I cannot escape the nagging suspicion that something is at least a touch rotten in the Denmark of Bible lessons. I sense a nefarious tampering with the lessons over many years by hidden hands, sometimes conspicuous, at other times subtle, but still "darkness visible". No loyal Christian Scientist can deny the importance of the Bible lessons. Mrs. Eddy writes on page 31 of the Church Manual of "the Sunday lesson,--a lesson on which the prosperity of Christian Science largely depends."
Here are three specifics. One is in Section 4 of this past week's lesson, "Unreality", where Jesus spits on the eyes of the blind man (Mark 8: 22-25). Another is the similar instance where Jesus makes clay of the spittle and puts it on a blind man's eyes (John 9: 1-9), a healing which is used in the lesson of November 8-14, "Mortals and Immortals". The third is the healing at the pool of Bethesda (John 9: 1-7), which appears in the very next lesson, November 15-21, "Soul and Body". In my experience at least, these healings reoccur in lessons with what I believe to be suspicious and insidious regularity. In the current Quarterly all three are used in fewer than two months.
Well, so what? one may think. I would suggest that to give these healings unwarranted emphasis could suggest, misleadingly of course, that there is in Christian Science an openness to material aids in healing (i.e., medicine) or that there are other equally valid means of healing, as at the pool of Bethesda and that, ergo, Christian Science is just another gawky kid on the crowded healing block. Other questionable tamperings could also be cited.
Some will simply classify these assertions as the demented ravings of a paranoid kook, but once obvious misues of the Bible lesson have been perpetrated, e.g., Woman's Year shenanigans, how can a now compromised spring ever again be trusted to issue uncontaminated waters? If there is any truth to these assertions it makes it all the more important that one study the Bible lessons from the books in order to read the citations in their contexts and observe or fill in any puzzling omissions. Even if the above is hooey, though I'm confident it is not, it is also important that Scientists be studying on their own, beyond the Bible lessons, the Bible and writings of Mary Baker Eddy. How, by the way, does one study a pamphletized Bible lesson?
It has also been reported or rumored that in the fairly recent past some Bible lesson committee members were not even Christian Scientists. Pure baloney? Write the Board and ask them to assure you unequivocally that over the past 20-25 years--under their watch and their immediate predecessors' watch let's say--that every member of the Bible lesson committee has been a long-standing, well-seasoned, class-taught member of the Mother Church. That shouldn't be difficult to attest to if there are no skeletons in the closet. Don't hold your breath waiting for a reply.
Note: I noticed after this entry was posted that in the Bible Lesson-Sermon for 2 October 1898, "Are Sin, Disease, and Death Real?", that the healing at the pool of Bethesda (John 5: 1-9) was, coincidentally, one of two healings in that lesson, the other being the healing of the woman "diseased with an issue of blood" (Matt 9: 20-22) for those who might be curious. What is much more notable, however, about the 1898 use of that healing in John (referred to in the above entry) is that verses 4 and 7 are omitted, thus ignoring the healing powers believed by many to be present in the waters when they were troubled. The healing focuses entirely, therefore, on Christ Jesus' unambiguous spiritual healing of the man "which had an infirmity thirty and eight years." It would therefore seem logical that if spiritual healing were the sole focus of healing in the Bible lessons, and why wouldn't it be?, that verses 4 and 7 would be eliminated in this week's official lesson. As I said at the beginning of this entry, I have some nagging suspicions about the purity of current Bible lessons.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
21 comments:
You're in rare form on this one, Christian. Needed saying, and said very well!
Bravo...
Couldn't agree more. I wonder if any of your readers will take you up on the inquiry you suggest?
This is what you do best, I do believe. But what I want to ask you is this: with all the corruption that has gone on for years at the highest level (humanly speaking), why are you surprised that the lesson sermons may be tainted?
Just so. And this is precisely why I stopped taking the Quarterly years ago. Just didn't trust what was going on behind the scenes.
Intriguing title, and a rewarding read throughout.
Well done, blogger.
I find this blog posting quite riveting. You obviously have given much thought and examination to the topic, and I appreciate your sharing your insights with us.
Just love the way you put things,Christian. No one like you out here, for sure.
