The Religion That Kills: Christian Science: Abuse, Neglect, and Mind Control

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Summary: The Religion That Kills
Review: For years I struggled with the contradictions taught in the Church of Christ, Scientist. I wasn't sure there was anything better than Christian Science. I could never break free completely until I read and studied this wonderful book. After seeing some of the negetive reviews regarding this book I see that that same old condescending attitude is still alive and well in the Christian Science Church today.

I fully appreciate the professional manner in which the Author approaches Christian Science and it's erroneous teachings. She did so tactfully, in the TRUE spirit of Christ, and without condescending remarks.

I have read the book and studied it. Any complaint from Christian Scientists are totally unfounded due to the fact that Most all of the quotes about the Church, it's doctrine and founder are from the church's own literature.

I praise God through Jesus Christ that this book has been an instrument to break the "mind control" that used to keep me bound to Christian Science. I was ready to become involved in the CS church again. I prayed and asked God to show me the real truth. I found it in The Religion That Kills.

Now I have a future full of hope for I've been promised true eternal life by the one and only perfect child of God, Jesus Christ. I asked him to come into my heart. I confessed with my lips that Jesus Christ is Lord. It's the free gift of salvation. I also read my Bible daily without the dead weight of Science and Health. God doesn't need Mary Baker Eddy's help.

I thank God for Dr. Kramer and so many others like her that know the "real" truth through Jesus Christ.

Rating:
Summary: Lazy is the word!
Review: I can tell you that you don't get anything out of Christian Science without individual study. Deep deep study and work. The people who are writing the "bad religion" books have given no indication of any personal work to understand and put into practice the theology. To sit and wait for a miracle or "magic" is to be disappointed. Mind control? I don't think so. Not in a teaching that makes it necessary to do your own work to progress. TV is mind control. Spiritual work is quite the opposite. Linda is off the mark in that her experiences are very superficial considering she offers no indication of individual work or deep study by the people involved.

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Summary: Telling it as it is
Review: Rather than commenting on this book, a previously posted review has used this site to put forth an unrelated treatise on the merits of Christian Science. Perhaps this action, betraying a focus that puts all things in terms of the religion, serves to illustrate Dr. Kramer's point that a belief in Christian Science can cause one to lose sight of appropriate actions in the real world.

As she clearly exposes, Christian Science exerts a subtle but powerful kind of mind control. Her carefully correlated comparison of that religion with the more readily recognizable forms of mind control is a revelation for those who think of such control as always being externally generated. Once the a priori of Christian Science is accepted, the control becomes internal - the "standing porter at the door of thought" that is prescribed by the religion. In this form, one becomes his own enemy, forcing back anything that would cause him to credit his own observations and thoughts.

The title, which may seem excessively harsh to some, nevertheless tells the truth about a religion whose leaders are increasingly attempting to present it as a potent healing system, or at least as an innocuous complement to other systems. Dr. Kramer uncovers the danger to emotional and mental health inherent in the belief, rather than focusing on the more fully documented record of physical danger.

Rating:
Summary: An honest look at a dangerous cult
Review: This book was excellently researched and written by Linda Kramer. As a former Christian Scientist, it answered many of the puzzling questions I had asked myself for years. What I appreciate most about the author's approach is that there is no hint of anger nor of revenge in her writing. It is hard not to feel both of those emotions when looking back at all the pain and suffering we grew up with. Linda's approach made the book more readable, because you knew her motive was to help and not attack. (In comparison to another recently written book on the same topic, "God's Perfect Child," this one is less sensationalist and more rational.) If only this could be read by all the Christian Scientists out there -- they do not understand they've been fooled into thinking Mary Baker Eddy had all the answers. I highly recommend this book to all who want to know the real truth about this religion / cult, whether you are in or out of Christian Science.

