Is Christian Science A Cult?

My sister-in-law had an abiding faith in God. At first, though, she was suspicious of Christian Science. My husband (her brother) tried to reassure her. But he'd just started reading Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures then, and didn't always know how to answer her questions.

Over the years, however, my sister-in-law observed how my husband and I were helped when we prayed to God. She saw us and our children recuperate quickly from things like mumps, banged-up knees, skin diseases, and financial problems. And she actually came to expect Christian Science cures.

Later, when my sister-in-law faced hard situations herself, she'd stop by our house to talk. We'd talk together about how God's love is more powerful than heartbreak or disease or even death. And sometimes we prayed together. But she never seemed interested in discussing Christian Science specifically.

So what happened at the baseball game came as a surprise. My sister-in-law, who was a single mom, had a date that night with a man from her church. And the four of us went to the game together. When she casually mentioned that my husband and I are Christian Scientists, her date began speaking with her intensely. I couldn't hear what he was saying. But, during a lull in the cheering, his words came through with stinging clarity. "Christian Science is just a cult!" he said.

The next day we found out how my sister-in-law answered her friend. She'd said, 'All I can say is—I know my brother. I know his wife. They're good people. If anything ever happens to me, I want them to raise my children. As far as I'm concerned, Christian Science has to be a good thing. It's made them what they are!"

My husband and I felt she'd been absolutely fair—to us and to our faith. She'd evaluated Christian Science on the basis of the way we tried to live it. On the basis of what we did with it.

This is the way Jesus told his followers to judge between good and bad prophets. "You can tell what they are by what they do," he said. "A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit." See Matt. 7:15-17, Contemporary English Version

If good works identify "good fruit," then what identifies "bad fruit"? And what identifies a cult? Rabbi Marc Gellmand and Monsignor Thomas Hartman (authors of How Do You Spell God?) describe the adverse effects cults have this way: "Cults make people into robots, into zombies, into blind followers." How Do You Spell God? (New York: Morrow, 1995), p. 189.

And clinical psychologist Margaret Thaler Singer, in cults in our Midst, says the many forms of cult worship that have proliferated worldwide since the 1960s include the following:

1. Personality worship. Cult leaders, according to Singer, center attention, affection, and worship on themselves. They take "control of their followers' possessions, money, and lives."

2. Thought manipulation. Many cults, Singer says, "put great pressure on new members to leave their families, friends, and jobs to become immersed in the group's major purpose." This engenders a state of enforced dependency, where the members are subject to "coercive persuasion," or brainwashing.

3. Self-service. The two driving purposes of cult life, according to Singer, are to recruit new members and to make money for the leadership. This effectively eliminates the idea of selflessly serving humanity. Cults in Our Midst (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1995), pp. xviii, xx-xxi, 8-11.

Anyone who has read Science and Health with an open mind knows that personality worship, thought manipulation, and self-service are galaxies away fromChristian Science.

Anyone who has read Science and Health with an open mind knows that all the above—personality worship, thought manipulation, and self-service—are galaxies away from Christian Science.

Take the idea of personality worship. Science and Health explains that God is the one and only infinite Person. And that all of us are His children. Our sole purpose is to glorify His character, to shine with His beauty, to heal with His power.

Sometimes it's said that Christian Scientists worship Mary Baker Eddy. Well, they do appreciate—extraordinarily—her years of labor for humankind. She meticulously researched the Bible to discover the Principle of metaphysical healing; she maintained a lifelong thrust of spiritual healing matched by few in history; she wrote a book— Science and Health—that shows how anyone, in any age, can follow the example of Jesus Christ; she established an international Church dedicated to liberating humanity from every form of oppression. And much more.

But Christian Scientists don't worship Mrs. Eddy. During her lifetime, she constantly shifted the focus of attention away from her personality to the Principle she'd discovered. To God. "In founding a pathological system of Christianity," she wrote about herself, "the author has labored to expound divine Principle, and not to exalt personality." Science and Health, p. 464. Human personality, she knew, is fallible and temporary. Principle, on the other hand, makes no mistakes. And it's forever.

As to thought manipulation, nothing could be more alien to Christian Science. Actually, Christian Science empowers human thought to be more Christlike. The very first page of Science and Health announces boldly, "The time for thinkers has come." Ibid., p. vii. The book goes on to identify thought as the essence of experience and to explain how spiritualizing thought inevitably improves experience. This is done by drawing closer to God, the source of all love. Such closeness with God's love enriches our relations with all His children—friends, family, acquaintances—even so-called adversaries.

But all this doesn't depend on our own brainpower—or someone else's. The healing, liberating fact that Science and Health lays bare is that our thought-power comes from God. In fact, God is our very Mind. This is because we are His children, the spiritual reflections of His infinite intelligence. So, ultimately, no one short of God has the power, or the right, to tell us what to say or think or do!

Finally, what relationship does the international church that Mary Baker Eddy established—the Church of Christ, Scientist—bear to cults whose prime purpose is to get larger and wealthier? To sects that are dedicated to self-service? None whatsoever. The stated purpose of the Church, ever since its founding, has been "...to commemorate the word and works of our Master, which should reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing." Manual of the Mother Church, p. 17.

Christian Science can't any more be confined to a human institutionthan God can.

Mary Baker Eddy's overriding purpose wasn't to found a church, however. It was to discover the Principle by which Jesus healed, express that Principle in terms of an applied "Science," and communicate this Christian Science to humanity. She accomplished these intentions in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures before she founded a church.

Mrs. Eddy hoped Christian churches worldwide would quickly assimilate the message in Science and Health. Only after it became clear that "the churches seem [ed] not ready to receive" Christian Science did she establish a church to forward the book and its mission. Science and Health, p. 131. This Church exists, not to promote a denominational agenda, but to respond to humanity's aching need for relief from poverty, violence, disease, corruption. The Church promotes universal Truth. And it promotes Truth universally. Its purpose is altruistic. Its effect is healing.

Christian Science can't any more be confined to a human institution than God can. Mary Baker Eddy once wrote, "God is universal; confined to no spot, defined by no dogma, appropriated by no sect." Miscellaneous Writings, p. 150. And this is what my sister-in-law and I ultimately realized.

After the conversation at the baseball game, she continued exploring Christian Science—within the context of her own denomination. Eventually, she started reading Science and Health. And she shared it with others.

No one was more supportive than my sister-in-law when I became a full-time Christian healer. "You've been called!" she'd say And we agreed that, in her own way, she had been called, too.

Mary Metzner Trammell