A few years ago, a Principia professor’s son fell ill. Family members prayed immediately to see and hear God and to experience healing. Over the course of a week, the child seemed to become sicker. During that time, his parents reached out to two Christian Science practitioners and a Christian Science teacher. Each of these healers asked to be released from the case shortly after taking it.
After an evening of concerted prayer, the thought came to the child’s parents that they needed to take him to a hospital. They recognized this as the voice of Love, and they heeded it. Upon arriving at the hospital, doctors informed them that their son’s appendix had burst. The boy received surgery, recovered from the incident, and returned to the Principia School a short time later.
Was this event a Christian Science healing? At the time, the professor recalled his C.S. teacher telling him that, fundamentally, Christian Science practice consists of two things: listening to God and being obedient. By that count, the parents were faithful practitioners. Still, when the thought came to take his son to the doctor, the professor worried that his family would not be able to stay at the college. Why? Principia’s Policy 4 stipulates, “Members…will be expected to rely on Christian Science for healing.”
Does Principia’s practice of this policy prohibit the path this family took? The professor was grateful to find that the school not only respected his family’s choice but also helped him manage the logistics and costs of the hospital visit.
After the drama passed, the professor met a colleague who offered, “You have nothing to feel guilty about!” Whoa. Guilt? That was the first time the thought had occurred to the professor. Even as the colleague meant to be kind, his comment revealed a dark undercurrent of thought at Principia. It is the belief that the use of medicine is somehow a failure to practice Christian Science and is not worthy of our community.
Numerous Principians who supported the family represent the idea that Christian Science is a way of being – that it is the practice of spiritual authenticity, of “listening and being obedient.” On the other hand, the notion that one might feel guilty for taking his child to the hospital represents the belief that the material outcome of prayer, not one’s obedience to the divine, proves the worth of one’s practice. Healing without attending physicians? Valid. Healing with physicians present? Less valid.
I’ve encountered this thought many times here. It surfaced in a remarkable way when a friend and recent alumna shared a healing with a Principia employee. She’d gone to the hospital in pain. A physician informed her that she had appendicitis or an ovarian cyst and that she needed emergency surgery. She was not impressed by the diagnosis or by the prescription, and she returned wholeheartedly to prayer for spiritual transformation. She had a quick healing without medicine or surgery. The Principian with whom she shared her testimony replied that Christian Scientists should not get medical diagnoses, and he questioned the completeness of her healing.
The effect of this thought in our community, here and beyond Elsah, is terrible. In graduate school, I was diagnosed with a serious condition and informed that I required immediate surgery. A thousand miles from Principia, my first thought was, “What would they think?” Eventually, I felt peaceful with a choice not to pursue medical treatment, but for weeks it was difficult to pray honestly for guidance for fear of getting the “wrong” answer, whereby Principians, my biggest family, would judge me. I cannot count the number of alums who have described the same dilemma: “Do I listen to God or do I avoid judgment?”
Attachment to material outcomes seems to be not just cultural but also institutional. Although Principia allows community members to take medicine temporarily, grants leaves of absence for medical treatment, and provides medical insurance, it limits medical permissions such that Principians facing chronic or serious conditions may not take medicine or receive treatment for more than a quarter or two before being asked to leave. As a result, a Christian Scientist taking insulin while working through the claim of diabetes would not be allowed to stay in the community, no matter how sincere her practice and no matter the spiritual growth and insights she brought to the community.
I understand that Principia limits medicine in the community because it does not wish to condone mixing medicine and Science for healthcare. Principia does not want to create an environment where people become dependent on drugs unnecessarily. But, until we are able to heal our own community members through the affluence of our love, who are we to turn away those who are struggling just as we are? Who are we to know what is “necessary” or what constitutes “mixing methods” for another?
I hope Principians learn simply to be grateful for each other and trust each other’s healing to the Spirit that moves us all. I hope we learn to value community members for their struggles and not hide them when they don’t get the results to which we are attached. Even if the use of medicine here were to increase, more love and less proscription would better encourage individuals to “listen and be obedient.” What more could we ask?
