Hey, I was also a Christian Scientist growing up, so my story is pretty much identical to both** Beadalin** and The wind of my soul’s, except my first painkillers were at 15, on a trip with my sister, and my menstrual cramps were to the point of being unable to move. Two months later I was on birth control at the suggestion of my sister. Most of my family has drifted, most notably my mother who went from hardcore CS to “Well, I really don’t like the bible, I think Jesus is just kind of okay, I don’t really believe in a conventional god, but I think the world is pretty neat, and Buddhism is not bad.”
Band-aids:
Band-aids are fine, since blood is messy, and medical interventions were deemed okay (by the people I knew, at least) if there was something you couldn’t think around- excessive pain, bones sticking out, etc. I also remember that my family used an awful lot of neosporin when I was a kid, so we obviously weren’t that strict.
And my impression of the CS Monitor is that it is trying to be a really good newspaper for the sake of “the truth,” and not at all about the propagation of the religion. Which is probably why it’s held in good esteem, they really do care about finding out what really happens. I agree with Beadalin about Christian Scientists really priding themselves on critical thinking, generally being decent at it, but have made a few odd assumptions that they base the thinking on.
The reading rooms, though, are primarily for Christian Science books and materials (no weird ritual stuff or anything, mainly just chalk pens and book markers). I don’t see how you can think they had general reading material. Maybe a few magazines and newspapers, but not many.
Also- The wind of my soul- the boarding school let you seek medical attention? When I was there (I’m assuming its the same one, I’ve never heard of another) I couldn’t imagine them doing that- these were people that threatened to expel me since they suspected I was bisexual (I was) and made me talk through the logic of being in pain while I was practically immobile and vomiting every month.
I grew up Missouri Synod Lutheran and it seemed normal to me.
As I got older, I realized how uptight and angry the sermons seemed. The pastor was a great guy, awesome with children, and one of my father’s best friends, but most of those sermons were killers.
My wife and I were church shopping a few years ago and stopped at one in the area. It seemed like the church was dying. The congregation was older and there were only a handful of people attending the service. The pastor read his sermon and people followed along with sheets handed out in the pews.
Is that “kooky?” I don’t know, but it seems the Missouri Synod is crawling to a halt. People want to be happy in church, not angry. They want progrssiveness, not stogey conservatism. But that’s just what I think.
My wife grew up attending a “hippie mass” and loved it.
That’s interesting. I don’t believe it is considered mainstream in the U.S. Most of the people I knew definitely thought we were weird.
Not to, um, overgeneralize, but it seems in the U.S. at least, Pentecostal churches tend to attract a number of really batshit crazy people. A lot of people I attended church with had serious psychiatric problems (bordering on psychosis, my friend’s mother was a textbook ‘‘magical thinker.’’) I felt like, in that environment at least, these people were able to hide their illness under the cover of their charismatic religious beliefs. What I mean is, a schizophrenic in mainstream society babbling about angels, demons and hidden messages from God is pretty clearly mentally ill, but drop that same person into a religion that focuses extensively on angels, demons, and hidden messages from God, and their mental illness may not be so apparent. I know this raises the question of cultural context and how we define mental illness, but when you’ve got a 9 year old attempting suicide and you’re attributing this to ‘‘demons,’’ you’re getting into some very dangerous territory.
Emphasis added. If that was directed at hotflungwok, I don’t think his intent was to ridicule. Quite the contrary, IMO–the impression I got was that **hfw **was challenging the labeling of non-mainstream religions as “kooky” when mainstream religions, put under similar scrutiny, would be considered just as strange to an outsider.
I am a practicing Christian Scientist, but was not entirely raised in it, so I don’t have much much of what I imagine The wind of my soul was looking for to contribute to this thread. My extended family includes many CSists, but my mom rejected it as a teenager. I started studying/practicing in high school. Kookiness abounded, it just wasn’t religious.
I have been in some heavily concentrated Christian Science communities and know there is a pretty broad range of “kookiness” among families. For example, in the CS textbook Mrs. Eddy wrote that we mustn’t record ages. In my family that was interpreted to mean don’t make a big deal about how old you are, or accept limitations associated either with age or youth. Other families took it to mean that plus “no birthday parties, not even for little kids”. My family likes cake too much to embrace that position.
The purpose of the Christian Science Monitor is primarily to provide unbiased reporting about world events. Mrs. Eddy expected her students to pray for the world, their nations, their communities, etc. and my understanding is that she was not entirely impressed with the papers available in her day. Currently there is a weekly print edition and and online edition. Throughout the paper’s history there has been one religious article daily.
The purpose of CS Reading Rooms is to provide an outlet for sale of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. They sell Bibles as well, and related materials; all published writings by Mary Baker Eddy, the Monitor and magazines published by the CS Publishing Society. I’m not aware of any of them selling Time or Newsweek.
Thank you for the information. I should point out that I never went into a Christian Science Reading Room; I only ever looked through the storefront window as I walked by daily. Perhaps the copies of Time and Newsweek and other popular publications were there to entice passerby inside, where they could read these publications for free on the spot–there was no indication that these publications were for sale, but it appeared that the public could certainly read them on the premises, like in a library. I had a feeling also that the Reading Rooms would be willing to sell me Bibles as well as Christian Science writings and suchlike. Now I know that they would, and that the Monitor really is a reputable publication. Again, thanks!
Excuse me, I have a definitions question. This “speaking in tongues” olives and FriarTed mentioned, it would be understood by a listener as nonsense?
Asking because the “speaking in tongues” I was taught about within Catholicism involves people from different languages all being able to understand you as if you were speaking their mother tongue, so a completely different thing.
I was raised Baptist for 14 years, and we were taught that glossolalia/speaking in tongues was exactly that - everybody heard the apostles speaking as if they were speaking the individual audience members language. We were also taught that it happened back then, and people speaking in tongues now were deluded.
Actually there was a 3 year fractioning in the church … the pastor who had been there for some 60 odd years died, so the church spent about 9 months auditioning new pastors. They settled on a really nice guy then the fecal matter hit the rotational cooling device … he taught in one of the optional classes [I think it was the young adults class, might have been the little old lady class…] that [and I cant remember which way he swung] that miracles happened and dont happen today which was found highly objectional to whomever. So the church split into 3 groups, miracles happened but not anymore, miracles happened and happen now, and who cares, get on with the preaching.
3 years of arguments and auditioning of preachers until a substantial number of people left in disgust, and they found someone who had absolutely no backbone and preached however the deacons wanted.
Me? I basically considered routine christianity a lost cause and became a deist. And I pissed off my parents by refusing to go to church ever again. [Ill go to services with people to be friendly, but I am absolutely not going to convert to anything.]
A Pentecostal/Charismatic explanation is that unrecognised tongues are “angelic” (I Cor 13:1). Also, there are anecdotes where languages are recognized.
Granted, I just took 2 minutes skimming an overview of it, so I might have missed the kookiness, but it doesn’t seem that weird to me. A bit woo-woo, but the overall impression doesn’t seem bad. If there are things I missed, edumacate me.
Thanks! I have problems keeping some of the differences and spellings apart/straight. Going one region of the country to another can be tough; keeping the different sects/faiths clear in your brain is even tougher.
That would be my Mom’s side of the family. They never quite organized their Faith but they sure did practice it regularly.
