The Church of Christ, Scientist

While it is becoming commonplace for ethicists to lament the ways in which hospitals encumber and complicate the dying, there’s something even worse: dying without the aid of treatment or pain management. That’s what happened to Ian Lundman, an 11-year-old boy with juvenile onset diabetes who died in Minnesota in May 1989 under the ministrations of Christian Science practitioners who encouraged hope where there was none, and refused to clarify the point at which further intervention would be unnecessary or excruciating.

The Christian Science church’s most basic teaching is that God, Spirit, is all-powerful, loving, and good; and that all healing comes through turning to Him, as Christ Jesus did, for spiritual solutions to human problems. Its practice is based on the spiritual laws illustrated in the Bible and Mary Baker Eddy’s book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.

Christian Scientists have been known to halt the spread of certain diseases by prayer alone. They’ve also been credited with preventing accidents and helping people overcome addictions. And though the Church of Christ, Scientist, has never been as large as other religions in America, its followers still make up a significant segment of the religious landscape.

There are more than a thousand Christian Science churches and societies (less formal groups) in the United States, and at least as many in seventy-five foreign countries. Each church has a full-time “practicing” Christian Science practitioner who is available to anyone seeking moral or physical healing through prayer, as Christ Jesus did.

These practitioners are also responsible for distributing the church’s newspaper, The Christian Science Sentinel, as well as its periodical articles, hymns, and lectures. They host Sunday services and Wednesday testimonies, where members share how their study of the Bible and Science and Health illumined their relationship to God, and healed their problems.

While the religion was once booming, membership is in decline. In 1936, the Church of Christ, Scientist, had almost 270,000 American followers; by 1979 it had closed hundreds of its churches and societies, and today only a fraction of those that remain are filled each week. The Boston Mother Church has long since become a monument to its own decline, with many of the complex’s buildings in various stages of disrepair and many still empty.

The purpose of Christian Science rest and study is to give students a chance to reflect in peace on their spiritual progress, support one another in their shared endeavors, and grow closer to the divine. Guests of Rest and Study are welcome to stay for 12 days or more, with daily housekeeping services of bed-making and linen change included in the room rate. Each guest room has a complete set of Christian Science study books, as well as a TV with access to the Bible, the weekly Sunday sermons and Christian Science periodicals and articles.

High Oaks was named in honor of the tall, venerable trees that surround the property. It was on these grounds that the church offered nursing care, a Reading Room, and opportunities for rest and study for more than four decades before it sold its properties in 2012. Today, Wide Horizon offers all of these services.