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Thought provoking article.
I am a life long Christian Scientist and I have been Journal listed as a Christian Science Practitioner for 15 years.
Mrs Eddy tells us that we cannot demonstrate whatwe do not understand. No one would expect a student who cannot do simple algebra to work on quadratic equations, although that student may well have the ability in the future to succeed in the subject. The worst thing that a teacher can do is to make that student feel guilty about it.
This applies to our practice of Christian Science.
It is a very sad thing for instance when an elderly life long Christian Scientist feels guilty because they cannot get support from a CS Practitioner when their circumstances change and their family puts them into a medical environment. In those circumstances we don’t get the reputation of a caring organisation.
Mrs Eddy wrote about dealing with exreme pain and surgery in Science and Health. Christian Science is about healing. It is not about asking people to bear the unbearable.
However, there is an important point raised in this article which must, I think, not be overlooked. True, each individual has the right to choose whether to have Christian Science treatment or not. If we choose to go down another route to healing, or try to combine medical treatment with Christian Science treatment, we may well obtain very necessary relief from pain. But please do not call this a healing in Christian Science because it is not. This would very soon dilute pure Christian Science until it was unrecognisable as being the Science which Mrs Eddy taught.
Excellent subject; excellent article and discussion of viewpoints. This continues to be a major challenge for Principia. As a College alumus of the class of ’66, with an alumnus son of the College class of ’93, and also as a class-taught, lifetime student of Christian Science (third generation Christian Scientist with two more generations following me in my family), I’ve had a severe challenge to meet when a grandnephew, highly desirous of attending the College, was denied entrance due to the results of a serious physical challenge which he encountered a several years ago.
Although his parents are both class-taught, devout students of C.S., both serving their local C.S. Church for years, the mother was new to C.S., and encountered a devastating fear when her son – my grandnephew – experienced a failed kidney. Despite the assistance of a practioner, the problem persisted, as did the fear of the mother, and the decision was made for her to submit one of her kidneys for a transplant. Since Medicare was involved in the financing of the operation, one of the requirements was that the patient would need to submit to periodic physical examinations to insure that his body was not rejecting the new kidney. Unfortunately, the time frame involved included the years he would be spending at the College; he was, therefore, rejected solely under the provisions of that infamous Policy 4 as mentioned above.
Although I have no qualms about the intent of Policy 4, and totally agree with its content, the intent was terribly misapplied in the case of my grandnephew. It basically reinforced the position that somebody was simply not a “good-enough Christian Scientist” here. He and his entire family have been engaged in prayerful support, as has been a practioner. Policy 4 has been complied with from day-one of the experience of the failed kidney, and who knows which impediment has stood in the way of realizing his perfect reflection of divine Love…perhaps the fear of the parents; perhaps the apparent and erroneous strength of a world of human opinion; perhaps even the need for better interpretation and use of Policy 4. But, that’s the situation of my personal experience, even though I remain totally committed to financial and metaphysical support of Principia. It’s a constant, severe throbbing in my heart every time my thoughts turn back to my most cherished experience at the College. Something there is calling out for change!
Very thought-provoking article. I am glad there is open discussion on this subject at Prin. Christian Scientists of good intentions are certainly going to differ on this issue. But I think open hearts are most important. There are so many of us who have left CS — even while perhaps still attending services — over this issue and the sense that if we are not “perfect” in our application of CS in our lives, then there is no room for us in the movement.
I have a daughter preparing to graduate from Auburn University this year. I would have dearly loved for her to attend Prin, but she has been on daily medication for asthma ever since she was rushed to the hospital at age 6 due to severe breathing difficulty. I remember the many times my mother harshly informed me that I was giving my daughter “second-best care” through medical science. But I also remember the compassion of my late former father-in-law, a CS teacher, who assured me that “God will not leave you when you walk in the hospital door.” Those of us who have made the decision to treat ourselves or our children through medical science really only ask for that kind of compassion, and to allow us to work out our own “salvation.” We are all at different places in that process.