Today the Christian Science church declares that no anti-doctor attitude is taught by the church. And, judging from some of the feedback on the A Collision of Truths website, www.acollisionoftruths.com, contemporary CS practitioners are not as reluctant to follow their patients into the hospital as they were back in the good old days. The same feedback declares that claims that such a church dictated policy exists are without foundation. That may be true today. But there’s no denying that in the past and for many decades the church devoted thousands of dollars to having their state Committees on Publication get their legislatures to pass laws granting exemptions to children of Christian Scientists from public school education in health, biology, etc. and from normal examinations by the school doctor or nurse. Articles in the CS publications supported this stance, and the CS Board of Directors defrocked it’s own CS Teachers when they strayed from the anti-medicine line.
From the perspective of the writings of Mary Baker Eddy (MBE), the founder of Christian Science, was the attitude that members should not mix medicine with prayer ever legitimate? Consider the following:
She advised her followers on how to choose a doctor and declared that his efforts could be conducive to health (salutary): “Great caution should be exercised in the choice of physicians. If you employ a medical practitioner, be sure he is a learned man and skilful; never trust yourself in the hands of a quack. In proportion as a physician is enlightened and liberal is he equipped with Truth, and his efforts are salutary; ignorance and charlatanism are miserable medical aids.” (Christian Healing 14:9) In her day “quackery” was rampant and good doctors were hard to come by.
She suggested the taking of a pain killer: “If from an injury or from any cause, a Christian Scientist were seized with pain so violent that he could not treat himself mentally . . . the sufferer could call a surgeon, who would give him a hypodermic injection, then, when the belief of pain was lulled, he could handle his own case mentally.” (Science and Health 464: 13-19) The word “surgeon” included all doctors in MBE’s day.
She recognized that her followers might not be ready for total reliance on God for physical healing, and said that if a doctor is brought in, the practitioner should continue praying for the patient: “Until the advancing age admits the efficacy and supremacy of Mind, it is better for Christian Scientists to leave surgery and the adjustment of broken bones and dislocations to the fingers of a surgeon, while the mental healer confines himself chiefly to mental reconstruction . . .” (Science and Health 401:27)
Many more quotes of this kind are available in the early Christian Science periodicals by various authors and more quotes can be found in MBE’s writings.
Might the church be thriving today if the common sense of the early days of the movement had prevailed? Might it experience growth today if the church could reverse the public image on this major issue. Feedback on Collision’s website testifies to heart rending experiences that came about as a result of this anti-medical tradition. And yet many of the same feedback letters indicate that, while people have left the church because of the early death of loved ones, they still hold on to much of what they learned in Christian Science. One feedback writer who has left the church nevertheless suggests that Mary Baker Eddy was way ahead of her time and that she would have respected the scientific/medical discoveries being made today. The same speculation is made in A Collision of Truths.
How many ex-Christian Scientists might not have left the church were it not for this overriding issue? Is there any validity for an anti-medical stance in Christian Science? Can/should the Christian Science organization attempt to overcome the public’s anti-medical picture of The First Church of Christ, Scientist? If so, how?