Rating:
Summary: Typical
Review: With such a startling title, this book definitely catches the eye. However, as a theologian I have researched Christian Science extensively and find the spirit of this religion lacking in the book. The quotes from the literature are haphazardly strung together to bring something against this religion that preaches the love of God and the healing power of prayer. Emotionally scarred children? I think not. Physically abused children? Again, I think not. There are deaths due to Christian Science, but the healings far outweigh those and are so often overlooked and passed off as imagined.
This book is biased and the result of personal damages that were, more than likely, not caused by the religion.
Any religion taken to an extreme can be harmful... and this author has taken the religion out of the realm of reality and into her own head. I hope the readers of this book understand that Christian Science is helping many people daily, and so is Lutheranism, Catholicism, Mormonism, Islam.
Christian Scientists have no intention of harming the world or their children. Their motives are pure and their results are evident and effective. "THe time for thinkers has come" and don't take one person's opinion on the matter. How sad it would be if this is all you know of the religion- this religion is full of good people and nobody has any business to tell them that praying daily for the good of the world is not an act of a Christian.

Rating:
Summary: Typical
Review: With such a startling title, this book definitely catches the eye. However, as a theologian I have researched Christian Science extensively and find the spirit of this religion lacking in the book. The quotes from the literature are haphazardly strung together to bring something against this religion that preaches the love of God and the healing power of prayer. Emotionally scarred children? I think not. Physically abused children? Again, I think not. There are deaths due to Christian Science, but the healings far outweigh those and are so often overlooked and passed off as imagined.
This book is biased and the result of personal damages that were, more than likely, not caused by the religion.
Any religion taken to an extreme can be harmful... and this author has taken the religion out of the realm of reality and into her own head. I hope the readers of this book understand that Christian Science is helping many people daily, and so is Lutheranism, Catholicism, Mormonism, Islam.
Christian Scientists have no intention of harming the world or their children. Their motives are pure and their results are evident and effective. "THe time for thinkers has come" and don't take one person's opinion on the matter. How sad it would be if this is all you know of the religion- this religion is full of good people and nobody has any business to tell them that praying daily for the good of the world is not an act of a Christian.

Rating:
Summary: what a wacked up whining jarbled mess
Review: wow this is some crazy jumble. My friend is a christian scientist and hes not some kind of distressed, damaged wierdo, as this author portrays Christian Scientits to be. This author is the type that loves to be bitter and complain every second that she can get. It is so funny to read books by these people because half the time they do not have a clue as to what they are babbling about. She reminds me of those over zealous mothers who are way too involved in their children and mouth off at their childrens teachers all the time. I was always glad my mom wasnt like that. But anyway, thanks to the author for writing such a humerous representation of a religion. The facts in this book were so off that it actually makes the author look stupid. I respect my friend who is a christian scientist. Reading one book shows me that this lady is far more "screwed up" in the head than my friend. It is truly misinformed, useless babble. She should write a whole bunch of books making fun of other religions too. I would love to see some junior high kids pelt snowballs at her minivan.

Rating:
Summary: If it hits a nerve, it's gotta be true
Review: You grew up in a religion that was respectable but seemed a little strange to everyone outside it, so you always seemed a little strange to yourself. You may have been healthy, but you saw pain and death among your co-religionists and wondered whether they were necessary. If you voiced your questions, you were told that your senses were lying to you - not the people who told you that the illnesses you saw weren't real.

Finally you realized that the religion's doctrine was based on circular logic, inconsistenly-applied philosophical principles and systematic denial of half of all human experience. You left it intellectually, and then physically. You felt helpless when people you loved, who stayed in the religion, suffered and died. You didn't realize for years, even decades, that your emotional hangover continued, that the damage done to you was deeper than you thought.

That's the short version of what it's like to be a former Christian Scientist. Dr. Linda S. Kramer has explained it in detail that, for an insider, is excruciating but necessary, while proving the thesis that Christian Science, despite its nice newspaper and its familiar respectability, fully qualifies as an authoritarian, mind-controlling cult. Working hard to be fair, she elaborates the religion through quotations from its own authorized sources, and ultimately lets Mary Baker Eddy and her followers hang themselves with their own spiritual (certainly not material) rope. The quotations used are representative, not snippets torn out of context.

Dr. Kramer also tells her own story, of moving from blissful immersion to doubt, to rejection, to active opposition, with complete candor. You need not share her present religious convictions to benefit from her scholarship, courage and compassion.

"The Religion That Kills" (sensational or not, the title is factual) is required reading for anyone who has ever been in Christian Science, or who cares about a former or practicing Christian Scientist. Those who are still in that rather strange religion are the ones who probably need most to read it, but they won't think it really exists.