On from India to Indonesia. After leaving our extraordinary friends in India, we turned our sights to the next privilege of our trip: joining the team of young people organizing the Indonesian Spiritual Activist Summit. The idea for this event was born more than a year before after a group of young people from Indonesia banded together and made the journey (and substantial commitment) to attend the Australian Summit. This is no ordinary group of young adults. Their love for Christian Science, their community, and each other, has created a special bond among them and sparked a fresh fire in the whole community for how the Christ and Christian Science can bless everyone. Including the vast majority of this country practicing a variety of different faiths. (more…)

Interview by Mary Trammel – Christian Science Journal, May 2009

In March, Rabbi David Louis, of Kiryat Gat, Israel, gave a remarkable account of healing at the noon Wednesday testimony meeting in the Original Mother Church. In the weeks following, Rabbi Louis visited with a number of new friends at the Church and The Christian Science Publishing Society, including Clerk Nathan Talbot and Editor in Chief Mary Trammell. His spiritual journey illustrates both the universal healing embrace of Christian Science and the Church Mary Baker Eddy founded. Below are excerpts from Mary Trammell’s interview with the Rabbi for Sentinel Radio.

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Emma Grewal – The Christian Science Journal, Feb. 2008

I had never heard of Qatar, a place I now consider home, until three years ago when my dad got a job working for a company there. My mum, dad, and younger sister, Abigail, and I moved to Doha, the capital city of Qatar, from Dubai. Being born and brought up in Australia, and having also lived in India, I found moving to a country like Qatar a big change. When you’re used to seeing people in jeans and shirts, coming to an Islamic country like Qatar hits you most visually. Here a lot of the women wear a black abaya, a traditional form of Islamic dress worn over your clothes, and a lot of my girlfriends also wear a black headscarf, even to school, although wearing the scarf is a personal decision.

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by Matthew Cocks

A few years ago I spent some time reading about the life of Mohandas K Gandhi (more popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi). Gandhi was an Indian political and spiritual leader who lived most his life during the first half of the twentieth century. He was very influential in the process of India gaining independence from British colonial rule.

As fascinating as I found his extraordinary political career, it was his spiritual approach to life and thoughts on the nature of God which particularly interested me. Gandhi was a radical spiritual thinker. He loved simplicity, and is very well known for his strong encouragement of non-violence.

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by Shirley Paulson

One of the things that surprised me when I attended seminary was the discovery of people long before Mary Baker Eddy’s day who were unusually spiritually minded. I grew up in Christian Science thinking (incorrectly) that I didn’t really need to know much about other spiritually minded people, since I got everything I needed from the Bible and from Mary Baker Eddy’s writings.

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The Christian Science Journal, Feb. 2006

I grew up a Muslim. In my homeland of Indonesia, Islam constitutes the majority religion. And in certain areas, such as the part of the country I’m originally from, religious tensions can easily mount because of extremists who tolerate no faith but their own.

While going to Islamic high school, I took a comparative religions class and learned about many faiths I had never heard of before. This education helped, because when I later moved to Jakarta to attend college, I began to search for a religion that would explain God and help me out of my problems.

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by Shirley Paulson

My hope for this blog is that we can talk candidly together about our efforts at conversation with other Christians. My experiences with Christian Science healing, as well as my deep love for God and all humanity, make me convinced that Christian Science is a gift to Christianity (and consequently, the whole world!).

I’ve experienced some pretty tough conversations, though, like the times I’ve been told I’m going to hell, or that I wasn’t Christian if I didn’t accept Jesus as God. Maybe you’ve encountered these, too. I hope that discussions among Christian Scientists in this blog will help us use what we have and gain more tools in support of great conversations with our fellow Christians.

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People are people here. I don’t why they should be anything else, I guess-but I guess I always think when I go somewhere new that they’ll be completely different. but.they’re all still people. There are still homes here. Still dogs. Still little babies pressing their faces against windows to wave bye to their grandpas. People may do things differently, or speak in tongues that I’ve never heard in my life and could not even begin to try to understand, but they still smile, and you know you’re ok. One weekend, our abroad group traveled to Italy for a long weekend, and right away we all noticed the traffic. But this wasn’t your typical Highway 40 traffic or even LA traffic. I think that Italy’s notoriety for and their love for pasta has infiltrated into the way they drive. Their lanes aren’t what I’d call lanes. Think spaghetti; there’s no organization, but somehow it all fits in one bowl of a city, and they may wrap around each other and twist in and out, but they just work together to be the great pasta-traffic that they’re famous for! (more…)

Adedeh Malachi – Christian Science Sentinel, June 26, 2006

I grew up in a Pentecostal church where I was made to believe that our denomination was better than the other denominations around. But after becoming a student of Christian Science in my teens, I realized that we are different from each other only in the extent to which we embrace and practice the teachings of Jesus Christ. Healing as Jesus healed, or gaining dominion over sin, sickness, and death, is all that matters.

God is for us all; no one is ever excluded from the presence or the love of God. As St. Paul said to Christians at Rome: “For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Rom. 10:12, 13). (more…)

Just last night I finished writing a thirty-page paper on Islam and how it’s lived in Diego Suarez. Besides the plethora of ‘Diego-Suarez’s,’ ‘Qur’ans’ and ‘Muslims,’ the next most common words were ‘harmony’ and ‘peace.’ This project’s theme was overwhelmingly about harmony. My last three weeks were spent taking notes on harmony. Harmony, harmony, everything was about harmony. “And there has never been any conflicts between your mixed religious student population?” No, never. “Why is it so peaceful here between Muslims, Christians, and traditional religion believers?” People looked at me like I was crazy. One guy’s answer was a correction of my question: “Peace is not constructed. It’s automatic. It will continue until the end of the world.” (more…)