by Kendra Scott
Here’s a re-cap of the last few weeks of my internship. The Mother Church Sunday School put up some murals created by the kids. They’re beautiful! So I got to help with a team of people to decide where the mural should be hung. One is of a large tree, and the other is a representation of The Sermon on the Mount. You should come see them for yourself if you’re ever in the area! They’re impressive.
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.
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.
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.
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 fit sin 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…)
Three weeks ago I flew into Diego Suarez, the fourth largest city in the fourth poorest country in the world. My mission? To learn about Islam. We had one month to complete our independent study projects - mine was spent interviewing the primarily Muslim-dominated community, taking photos for the photo essay portion of it, reading the Qur’an, and becoming fast friends with a Muslim girl named Laho that I had met on the second day. Why Islam? Because I knew hardly anything about it, probably much like you right now. (more…)
Jeffrey Hildner talks with Colonel (Ret.) Janet Horton,
Endorser of Christian Science Chaplains for TMC
Reprinted from the May 20006 issue of the Christian Science Journal
Currently, the US Army has 1,400 clergy (most are Christian, about 30 are Jewish, and 15 are muslim), but as Mr. Jonsson reports, the top brass is aiming to recruit nearly 600 more chaplains to serve in the next five years. the following interview, Janet Horton, Endorser of Christian Science Chaplains for The Mother Church (TMC), addressed this urgent need in light of the special healing mission of Christian Science chaplains.
(more…)
