What Is Christian Science and Does It Fit the Bible?

In your hometown or while traveling, you may have seen one—a small storefront with a collection of books and pamphlets about spiritual and scientific matters. Anyone is welcome to step inside and peruse. It’s not a bookstore, not quite a library. It’s a Christian Science Reading Room, and for many people, it’s their only experience with the religion that took root in America over 100 years ago and has now spread to 70 countries. But is Christian Science yet another Christian denomination? Are its teachings rooted in Scripture, or is it a misnomer that teaches an unbiblical message?

Who Founded Christian Science?

Mary Baker Eddy founded Christian Science in the late nineteenth century.

Eddy was severely injured in 1866, and she looked to the Bible for answers in her quest for healing. She claimed that within its pages, she discovered “the laws of spiritual healing”—universal and dependable laws of God.

Eddy spent 40 years after her healing helping others who came to her with illness and injury, effectively becoming what is known as a “faith healer.” During this time, she also created and practiced what is now known as Christian Science. (No one else is credited with the movement’s founding, nor with assisting Eddy in its founding.)

Other movements, such as the Pentecostal movement, attribute faith healings to God’s mysterious, miraculous work. Christian Scientists believe that “spiritual healing isn’t miraculous, but an effect of understanding God’s all-power and love. It’s as provable today as it was in biblical times.” (This take on God’s work in the physical realm will be explained later in this article.)

Eddy’s foremost written work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, is meant for Christian Scientists to read as a supplement to the Bible. First published in 1875, the book can be referenced and divided by lines and verses and contains chapters on subjects such as prayer, atonement, animal magnetism, physiology, and the apocalypse. Eddy is also responsible for founding the Christian Science Monitor in 1908, which does not promote Christian Science teachings but carries the movement’s name because Eddy founded the paper.

What Are the Main Tenets of Christian Science?

According to the official Christian Science website, “Christian Science is based on the idea that God is the author of unchanging scientific truths, which when understood properly, can unlock healing.”

However, according to Eddy, Christian Scientists do not have a specific religious doctrine. She instead compiled a list of six main tenets for those within her faith community. This community states that the tenets are “rooted in the Bible,” but later clarified by the content of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.

Though not technically a doctrinal statement, some key phrases in the following tenets may sound familiar to Christians as key pieces of other churches’ doctrinal statements.

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.”

However, readers would do well to examine the significant differences in Christian Scientists’ core beliefs.

There are two particular areas where it’s important to consider how Christian Science differs from the Bible’s teachings.

Does Christian Science Fit the Bible’s View of Sin?

Indirectly, Christian Science somewhat supports the Bible’s “view of sin” in that its literature and official messaging regularly point back to the Scriptures. A passage in Chapter 11 of Eddy’s Science and Health states that Christian Science, among other things, “awakens the sinner” (line 21). According to the Christian Science website, sin and sickness are to be healed via Christ’s unchangeable, infinite love.

At first, this would seem to coincide with the Christian understanding that sin exists and is pervasive and can only be remedied through Christ’s saving work. Sin is named directly and not ignored by Christian Science. But a closer look shows a problematic, if unique, take on sin.

Later in chapter 11 of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Eddy refers to sin as a “belief” that Jesus ultimately destroyed through His healing work on earth. From her perspective, sin is not so much a dark reality as an errant way of thinking.

Certainly, sin can lead to errant thinking, but the Scriptures ultimately do not support the idea of sin as a belief only. If this line of thinking were true, Christ’s sacrifice would seem a bit heavy-handed and perhaps unnecessary if all that’s needed to correct “the belief of sin” is recognizing that He loves us.

Does Christian Science Fit the Bible’s View of the Physical World?

Christians are told numerous times in the Scriptures to focus on what awaits us after our lives end on this earth. We are told to look to the unseen and eternal (2 Corinthians 4:18), to take heed of the renewal of our inward self even as our outward self is prone to decay (2 Corinthians 4:16), to “store up treasure in heaven” that cannot be destroyed (Matthew 6:19-21).

However, these statements do not mean the Bible treats physical bodies as worthless. The bodies we currently inhabit, and the creation around us, are inherently beautiful and significant because of the God who made it all for His glory. The Psalms alone highlight how God created a marvelous physical world and how time spent enjoying creation should point believers back to worshiping the Lord.

Furthermore, the Bible affirms there will be a “new heaven and a new earth” (Revelation 21:1) and refers multiple times to a final resurrection. We are not waiting to be beamed into heaven to live forever as purely spiritual beings. We are told to hope for a time when we are resurrected with better physical bodies in a better physical world.

In his “9 Things You Should Know About ‘Christian Science,’” Gospel Coalition contributor Joe Carter points out that, like sin, Christian Scientists believe that matter (or the physical world) is an “illusion.”

Elsewhere, the fifth tenet of Christian Science makes mention of “the nothingness of matter.” The way Eddy particularly talks about the spiritual having preeminence over the physical suggests that the latter is somehow “in the way”—similar to one ancient Greek belief that the soul was trapped in the body and needed to be released. This belief also appears in some early Christian heresies, such as Gnosticism.

What Should Christians Remember about Christian Science?

At first glance, Christian Science addresses and upholds many distinctly Christian ideas. The movement has done much noble work regarding health and even responsible, uplifting journalism.

But readers would be mistaken in believing that Christian Science is but another denomination within the Protestant faith. Incongruencies on the topics of sin, the physical world, and more, make Christian Science ultimately incompatible with the Scriptures.

Photo Credit: © Getty Images/WilshireImages

Anna Oelerich is a Chicago-area church youth director, freelance writer, and graduate of Taylor University. She received her B.S. in Professional Writing in 2018, but has loved words—reading, storytelling, list-making, and even handwriting—for as long as she can remember. Previously, she served as the marketing and communications coordinator for a community foundation, where she shared powerful stories of generosity, and encouraged others to give. When writing an article, or developing programming for her students, Anna enjoys highlighting the historical and cultural contexts of familiar Bible passages so others feel they are living the stories for themselves.