With the Easter season upon us, as a Christian Scientist I have been giving extra thought to why I love Jesus. And with that in mind, I’d like to share here, for my readers, this thoughtful piece by a colleague of mine – Tim Mitchinson from Naperville, Illinois – who expressed it so well, sharing how
Picture by Ryan Harvey
The short answer is…. plenty!
So, how was weight loss accomplished through prayer ?
Healing in Christian Science is not faith healing through the human mind or a blind faith. It’s not New Age thinking or positive thinking. It’s not visualization, seeing yourself the way you want to be.
It’s seeing yourself as God sees you, as God made you.
I read something in a newspaper recently that got me to thinking about the Bible’s place in society. Of course it is found in Christian churches. It certainly is found in my Christian Science church. And I teach from it in my Christian Science Sunday School. It is found in the homes of Christians. I have numerous copies in my home, most of them a bit worn. Sometimes it is found in the classroom, but only under certain conditions. I remember taking classes on the Bible in college, studying the Old Testament and then the New Testament. These classes primarily looked at the Bible from a literary and historical perspective.
These, of course, are geographical places. And these days the Bible is found in different forms. My favorite is my black leather Bible. I also have the Bible on my computer with additional translations, commentaries and Greek and Hebrew dictionaries for more in-depth study. The Bible is available on cassette and CD. Some have a Pod-cast version. These are the physical forms and places in which the Bible is found.
But thinking a bit more broadly, where does the Bible find its place in the heart?
“It is the information at the core of religion where Believers and Non-Believers still have room to grow.” This was the conclusion drawn by Byron Pitts in his report on The CBS Evening News With Katie Couric on Tuesday, September 28, 2010 covering the survey on religious knowledge in the U.S. conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. With today’s news cycles, that seems like long ago, but Byron’s conclusion caught my attention.
As a Christian Scientist I am a Christian and I strive to follow Jesus’ teaching to love one another. So, a question I have to ask myself is, “do I love enough to gain a basic understanding of the core beliefs that are important to my neighbors?” While we will all likely have areas where we need to agree to disagree, it seems to me that we would all be better off if we had a better understanding of one another’s core beliefs. I took the test that was given as part of this survey, and while I did quite well, I did not get 100% correct. So I must admit that I still have room to grow.