What Is Christian Science?

Christian Science refers to the universal laws of Life, Truth and Love, which govern everyone and sustain all existence. These laws declare that health, harmony and peace are natural to all of us no matter what our religious beliefs may be - Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Catholic, Baptist, even if we have no religion. Christian Science teaches that everyone is embraced in this infinite divine Love, which is God.

This Science is found first and foremost in the beginning of the Bible, Genesis, chapter one, which declares that Spirit made all creation and everything God made was very good!  It also says that Spirit, God, made Man--male AND female--in the divine image and likeness, and that God blessed His/Her creation and gave us all dominion (the ability to demonstrate God's power in our lives).

The term "Christian Science" also refers to the scientific system of Mind healing demonstrated by the greatest physician who ever lived, the Jewish teacher, Christ Jesus. Over 2000 years ago he healed every type of physical problem—chronic and acute, contagious, congenital, hereditary, terminal, including raising the dead. These healings were based entirely and exclusively on Christ Jesus’ absolute trust in the allness and omnipotence of God, Spirit - in other words, obedience to the two great Commandments: 

  1. Love God, Spirit, supremely, with all your heart, soul, strength and mind;
  2. Love your neighbor (including so-called enemies) as yourself, as God loves you and them, since God is divine Love.

The woman who discovered Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, named it the Science of Christ or Christian Science because Science in its truest sense is truth based on universal, eternal laws which can be studied and proved in life, put to the test. God's laws are the foundation of the Science of God and can be proved in our lives by healing sin, disease and death through the power of Christ, as we bring our thoughts and lives in line with God's law.

Christ is the healing activity of infinite Love in human consciousness. Its message is "perfect God, perfect man; the allness and supremacy of God, Spirit, and the consequent powerlessness and nothingness of evil or matter."  When we silence the material senses and listen for the still, small voice of the Christ, Truth, we find it is continually guiding, governing and guarding us. And we discover the healing power of the Christ, just as Jesus, Elijah, Elisha, Moses, Paul, Peter and John did in biblical history. Their confidence in and obedience to God, Spirit, is what enabled them to heal; and it enabled Christ Jesus, the son of God, to heal every form of disease and sin, raise the dead, part the waters, still storms, walk on the water, produce food where there was none, and to resurrect himself from death as well.

Christ Jesus said that anyone who followed his teaching (the two great Commandments) would be able to demonstrate this divine law of health, wholeness, and peace in their own lives. "When the Science of being is universally understood, every man will be his own physician, and Truth will be the universal panacea." (Science & Health, p. 144:27).

A fuller explanation is found in the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy.