UK Christian Science Churches and Reading Rooms

The Bible says that “God is love” (I John 4:16).

God’s love is at the core of Christian Science. Mary Baker Eddy wrote that “Divine Love is the substance of Christian Science, the basis of its demonstration, yea, its foundation and superstructure.” (Miscellaneous Writings 357: 31-1)

Those who practice Christian Science do their best to live the bold, generous, and compassionate love that Christ Jesus laid out in his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). This is the heart of its Christianity.

Mary Baker Eddy is the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science.

Raised in a Puritan home, Mary Baker Eddy loved and studied the Bible, a love she practiced throughout her life. An invalid for most of her childhood and early adult life, Eddy not only had a firm faith in God and His love for her, she constantly sought to find permanent solutions to her many ills and challenges.

A turning point occurred in 1866 when she had a severe fall and was not expected to survive. After three days with no improvement she asked for her Bible and found complete healing after reading an account in Matthew of Jesus healing a man instantly.

Eddy dedicated the rest of her life to discovering the spiritual meaning of the Scriptures and demonstrating that applying its spiritual laws can bring healing and harmony to individual lives.

In a time when women were not expected to think for themselves she blazed a trail. Eddy wrote and published a book (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures) and founded a church to carry forward her discovery, which she named Christian Science. Additionally, Eddy also established the Pulitzer-winning international newspaper, The Christian Science Monitor.

Eddy has left her mark on women’s leadership:

In 1992, the Women’s National Book Association named Science and Health as one of 75 books written by women whose words have changed the world.
Eddy is one of only eight women on The Atlantic’s 2006 list of “The 100 Most Influential Figures in American History.”
Eddy was on Smithsonian Magazine’s 2014 list of the “100 Most Significant Americans of All Time.”

Further reading ...

Mary Baker Eddy founded a religion with equality at its core by Karla Vallance, The Christian Science Monitor, August 7, 2020
Mary Baker Eddy, a spiritual pioneer

The important points, or religious tenets, of Christian Science

Mary Baker Eddy outlined a few brief tenets, rather than a creed or doctrinal beliefs, that summarize the essential points of Christian Science, all of which are rooted in the Bible.

As adherents of Truth, we take the inspired Word of the Bible as our sufficient guide to eternal Life.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (497:3-27)

The Bible is central to the study and practice of Christian Science and its system of healing.

Through the study of the Bible, Mary Baker Eddy found not only inspiration and guidance, but what she believed were the spiritual laws of health and healing that undergirded Jesus’ teachings and works.

In her seminal work Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures she writes, “The Bible has been my only authority,” and “my only textbook”, and “contains the recipe for all healing”, and describes it as “the chart of life”. The Bible and Science and Health are the textbooks for self-instruction in Christian Science, they are central to Sunday School, and a weekly Bible Lesson, made up of selections from these two books, is available for individual study.

Together, the Bible and Science and Health are the pastor of the Christian Science Church. Daily inspiration and healing can be found in the weekly Lesson-Sermon with its specially chosen readings from both books. This Lesson-Sermon is read at all Sunday services, using the King James Version Bible with its rich poetry and prose.

Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures is Mary Baker Eddy’s primary work and the definitive textbook on the system of healing that she discovered in 1866 and named Christian Science.

“heal the sick...”
These words of Christ Jesus encircling the Cross and Crown seal on the cover of this book are a sweet promise that we all possess the ability to heal ourselves, our families, our world.

Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures explains fully and directly the spiritual teaching of the Bible, and reveals the divine Science that, when practiced, brings health and harmony to all aspects of our lives. It is available to everyone.

The last 100 pages of this book are letters from those who have experienced healing simply by reading or studying this textbook of the Science of Christianity. One reader notes that “it was the theology in Science and Health that healed me, just as it was the theology of Jesus that healed the sick.”

Find out more about this book and its author. Read or listen to it online.