User:Clariosophic/Oddments

Family of origin

My mother was from southwestern Ohio and her parents grew up on adjoining farms. Her mother's German Baptist Brethren ancestors settled there from Lancaster, Pennsylvania via Brothersvalley Township, Pennsylvania before Ohio became a state in 1803. Her father, an M.D., was the son of immigrants from the Kingdom of Württemberg. After her freshman year at Ohio State during the Depression, my mother had to drop out so her brother could finish. She went to Boston to work for a woman who was a Christian Scientist and who introduced her to my father, who was an usher at the Mother Church and was 18 years her senior. They were married by an Episcopal priest, because the Christian Science Church has no clergy or other people authorized to perform marriages. The rest is history, as they say. After joining the church, my mother worked in the church offices for a while and went through class with a woman who had studied under Mary Baker Eddy.

My father was born in Armagh and grew up in Monaghan, Ireland. He was raised in the Church of Ireland of his father, but the whole family also attended Presbyterian and Methodist services each Sunday. He spent about 5 years in what was then British India before going to Toronto, He served in France during World War I and after the war was over returned to Toronto for a few years before going to Detroit. He had become interested in Christian Science in Dublin and went through class in Detroit with one of Mary Baker Eddy's students. He went to Boston to work at the Benevolent Association.

Both my parents became Christian Science practitioners in later life, but only my father was listed in the journal. My faher died two months short of his 87th birthday of "natural causes." My mother died at age 75, 28 days after having been diagnosed with cancer. She was serving as clerk of her branch church but resigned that office when she sought medical help. She felt "shunned" by the church members after that.

One of my brothers worked for the Mother Church and went through class but in his 30s developed multiple sclerosis (MS), which at the time was incurable and for which there was no real treatment. He spent the last three years of his life as a quadriplegic at St. Camillus Hospital for Chronic Diseases in Whitinsville, Massachusetts, where he died at age 49. My other brother, who joined the Episcopal Church at the same time I did, died at age 70 of Parkinson's disease.

Due to osteoarthritis, I have to use a wheelchair or a power chair, although I can walk very short distances with a cane or a walker. I also suffer from severe asthma and receive Xolair injections every other week in addition to daily pills, nebulizers and inhalers. I also have Ménière's disease, which I have learned to control by avoiding sodium nitrite preservatives, which my doctor says is nonsense. All I know is that if I don't avoid such preservatives, I have vertigo attacks.

Christian journey

I was raised as a Christian Scientist, but left that church in college when I contemplated becoming a Unitarian minister, but decided instead to go to graduate school. At age 23 I was baptized and confirmed in the Episcopal Church. At age 35, I returned to the Christan Science Church after I experienced a healing which I attributed to Christian Science. I continued in the care of an MD, though, and when I was 40 he ordered a CAT scan, which had just become available locally and which confirmed the original healing. At the same time I was licensed as an EMT and volunteered on the local rescue squad. I also was in the local volunteer fire department and served as its president as well as rescue lieutenant. After my mother's death, I returned to the Episcopal Church. Following my Irish grandfather's example, I then also attended other church services and was baptized by immersion by the Charismatic Sunday school class of a United Methodist Church as well as by the pastor of a Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee). I also attended an independent Arminian Bible church for a while. I received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit with the "gift" at a prayer meeting at my local Episcopal Church that was led by a former Roman Catholic priest turned Charismatic evangelist but as St. Paul said, I believe the greatest gift is "charity" or 'love." I was also baptized by immersion in an independent Charismatic church, which I came to think of as a cult since everyone and everything in it was rigidly controlled by the dominating pastor and his wife.

Today I feel that baptism is only "the outward and visible sign of an inward grace" and while a good thing, it is not essential for salvation. Some churches, such as the Salvation Army, whose Christianity is never questioned, do not baptize their members. Similarly, while I value the role of the historic episcopate for its role in initially expanding and later during the Middle Ages preserving Christianity, I do believe that the united and uniting churches, such as the Church of South India, that have dispensed with or modified it have done nothing wrong. I do feel that there is grave danger in independent churches which lack any kind of oversight by a denominational organization. While supporting ordained clergy, I do believe in the "priesthood of all believers."

As for Christian Science, I do believe that it has helped to restore Christian healing in the Christian Church, but that as an organization it is not able or willing to make the changes necessary to survive and to become a true part of the Christian Church. The great advances in medicine in the last century indicate to me that God works through the hands of a skilled surgeon or family physician. The CS Church has made some outward changes to appear more Christian such as renaming the Christian Science Lesson Sermons the Christian Science Bible Lessons. Major hindrances to acceptance by mainstream Christians, though, are the role of Mary Baker Eddy and her book, Science and Health. I do think that my early exposure to Christian Science did serve to expose me to the Bible which I read cover-to cover in addition to daily lessons. It also exposed me to complex theological and philosophical concepts. My parents while not usually giving me medical treatment other than getting me vaccinated for school, did unlike some others, exercise wisdom in calling a physician when necessary. At age 11, I had a bad bicycle accident on a steep hill near my school (my head vs a fire hydrant). A classmate's father drove me home and my mother called an M.D. who lived nearby to come treat me.

In articles on Christian Science, I try to maintain a neutral POV by sticking to facts while making use of my own particular knowledge. I am bothered by the defenders want to present only a positive POV. I am also bothered by the opponents who want to present only a negative POV. I am also concerned that none of the three of the main articles, Christian Science, Church of Christ, Scientist and Mary Baker Eddy focus on its subject but unnecessarily complicate matters by trying to discuss all three topics at once. The article on Mary Baker Eddy should be mainly biographical and more factual. The article, Church of Christ, Scientist, should be mainly organizational and more factual. The article. Christian Science, should be mainly theological and philosophical and more factual. Use of church jargon should be avoided for the most part, but some terminology does deserve to at least be mentioned, e.g. Mary Baker Eddy being called the "discoverer and founder" of Christian Science. Some editors delete "discover" automatically, but the fact remains that, whether or not the statement is true, it is what the CS church and Mary Baker Eddy have asserted.

Someone once said that a good teacher makes complex things simple, while a poor teacher makes simple things complex. This should apply to writers and editors, I Believe.

Other churches that may have started on the fringes of Christianity with a dominating leader and his or her writings, such as the Worldwide Church of God, have begun to make the doctrinal changes necessary to bring them into line with mainstream Christianity. The Seventh Day Adventist Church in its 27 Fundamentals, now 28 Fundamentals began to move away from earlier doctrines and writings and leadership that separated it from mainstream Christianity. The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has renamed itself the Community of Christ, not only to distance itself from the Salt Lake City-based LDS Church but also to assert its Christianity. Even the LDS Church has made some outward changes but none of a fundamental nature.