Christian Science is a pseudo-Christian sect founded by Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910). Eddy published her book Science and Health with Keys to the Scriptures in 1875, and founded the Church of Christ, Scientist in 1879. Perhaps the best known of the church's publications is the Christian Science Monitor.

The goal of Christian Science, according to their Church Manual, is to "reinstitute primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing." Lest there be any doubt where the sect derives its authority, one has only to look to what Mrs. Eddy has to say about her book Science and Health: "I should blush to write of Science and Health, With key to the Scriptures as I have, were it of human origin and I apart from God its author, but as I was only a scribe echoing the harmonies of heaven in divine metaphysics, I cannot be super-modest of the Christian Science textbook" (Christian Science Journal, January, 1901). While it is clear that the God of the Bible had no hand in creating Science and Health, there is strong evidence that the book did not originate solely from the mind of Mary Baker Eddy either. There is ample documentation that Mrs. Eddy drew heavily from, and even plagiarized, the works of Phineas Parkhurst Quimby and Francis Lieber.

Christian Science claims that the material world is an illusion; that only the spirit world is real. It is not Christian, for it denies every necessary doctrine of historic Christianity. Neither is it scientific. What follows is a comparison of Christian Science beliefs with those of historic Christianity.

FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE: "Divine Science derives its sanction from the Bible" (Science and Scripture, p. 146).

BIBLE: "The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons" (1 Timothy 4:1).

JESUS CHRIST

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE: Jesus Christ is not God. "Jesus Christ is not God as Jesus Himself declared but is the son of God" (Science and Health, p. 361).

BIBLE: Jesus said He was God. "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End" (Revelation 22:13).

CHRIST AND THE HOLY SPIRIT

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE: Christ and the Holy Spirit are the divine idea of God. "Jesus demonstrated Christ; he proved that Christ is the divine idea of God -- the Holy Ghost, or Comforter, revealing the Divine Principle, Love, and leading into all truth" (Science and Health, p. 332).

BIBLE: The word Christ is a title, not a divine idea. Jesus was the Christ. "The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, We have found the Messiah (that is, the Christ)" (John 1:41).

The Holy Spirit is a person. "And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever -- the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him" (John 14:15-17).

THE TRINITY

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE: Denial of the Trinity. "Life, Truth, Love constitute the triune God" (Science and Health, pp. 226-227).

"The theory of three persons in one God (that is, a personal Trinity or Tri-unity) suggests polytheism, rather than the one ever-present I AM" (Science and Health, p. 256).

BIBLE: The Father is God. The Son is God: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning" (John 1:1-2).

The Holy Spirit is God: "And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit" (2 Corinthians 3:18).

THE ATONEMENT

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE: Christ's blood does not cleanse us from sin. "The material blood of Jesus was no more efficacious to cleanse from sin when it was shed upon the accursed tree, than when it was flowing in his veins as he went daily about his Father's business" (Science and Health, p. 25).

BIBLE: We are cleansed by Christ's blood. "Since we have now been justified by His blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through Him!" (Romans 5:9)

SALVATION

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE: Salvation is by works. "By interpreting God as a corporeal Savior but not as the saving Principle, or divine Love, we shall continue to seek salvation through pardon and not through reform. As mortals reach, through Christian Science, a higher sense, they will seek to learn, not from matter, but from the divine Principle, God, how to demonstrate the Christ, Truth, as the healing and saving power" (Science and Health, p. 285).

BIBLE: Salvation is by grace, through faith. "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith -- and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God -- not by works, lest anyone should boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9).

SIN, DISEASE, AND DEATH

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE: Sin, disease, and death are not real. "The unreality of sin, disease, and death, rests on the exclusive truth that being, to be eternal, must be harmonious" (No and Yes, p. 4).

BIBLE: Death is real. "But you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die" (Genesis 2:15).

Sin is real. "If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared" (Psalm 130:3-4).

Disease is real. "He drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: He took up our infirmities and carried our diseases" (Matthew 8:16-17).