“…ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

– John 8:32

What is Christian Science?

Christian Science offers a Bible-based, practical way to not just believe in God but understand God. Students of Christian Science strive to follow Jesus’ example in living unselfish, loving, and fearless lives based on the spiritual science of God’s unchanging and universal laws of love.

Christian Science is Christian because it is based on Jesus’ teachings and practice of relying completely on God’s spiritual laws of love. It is scientific because its prayer-based practice results in healings that prove God’s laws of love are always operating for everyone everywhere.

Want to know more? Check out christianscience.com for information about Christian Science, including its teachings, its basis in the Bible, and its founder, Mary Baker Eddy.

Our Pastor

All Christian Science churches in the world have the same pastor–two books, The Holy Bible and the Christian Science textbook, Science & Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. 

Whether you join us in Arlington, VA or attend a service in Anchorage, Accra, or Amsterdam, you will hear passages read from these same books. Each week, Christian Scientists around the world join in studying the same Bible lesson-sermon, and then come together in their local churches on Sunday to hear this lesson-sermon read by two elected church members.

Our Founder

Christian Science was discovered in 1866 by an American woman, Mary Baker Eddy, who went on to found the Christian Science church in 1879. Eddy was raised a devout Christian, and she experienced healings through prayer to God. She had a conviction that such healing must not be a fluke or a mystery but based on some kind of rule or law that could be understood. Eddy experienced significant hardships, from the early death of her first husband to chronic ill health. Praying to God and exploring the medicines of her day, she sought to not only navigate life’s challenges but better understand health and prayer. 

In 1866 Eddy incurred injuries from a fall that doctors pronounced fatal, and when she turned to her Bible, she was healed. She read an account of Jesus performing a healing and perceived that the source of prayer-based healing was God’s goodness, operating as a law. She devoted three years to studying the Bible to better understand this law of God and its relation to healing. From this deep dive into the Bible came her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, published in 1875. 

Over the next 35 years, Eddy not only founded a world-wide church but established a metaphysical college for education in Christian Science, three religious periodicals–The Christian Science Journal,  Christian Science Sentinel, and The Herald of Christian Science–and an international newspaper–The Christian Science Monitor.

Our mission is to encourage healing.

After discovering Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy founded the Christian Science church to “reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing” (Church Manual, 17). 

Through weekly church services and Sunday school sessions, we support members and visitors in learning more about God and how to use our understanding of God to meet life’s challenges from a spiritual perspective that brings healing. We also embrace our community:

  • in our prayers to see God’s laws of good in action; 

  • through a yearly Christian Science talk and other activities;

  • through our Reading Room, a place where everyone is welcome to find resources on Christian Science.