The simple theology that heals

Christian Science has this beautiful, clear, pure, spiritual simplicity to it.  The entire theology can be boiled down to a few basic points:

1) God exists. 
2) God is good.
3) God is all. 
4) The universe, including man, is the reflection of God.
5) There is no evil.

Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer of Christian Science, explained that her work consisted of 2 parts:

1)  Discovery of this Science – of these five basic points
2)  Proof by present demonstration that this is the Principle by which Jesus healed.

We can’t have the discovery without the proof.

Mrs. Eddy discovered the action of the divine Mind on human minds and bodies.  But limited mortal thought patterns have worn a groove in collective human consciousness, probing, diagnosing and picking apart matter as both cause and effect. Hence we are drawn into thinking that problems are material and thus complicated or difficult to heal.

For Christ Jesus, theology and medicine were one. Jesus’ theology is simple and clear.  God is all, Good. Evil is nothing, unreal. What we face in every case is a challenge to the simple theology of the Christ.  Can we depend on the fact that God is good? Can we prove it? Is man really reflection – the image and likeness of God? Can we demonstrate it?

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Every case touches on a theological question.  The task of a Christian healer is to simply answer the question and watch the proof appear.

The work should always be this simple.  But it isn’t without opposition. That which Mrs Eddy named mortal mind – limited, matter-based reasoning that generates doubt and fear - would make the task of healing seem complicated, unclear and difficult. Fear and doubt impel us to overwork, or underwork the healing activity of prayer, to doubt our experience with the Christ, to change methods repeatedly and ultimately let the problem run the case.

I received a phone call from a father whose child had jumped from a tree house and injured his calf. It appeared to be broken. I was asked to pray for him while the family sorted out the practical care. When I hung up the phone I immediately thought, Well, God, what do you have to say about this? 

I had Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures open on my desk. My eyes fell on a statement of Jesus found on page 45, “Spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.”

Looking up from the book, I thought, Don’t be fooled by the picture of flesh and bones. That is not who this child really is.  His substance is Spirit. All that he is and has comes from the Spirit that is God.

It seemed such a simple response to the theological question, Is this boy the image and likeness of God?

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As I considered the implications in prayer – that he was in fact spiritual and that anything pro or con going on with flesh and bones didn’t touch him – a doubt cropped up. I wanted to be sure I was getting the message correctly. I wondered, But wasn’t Jesus just talking about himself? Then I turned the page and read, “The divine Spirit, which identified Jesus thus centuries ago, has spoken through the inspired Word and will speak through it in every age and clime. It is revealed to the receptive heart, and is again seen casting out evil and healing the sick.” (46)

OK, I thought, so Spirit knows this child the same way it knew Jesus - as perfect, spiritual, whole, unbroken, invulnerable, unfallen. The same Spirit voicing truth through Jesus' words to his disciples was communicating to me in the inspired Word of Science and Health in this age. My receptive heart was accepting the message.

Then up popped a fear. Can it be this easy? What about the broken bone? Don’t I have to do something about this in my prayer?

I looked down once again at the book and read the next phrase as though it was being spoken with force, “The Master said plainly that physique was not Spirit…”

I remembered Jesus’ instruction in the Sermon on the Mount and thought of it in relation to prayer, “Let your statement be, 'Yes, yes ' or 'No, no'; anything beyond these is of evil." Matthew 5:37

I needed to say Yes, Yes to the plain and simple reality of unbroken, uninterrupted spiritual being. And I needed to say a direct and clear No, No to the physical belief that the child was material and breakable.

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That was it.  I consented and said YES, YES.  In fact, I was so taken by what I was saying YES to, that I forgot the case entirely and continued reading.

The phone rang about 30 minutes later. It was the mother. She told me that two minutes after they placed the call, she was holding her son and praying to know what to do next. They had discussed calling an ambulance or driving him to the hospital. Then they heard a distinct sound coming from his leg “like the sound of a zipper.”  And he was healed just like that.

The pure simple theology of the Christ is revealed. And it heals.

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