I forgot the whole affair. Since
my religion was supposed to be based on the Bible, I tried to read the Bible
and understand it, but I found much of it too difficult. Then in 1975, it
occurred to me to have a Bible study under a guide. I proposed this to my
church, but nothing came of it.
At this time I had reached the age of being a grandmother, yet I had never
been invited to a Bible study. So I was surprised when two women, whom I did
not know, knocked on my door and invited me to a home study with the
Christian Women's Club. I later learned that God had prompted these two
women separately to go door-to-door in my block. I was the only one to
accept. After many months of study, I started seeing verses in my Bible
which I had read and yet had never really been aware of. My conception of
God and His plan for man began to change. It began to dawn on me that Mrs.
Mary Baker Eddy, founder and leader of Christian Science, had taken the
place of Jesus for the people in her religion. In the church Manual
she had said she was the only one to be called Leader. In Matthew 23:10
(NAS), Jesus said He was the only one to be called Leader. I was faced with
two people telling me that he or she was to be my only leader. Christian
Science taught that Christian Science was the Revelation; that Mrs. Eddy was
the Revelator; and that we cannot know the Revelation unless we know the
Revelator. Since the Revelation was the truth about God, we had to go
through Mrs. Eddy to know God. In other words Mrs. Eddy was the way to God.
For the first time I saw that Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the
life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me." (John 14:6) So Mrs. Eddy and
Jesus both claimed to be the way to God.
One day in Bible study I had a real experience with God's Word. It was my
turn to quote words which I knew as a Christian Scientist. I told the group
that Jesus had asked His disciples who men said He was. They had answered,
"Some say you are John the Baptist; some Elias; and others Jeremias." But
Jesus asked, "Whom say ye I that am?" Peter answered, "Thou art the Christ."
Jesus answered, "Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my
Father." (Matthew 16:13-17) After the women left, those words kept ringing
in my mind. It was as though Jesus were asking me personally, "Whom say ye
that I am?" He seemed very stern about it. It became clear that Mrs. Eddy
had said that He is not Christ, and that Jesus said He is Christ. Jesus was
asking me did I believe her or Him? At first I didn't know. I cried. I
threshed it about in my mind. I came to the decision that if He could do the
miracles He did, He certainly should know who He is. So I believed that
Jesus is Christ.
Christian Science says man is perfect and sinless. When he dies, only his
belief of matter dies. He is spiritual and he goes on doing whatever he was
doing, as death is an illusion. Since all is mind, hell and heaven are only
states of mind. The Bible says all men are sinners. (Romans 3:23) They
cannot come to God without atonement. (Romans 5:11) This was accomplished by
the blood sacrifice of animals in the Old Testament. At the time of the
Passover, Jesus, who is called the Lamb, became the perfect and final blood
sacrifice for the atonement of man's sins. The Bible says in Hebrews 9:27,
"And it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment." So
death is real, and sinful man has to go before God at the judgment seat. He
will be judged for his sins and cast into eternal damnation unless he
accepts Jesus as the atonement for his sins. Those who believe on Jesus
become the Bride of Jesus and spend eternity in heaven with Him. I realized
that, from our human viewpoint, Mrs. Eddy's reasoning sounded more beautiful
and at times more logical than the Bible's statement of God's plan for man,
but there were many errors in her teachings.
First, she was not qualified to refute the Bible and deny Jesus' message.
She was not of virgin birth. Jesus was. Also, when she died her body stayed
in the grave. She didn't come back. Therefore, she can't really testify as
to what goes on after death because she had not been there when she wrote
the book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. Jesus had
been beyond the grave and had come back, so He knew what is there to report
on. Second, she said she based Christian Science on the Bible. The first
tenet says, "As adherents of Truth, we take the inspired Word of the Bible
as our sufficient guide to eternal Life" (Church Manual, 89th
Edition). Yet Christian Science conflicts with the Bible. So if the Bible is
right then Christian Science is wrong. But if the Bible is wrong, then
Christian Science still is wrong because it allegedly is based on something
that is wrong. Third, Mrs. Eddy said that she based her teachings on
revelation, reason, and demonstration. Her revelation is Christian Science,
which seems to be neither Christian nor scientific. She didn't demonstrate
very much because she didn't overcome death. As for her reasoning, Isaiah
55:9 says, "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My [God's]
ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts." I would not
want to gamble my future in eternity on one woman's reasoning.
The Holy Spirit revealed to me through God's own Book to man, the Bible,
that the Bible says Jesus is God, come in the flesh. John 1:1,14
proclaims, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and
the Word was God...And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us..."
Thomas put his hand in Jesus' side and called Jesus "My Lord and My God."
Jesus agreed with that. Then I read in the Bible that, in the end times,
false prophets would deny that Jesus is the Christ and would claim that they
are the Christ. I saw that Mrs. Eddy had denied that Jesus is Christ and
that she had put herself in His place as being the only Leader and the only
way to God. So Mrs. Eddy was a false prophet. All people who cling to the
false prophet will end up in the hell Jesus told about where there will be
wailing and gnashing of teeth. All people who believe on Jesus and become
born again will end up in heaven with Him where there will be joy, beauty,
and no more tears. (Revelation 21:4)
I have chosen Jesus as my Lord and my God. I will confess Him to men. I pray
that the Holy Spirit will use this brief testimony to show someone involved
in the mind sciences, whether it be Christian Science, Religious Science,
Divine Science, Unity, or one of the others, that Jesus is God come in the
flesh, and that if we do not believe on Him we will not spend eternity with
God, but rather we will be cast into outer darkness. I resigned from the
Christian Science church. Now I belong to a group of other ex-Christian
Scientists who are also born-again Christians. We have a ministry named
"Christian Way." Our primary goal is to share the salvation message with
those in the mind sciences.
testimony from
www.christianway.org
top of page
Testimonies Page |
