Week 9: Christian Science. Holy Shit.

“If half the attention given to hygiene were given to Christian Science and spiritual thought, this alone would usher in the Millenium.”

-Mary Baker Eddy in Science and Health

“Yeah, A thousand years of really smelly people.”

-The Churchgoing Atheist

It would be pretty easy to make fun of the nuts who practice Christian Science. Yes, these are the people who believe so deeply that prayer will heal the sick that many of them choose to forgo medical treatment. But part of the Churchgoing Atheist project is giving everyone an equal fair shake, so here goes.

The building has piqued my curiosity ever since I briefly lived on the same street. It is an imposing structure: square, domed, fronted by Greek columns. It looks more like a government building than a church. I wondered if there could possibly be enough Christian Scientists in the Rochester area to warrant such a structure. Finally I had my chance to find out.

Inside it is a majestic building. Above the main room is the dome, gilded with ornamentation. Strangely, there is not one single cross anywhere. There are rows of benches roughly in a semicircle. It could probably hold 700 people. There were maybe 30 people there for the service—a decent number, but they were swallowed up by the room. That place will make a cool concert hall or museum when the church inevitably goes under.

So here’s a bit of basic history for you: in 1866 Mary Baker Eddy was miraculously healed of an injury after reading a Bible passage. She then founded the First Church of Christ, Scientist. The foundation of their belief system is both the Bible and Mary Baker Eddy’s book, Science and Health, in which she interprets Bible passages.

Christian Scientists love Mary Baker Eddy. In some ways, the structure of the service resembles most other churches I’ve been to: hymns, scripture readings, prayers. But the bulk of their service is simply reading from Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health.

They have no pastor or priest, no official religious leader of any kind, apparently. The service is run by two lay people who stand side by side at the front podium. One reads a passage from the Bible, and the second reads the corresponding passage of interpretation from Mary Baker Eddy.

This back and forth goes on for quite some time. They share no interpretation except the 150-year-old words of Mrs. Eddy, so it barely qualifies as a sermon, but that’s what they call it. Most of the interpretations from Science and Health were bits of wisdom about the nature of existence. It was a lot of new-age sounding spiritualism about how all matter is illusion and the true nature of existence is immaterial. Only when people learn to let go of the material world can they truly know God. I suppose in that respect it’s not terribly different from Buddhism or even pantheism (everything is God). Still, I don’t put any credence in that mushy cosmology.

There are a number of reasons why I like churches. Good music. Friends and fellowship. Thought-provoking, inspiring sermons. Charity work. This church had none of the above. And on top of it all, it was boring! Outrageously boring. Keep in mind: this is coming from a man who doesn’t believe in God but chooses to go to church every week. I am not easily bored. Forget the comparisons to paint-drying and watching grass grow. Mary Baker Eddy took it to the next level. Honestly, I don’t know how this religion ever spread, because this sermon must’ve been boring even by 19^th-century standards. Even the music was boring (lyrics by Mary Baker Eddy). The whole thing was soul-crushingly boring.

Couple all this with a theology that advises against personal hygiene, and it’s no surprise that the Christian Science Church is dying. Their membership has declined according to their own website (and you should check out the FAQ on their site—it’s rich with bizarre rationalizations). I’ll limit the summative criticisms to only two sentences. This church should die out. It is an outrage that people will deny sick children medical treatment, and the claim that religious belief protects their right to do so turns my stomach.

But now that I’ve got the criticism out of the way, allow me to offer a potentially surprising compliment. I respect their honesty. Christian Scientists actually seem to believe what they say they believe. They do what all Christians should do if they really believe in the power of prayer. Sure, I know the standard answer to this: God answers prayers in the form of good doctors and healing medicines. I don’t buy it. Daniel Dennett has a charming essay, “Thank Goodness,” about why we should thank the doctors and the field of medicine rather than thanking God.

You could look at this in different ways. On the one hand, you could say that doctors are agents of the divine, performing miracles each day, and that is the highest of compliments. Or you could say that doctors have devoted years of their lives to learning, compassion, and selflessness, trusting in science to discover how the human body actually works. Sure, you can have it both ways, but I think claiming the doctors would somehow be less effective in the absence of prayer or God is not only wrong, but a cheapening of the profession and the sacrifice of those individuals. Daniel Dennett’s essay expresses this more eloquently than I can.

To close, a few words about belief (again drawing on the words of Hitchens and Dawkins). Christians claim to believe in the power of prayer, but most would choose to actually place their bets on science when it really matters. Imagine if your child was dying and you only had time to drive to the hospital or the church. Those who genuinely follow through on their belief are respectable, in a twisted sort of way, but the more people actually believe, the more dangerous they are. As many people have observed, the 9/11 terrorists actually believed what they claimed to. Why do we not praise them for their faith? If everyone believed martyrdom would lead to immediate paradise, why do they not all follow through on that belief? The same applies to Christians. If Christians genuinely believe death leads immediately to everlasting life with God, why are they so passionately against physician-assisted suicide? Why do other Christians criticize Christian Scientists for their practices, when they are simply acting upon what they believe? The nature of religious belief is a strange, twisted maze, and trying to navigate it makes one realize how damningly stupid the whole thing is.