This is the final article about the protestant groups that are not considered mainline protestants – the Seventhday Adventist Church and the Church of Christ Scientist.
Seventh-day Adventist Church, combines elements from other Protestant denominations, including Lutheranism. Adventists believe in the accuracy of the Bible and teach that salvation comes from grace. They do, however, have a set of twenty-eight exclusive beliefs. Among them are the keeping of the seventh day Sabbath; that at death one is in a state of conditional immortality, which depends on a belief in Jesus. The Sabbath is on Saturday which is the biblical Sabbath which God set apart for enriching a divine relationship with God.
They have “believers’ baptism” when adults pledge or vow to follow Jesus. This is likely because its founders came from a variety of Protestant traditions (1844). While they find no Biblical support to celebrate Easter or Christmas, they are free to do so as they wish. One of their greatest contributions to society is that they favor rational scientific approaches to health care. They accept the idea that there may be natural remedies for treatment of some diseases. According to sources, they are the largest protestant healthcare provider in the world, operating over 170 hospitals, and 240 smaller medical facilities worldwide. They serve over twelve million outpatients each year from every walk of life in hundreds of communities. Locally, four Adventist hospitals are affiliated with the University of Chicago: Bolingbrook, Hinsdale, LaGrange, and Glendale Heights.
I am ending this series with the Church of Christ Scientist (aka Christian Science) that gave me much to like and a lot to be confused about until I joined Trinity. They are nonTrinitarian in that they reject the deity (but not the divinity) of Jesus. They see his life as an example of a divine sonship that belongs to all God’s children. Their Sunday services, conducted by a Reader who is a member of the church, include music, readings from the Bible, and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures written by Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the group. They use the King James Version of the Bible. God’s love is at the core of Christian Science. Those who practice Christian Science do their best to live the bold, generous, and compassionate love of Christ Jesus. God is everything and matter has no reality but is an illusion of mortal mind.
They believe that sickness and illness are mental errors, not physical problems. Thus, to heal ailments, they rely on prayer rather than medical care. But they can use dentists, optometrists, obstetricians, physicians for broken bones and vaccination when required by law. In recent years, they appear to have relaxed their reliance on prayer only. They have no physical sacraments, rituals or graven images (the cross). Readers can’t marry couples, there is no communion, and there are no specific requirements for a funeral service.
Here’s my story: My mother was Christian Scientist. Her mother was a Reader/Practitioner who had an office in Chicago where she consulted with people needing spiritual help. Hit by a car (1942) and sustaining a broken leg, she refused to have it set. My father, Russian Orthodox, and my mother were married by a Justice of the Peace. Father was okay with my mother doing her thing with Christian Science. Even after my adoption in 1944, my childhood was filled with God is Love. My evening prayer is one by Mary Baker Eddy. Finally, when I was eight, my parents decided on a mainline church. Father and I were baptized in the neighborhood Methodist church on Easter Sunday. My mother was not baptized. They took me to Sunday School and were active in the church.
My tonsils were removed when I was four; I had an appendectomy when I was five, and my mother allowed herself to be treated in a hospital for two bouts of pneumonia. When I was eleven, we moved and joined a Community Church. There I was confirmed (but confused). We moved again when I was in high school. Another Methodist church. My mother kept teaching me about love and that the object of prayer is spiritual growth. In college, I would get little notes with verses tucked in her letters. For many years I was a faithful reader of the Christian Science Monitor newspaper.
As I was seeking a spiritual home, I went to a Presbyterian church and that was the church in which I was married. My husband and I never found a church where we were comfortable. After my father passed away, my mother found a Practitioner to help her. She was still going to doctors (about which she felt guilty and a failure at Christian Science). She had a severe stroke and was
hospitalized. I called her Practitioner asking her to pray. She responded, “No I can’t, she has given in to medical care.” You can imagine how I felt about that! Mother passed, and I went to the Reading Room to donate her books. In talking with the Practitioner there, I told her about the call. She said, “My dear, that is just not right!” This compassionate Practitioner served as the Reader at my mother’s funeral.
Still confused, I practiced my own version of Christianity. The chaplains that helped me through my husband’s passing brought me back to seriously thinking about my faith. Through the goodness of friends, I was directed here to Trinity, where my faith has become stronger, and I can reconcile some Christian Science theology and traditional thinking.
Like the other groups I have written about, I know God loves them all, and I will never criticize them. Each in their own approach has interpreted God in a way that makes sense to them.