Bravo! Someone actually READS the lesson instead of regarding it--and Science & Health itself--as a compendium of cheery aphorisms to "use", a compendium that may "mention" a particular item, such as last week's "likeness," without following its development of a theme. I like the attempts at structure, and I've felt that most of the time for the past several years at least one member of the Lesson Committee has had a well-developed literary sensibility and enough knowledge of Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, and several stages of English to develop a substructure for each lesson. But I'm at a loss as to the reiteration of the Genesis stories, why certain passages in S&H and the ignoring of many others. I like the idea of continuing certain themes and threads from one to the next, but it doesn't always go anywhere. And you are right to imply that the Lesson-Sermon (MBE's terms, not the Mickey Mouse, fundamentalist-sounding MyBibleLesson) should be regarded as a point of departure rather than the last word. Simply reading the Full-Text doesn't accomplish that. I personally don't like that format and for years have been using a Concord dump of the full citations into a word processor to create a printout where the two sets of citations appear in parallel columns, one section to a page, with lots of while space for notes. This affords a visual advantage for understanding how S&H "correlates" with the Bible, rather that just a linear string or set of strings.
As to the healings of blindness, I feel that the 9th chapter of John needs to be read as a whole, rather than cherry-picking certain parts in isolation, and that it is one of the most important parts of the Gospels because it spells out--must subtly--much of the "how" of Jesus' practice.
Wednesday lessons can fill in a lot of the gaps and tell whole stories, use long S&H passages in ways that can't be done in the Sunday lessons. The pool of Bethesda, by the way, is John 5:1-9, but a really complete sense of that healing would include the aftermath in the immediate confrontation with the Jews, and then Jesus' disquisition on how he is able to be his own witness--to sum up rather inadequately.
Thanks for bringing this up.♠
Sorry, Christian, the blog mechanism was acting up and not showing the usual acknowledgment, and in fact showing an error message. I hate to put you to extra trouble, but perhaps you can exercise your editorial, if not God-given, authority and blip the duplicate postings.
Let's hope you do delete the preceding!!!
You write so well, but then you think deeply and intelligently about issues concerning our Cause. Keep at it, Christian!
P. S.
I thought you had asked the person who cannot control itself to get its own blog! What's up with this individual? Obviously has not taken the hint!
Anonymous:
The individual has two blogs but saw fit to reply to this post because she, not it, felt she had something to say. Again, my apologies for my post appearing three times. If self-control was lacking, it ws the doing of the Blogger software, not of LowlyWise. Before flaming, please consider the Golden Rule.
Dear Christian,
What a blessing your blog is. You are doing the alert watching more of us out here should be doing. Thank you so much!
Just ignore this pest and perhaps she'll finally go away. I note that the author of this blog has been doing so for some time now.
Excellent post, as usual, blogger! Couple of things: Was acquainted with a long-time member of the BLC who was fired immediately after her teacher crossed swords with TBD. She indicated there was a trend towords appointing "Bible Scholars" in an attempt to curry favor with other Protestant religions who often accuse CS of not being failiar enough with the Bible. Unfortunately these traditionally educated Bible Scholars are often rather steeped in Old Theology and not so much in Christian Science. Thus we're getting more and more "fire and brimstone" from the Old Testament with less emphasis on the New. At least we were when I stopped getting the Quarterly a few years ago.
The people who are criticizing the informative and interesting posts by a certain commenter have much to learn about the blogging medium. Someone should tell them that a vibrant commentariat is as much as much an essential ingredient of a successful blog as are the posts by the main blogger.
I for one very much appreciate the comments with complementary substance in them, (as opposed to simply complimentary substance), and wish there were more of that kind on this blog.
I was a lurker on this blog and although its owner has not updated it, its thoughtful posts remain in my memory. I thought of this one recently when thinking deeply about the meanings conveyed (to my perception) by the CEV Bible translation used for the Responsive Reading and how they differed from the KJV. Christian, you may have concluded that your work here in this blog is done; know that it was useful work, and done well.
Something that should have been said long ago is that the frequent commenter to this blog who often prefaced her remarks with "as a First Reader" and consistently referred to her "Wednesday lessons" was overstepping her role. There are 26 Lessons in the Christian Science church and they were given to us by our beloved and only Leader. They are read at Sunday church services, having been studied during the previous week by students of CS. Wednesday evening testimony "meetings" are not church services, they are meetings and the First Reader prepares "readings" on a topic of relevance to that branch's community. They provide an opportunity for the branch to publicly address and metaphysically treat an issue of concern, such as unemployment, crime, family needs, integrity or any other issue. They are not a platform for the individual Reader to teach his congregation, which would turn the Reader into a Leader of his branch, in violation of the Manual. There is also no room for teaching or lecturing techniques, such as piquing interest by announcing the topic in advance or planting riddles in the readings. Neither has any place in Wednesday evening readings. Personal thanks to the Reader for the readings are also inappropriate, because proper readings are inspired by God, not selected by person and the spiritually attuned Reader, having obediently recorded the citations as led, is also the beneficiary of them, albeit first and likely foremost. Better is a simple statement of gratitude for the readings from the desk, which keeps the expression impersonal, appropriate for a church with an impersonal pastor.
Post a Comment