I’ve been reading through Prose Works, and right now I’m on Retrospection and Introspection. Today I came across this passage, from page 45, which I was intrigued by:

Despite the prosperity of my church, it was learned that material organization has its value and peril, and that organization is requisite only in the earliest periods in Christian history. After this material form of cohesion and fellowship has accomplished its end, continued organization retards spiritual growth, and should be laid off, -- even as the corporeal organization deemed requisite in the first stages of mortal existence is finally laid off, in order to gain spiritual freedom and supremacy.

What do you all think about this? It got me thinking… if I’m not mistaken I believe Mrs. Eddy only ever attended The Mother Church something like three times; she was definitely not a regular attendee. I’m interested in some of the historical context. What did she do on most Sunday mornings? Did she attend a church in her area? Or did she stay home? And does this passage from her autobiography imply the eventual elimination of church?

That is why I asked! I was not trying to imply any position at all; more trying to just probe for her real meaning. So thank you for sharing all this great detail as well as your article. This is very enlightening.

Long before Twitter, IM and text messaging grammar came into being, I once heard this: “ch – u r – ch”…now there’s a cool definition of church that we can all get into! It’s not outside, it’s within.

I think in this situation as in all false claims, it’s important to handle the animal magnetism. It’s clear that we all want to understand what church really is and how it is “the structure of Truth and Love,” but it is also just as important to face down the claims that church can be boring or inactive.
Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health that “Church is that institution, which affords proof of its utility and is found elevating the race, rousing the dormant understanding from material beliefs to the apprehension of spiritual ideas and the demonstration of divine Science” (pg.583). How in the world could that be boring? What is insane claim of error to try to convince us that an institution that rouses the dormant understanding could possibly be inactive and dull. Divine Science is all activity; it by its very definition includes all true Life. So isn’t it just like error to claim that a structure that promotes all Life could be lifeless?
Instead of being frustrated that you are not seeing life in your church, defend its right to activity. Where would Jesus be if he got frustrated that all the people around him weren’t fully demonstrating their true son-ship? Instead, he defended their right to be the image and likeness of God and that pulled forth natural demonstrations. We too need to defend Christian Science’s natural right to activity and not be bothered by what error presents about our Christian culture. Mrs. Eddy set up our church without personality, because she knew that human personality was not what allowed us to reach the divine. We need to not try to change our church so that it has more personality, but honor the true activity that is naturally present there.

Speaking to the idea of just forming your own church:

A little while ago T4T had a live talk titled Making Peace: in your life and the world, which featured Libby Hoffman, who is an absolutely incredible peacemaker and social activist. She talked a bit in that chat about how she had all these huge, incredible, wonderful, vast plans for implementing new peacemaking solutions in the world. But a huge turning point for her was when she heard God speak to her directly, saying: “It’s easier to plan for peace for the whole world tomorrow, than to take the opportunities we have to make peace today.”

Likewise with church, it is MUCH easier to fantasize about all the ways we could do things better ourselves if we just get rid of all those pesky, outdated church members from back home and did things our own way. You could make it more inclusive, more lively, more active, more real, etc. And there are a thousand ideas for how to do this.

But how inclusive is something that’s founded on the basis of exclusion? It’s comparatively MUCH harder to work within an existing framework to change it than it is to simply throw it all away and start fresh. But I believe that the latter approach, namely an early decision that you can do everything better yourself, does not have a spiritual foundation of unity. It does not have a spiritual foundation of inclusion. If we want to include more people, how much more can we be doing with the few members we already have, rather than merely discarding them and trying to start with a clean slate?

Marta Greenwood, the (now previous) president of The Mother Church, gave a lecture at my hometown last spring. One of the things she talked about was how when people find themselves in unfortunate circumstances, what do they do? They change the circumstances. So if they’re in a bad job, they just get a new job. If they’re in a bad relationship, they get a new relationship. If they’re in a bad city, they move to a new city.

But then to their dismay, in very little time, they find all the same problems with the new job, or the new relationship, or the new city. So what do they do? They change it again. And again, as necessary. But just changing the outward like this never solves any problems; it only makes them drag on further.

She suggested, in effect, that rather than merely changing the outward conditions, we focus on standing still (“Be still and know that I am God”) and changing the inward conditions. And from that basis, the outward then follows naturally. And I agree with her, and think that same principle applies to church as well. Change starts from within. I won’t say “it may take more work” or anything so timid. The fact is it DOES take a LOT more work. But it’s the only way that really works in the long run.

This is in response both to daphiney and Gordon.

First, let me say that daphiney’s point about starting a new church certainly has quite a logical appeal at first glance. But when you think about it, how much change can really be brought about by starting a new CS branch church/society? The basic order of the services is tightly controlled through the Manual and does not provide for much creativity. Sure, you could certainly make the service atmosphere more informal, have a social hour after the Sunday service, etc., but beyond that, how much more different can any CS branch church really be?

Two examples of CS branches which have been somewhat successful in modifying the “flavor” of the CS church are the CS Society in San Juan Capistrano, CA and First Church Brentwood, MO.

Both of these churches have some kind of social hour following the service and have “loosened up” the atmosphere of the church service. Brentwood has incorporated the CS Fellowship group into their branch. My understanding is that before the CS Fellowship joined the Brentwood church, the church was just about ready to fold. The Fellowship has brought a real revival to the Brentwood church.

The San Juan Capistrano Society has a website where you can see some of the changes they have brought to the CS church service and structure. They publish a Sunday service bulletin and you can see how they have “tweaked” the style of the service. Both churches, however, still manage to stay within the framework of the Manual.

This is a really interesting topic and I look forward to other responses.

Thanks for these great posts. So to the point, and so from the heart honest. I’m thinking it’s awesome that the full range of CS church activities support us in being the very best healers we can be in everything we’re doing, with whoever we’re meeting in the community, and whatever we’re embracing in the world.

There’s a woman who has been attending our church from time to time–not every Sunday, but many Sundays. She went to a CS lecture we had back in October. At first she’d come to the service, then get right out. Not too long ago, she brought another woman with her–turns out it was her sister. Afterwards, they stayed around, so I talked with her. That’s when I found out she had been at our October lecture. She asked me about how CS treatment works. She said the ideas “intrigued” her.

Ok, so as far as this discussion goes, I think we forget how radical the ideas are that are in our lesson sermon. This woman said the ideas “intrigued” her. She didn’t say, the ideas intrigue me, but your service puts me to sleep. :) Obviously, she’s there for the ideas, and thought they were interesting enough that she invited her sis along one of the Sundays.