Mary Baker Eddy (1821 – 1910), the discoverer and founder of Christian Science, had a lifelong love of the Bible.  In 1866, she recovered from a near-fatal accident after discovering the divine Science of Christian healing as she read Jesus’ healings.  She felt this was a revelation from God and set about delving deeper into the Bible in light of her discovery.  This eventually led her to “organize a church which should reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing.”  This led to the establishment of the worldwide Church of Christ, Scientist, her writing of the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, the establishment of The Christian Science Publishing Society, the Church’s Board of Lectureship, and starting up the acclaimed global newspaper, The Christian Science Monitor.

Christian Science rests on the Bible’s affirmation that “God is Love” (1 John 4:16) and its followers’ goal is to live as Jesus taught his disciples.  As Mrs. Eddy says, “The vital part, the heart and soul of Christian Science, is Love.”  She used the word “science” because the spiritual laws of Love that enabled Jesus to heal sin and sickness are reliable, consistent, and provable.  When asked by a newspaper reporter in 1901, “On what is Christian Science based?” she answered that she had laid its foundation on “The Ten Commandments,” “The Ninety-First Psalm,” “The Sermon on the Mount,” “The Revelation of St. John the Divine.”  She also distinguished that Genesis 1 sets forth God’s true creation, while Genesis 2 is an account of a false view of creation.  In Unity of Good, Mrs. Eddy says, “[Jesus] taught no selfhood as existent in matter….  Individuality and Life were real to him only as spiritual and good, not as material or evil.”  Mrs. Eddy’s definitive statement of the Genesis 1 man vs the Genesis 2 man, can be found in her “scientific statement of being” (S&H 468): “There is no life, truth, intelligence, or substance in matter.  All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all.  Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error.  Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal.  Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness.  Therefore man is not material, he is spiritual.”

1. As adherents of Truth, we take the inspired Word of the Bible as our sufficient guide to eternal Life.
2. We acknowledge and adore one supreme and infinite God. We acknowledge His Son, one Christ; the Holy Ghost or divine Comforter; and man in God’s image and likeness.
3. We acknowledge God’s forgiveness of sin in the destruction of sin and the spiritual understanding that casts out evil as unreal. But the belief in sin is punished so long as the belief lasts.
4. We acknowledge Jesus’ atonement as the evidence of divine, efficacious Love, unfolding man’s unity with God through Christ Jesus the Way-shower; and we acknowledge that man is saved through Christ, through Truth, Life, and Love as demonstrated by the Galilean Prophet in healing the sick and overcoming sin and death.
5. We acknowledge that the crucifixion of Jesus and his resurrection served to uplift faith to understand eternal Life, even the allness of Soul, Spirit, and the nothingness of matter.
6. And we solemnly promise to watch, and pray for that Mind to be in us which was also in Christ Jesus; to do unto others as we would have them do unto us; and to be merciful, just, and pure.

For more information, you can visit www.christianscience.com/what-is-christian-science.