Christian Brands? - Christian Scientists

Origins:America (Massachusetts)
Began in:1879
Founder: Mary Baker Eddy
Membership:c. 200,000 - 400,000 (could be more, could be less - all a bit secretive)

Bible: Doesn't do too well in that it was considered by the lovely Mrs. Eddy to have around 600,000 errors (equally split between OT & NT). Instead they look to 'Science and Health' as the first book to have been written without any errors (guess who wrote it?) and should be used as a 'key' to unlock the Bible's truths and act as a corrective to it.

Beliefs: A bit like Alice in Wonderland, 'Words mean whatever one wishes them to mean,' and so everything is rewritten and new meanings appear everywhere for absolutely everything. Adam never existed, he is really a model for error whilst sickness and death are 'original sin', etc.

There's no such thing as the Trinity as this is seen as a polytheistic heresy. There is one God, the 'I Am' and rather than seeing Father, Son and Holy Spirit in unity we have God=father/mother, Jesus=sonship and Holy Spirit='diving science'. Yep, it's all about Life, Truth, and Love'!

God is a spirit being with no body and with no personality, just a bit of energy basically who created everything. BUT, He is loving, holy and just (which contradicts the previous sentence doesn't it?)! then again, as all creation is spirit too and matter doesn't exist. Better still death and illness don't exist, we only think that they do (I tell that to my next customer down the crem').

Jesus does feature in a rather weird Gnostic construction where a Spiritual Jesus would be infallible and god-like and a human Jesus is total human and therefore totally depraved (a term meaning sinful rather than kinky!). reading on this group it seems that Jesus could also be regarded only as spirit and looked like he had a body (yeah, docetism as well - now I'm really confused).

There is no atonement and it wouldn't have mattered because He wasn't dead when He was put into the tomb anyway, after all, He only appears to die on the Cross!

Bottom line is that we are subject only to the laws of matter because we believe they are real, once we stop believing that they are real we are set free and we can heal ourselves (my paraphrase - couldn't really cope with this topic much more)! The Holy Spirit is the 'Christian Science' in that He is the healer or comforter. (Just lost the will to live - the person I engaged in conversation (by telephone) said lots and yet nothing!).

The lovely Mrs. Eddy gave six points (or tenets) which form a sort of credal component. I leave you with them to try and make what you can of them, they are:

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 theGalilean 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.

Are they Christian? In this case it would be hard to find anything that could be used to even hint at anything other than a resounding 'No!' In fact they're not Christian and they're not Scientists either!