Exploring healing and prayer
Christian Science practitioner’s idea based on Bible
International speaker Christine Driessen is coming to Calgary to explain the connection between prayer and health — an area of increasing interest from people around the world.
Driessen says Christian Science is bringing effective healing to people everywhere.
“There are divine laws which govern and maintain us — the science of perfect God, perfect man. Spiritual healing through this scientific prayer is reliable, immediate and accessible to people anywhere in the world. Christ Jesus demonstrated this healing power and taught us to do the same,” she says.
Driessen, a teacher and practitioner of Christian Science healing, will give a lecture titled Healing with Scientific Certainty through the Christ, on April 22 at 1:30 p.m. at the Best Western Village Park Inn, 1804 Crowchild Tr. N.W. She will also be at the Body Soul Spirit Expo, Big Four Building, Stampede Park, on April 21 at 8 p.m.
Driessen’s ideas are based on the original source book on Christian healing, the Bible, along with the book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. Driessen is a member of the Christian Science board of lectureship, speaking internationally, with a focus on Africa. She travels from her home in New York City.
“It’s a scientific system of Mind healing, but Mind with a capital M,” she says. “You hear a lot today about Mind healing, but they’re talking about the brain. In fact, there’s books out on the healing brain, mind over matter, positive thinking. But if it’s brain, it can be injured, in a coma, birth defect, so that cuts off much of the world from healing. We’re talking about the divine, creative, intelligence of the universe expressed in every single one of us, whether you’re Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, atheist — doesn’t matter.
“And the scientific system is based on divine laws of life, truth and love which govern all creation, maintain all of us and it’s based on the teachings of the greatest physician who ever lived, the Jewish teacher Jesus who healed every kind of problem people face. He healed acute and chronic disease. He healed congenital, hereditary, contagious and long-standing problems . . . brought people back to life.”
Driessen says everyone is God’s precious child. Genesis 1 in the Bible says we’re all made in the di- vine image and likeness of God.
“So goodness, and health and wholeness, and peace and harmony, wisdom are natural to every single one of us,” she says.
“The two great commandments (of loving God and neighbour) have one God, one power, one source, one reality. It’s actually found in all the religions that have lasted through the centuries. They might not use the word God, but everyone has recognized that goodness is the power of this universe, that love is the God of this universe, the source.”
It’s the substance of our being — the substance of our health, harmony and well-being, she says.
“Christ Jesus always taught that good alone is power. Love alone is the power of the universe and this infinite divine love does not create disease or allow it, but maintains us in absolute perfect health,” Driessen explains. “So Christian Science is based on that teaching that good alone is real and that evil is a form of hypnotism. That fear and ignorance, not knowing the source of our being, or believing that God sends suffering and therefore you have to suffer, and sin, negative thinking, anger and dishonesty, etc. those mesmerize our thought and make us believe that if you first look to matter for supply, for power, for beauty, for pleasure, it always also brings suffering.” But life is spiritual, it’s eternal. “When you understand that love is the source of our being and let that govern your thinking and your words and your actions, you find that health is a natural state,” says Driessen. “When this science of being is more thoroughly understood, every man will be his own physician and truth will be the universal panacea.”