The Thanksgiving Day service is the only ‘special’ service the Christian Science church offers. The readings from the desk include the Presidential proclamation for Thanksgiving, as well as a few passages from The Bible and Science and Health. The service is then opened to the congregation for them to share ‘testimonies of healing and sharing of experiences in Christian Science.’
The following are testimonies from Ex-Christian Scientists, as they give thanks for having left Christian Science. Thank you all for your contributions!
We at The Ex-Christian Scientist offer no readings, or lengthy proclamations, merely our sincerest thanks for everyone who has contributed to our efforts.
All Thanksgiving posts are tagged Thanksgiving.
I am grateful that our Ex-Christian Scientist community forum and website have been able to help those who are seeking another path. Being constantly told that “CS is a cult,” or that you “should be seeking Jesus” is unhelpful, unkind, and unnecessary. We are not here to tell you that your new path is right or wrong, we are here to provide support, a place to share your stories, and listen to your concerns. Many of us have walked that path before. Although our ages span decades, our stories and experiences are similar. It is heartwarming to see the connections made, friendships grow, and real aid provided. I am thankful every day for the friendships I have made in the ExCS community.
– Kat, Founder of The Ex-Christian Scientist
I am so glad to be a part of this wonderful Ex-Christian Scientist Testimony Meeting on this beautiful Thanksgiving Day. Thank you to all of the previous testifiers. Your healings and insights speak to my heart. The last decade of me being in Christian Science caused me to have increasing depression and anxiety. I denied it as much as anyone ever could, and I worked hard to Know The Truth (which is really the opposite of actual scientific truth!) and my depression and anxiety got worse and worse. I left Christian Science, got brave, and started going to therapy. I found out that my issues were 98% caused by Christian Science. I found this Ex-Christian Scientist forum, and learned the word “validation.” The new friends I have here validated me so much, and my depression and anxiety have lifted so much that I can now have a normal job and do things I couldn’t seem to do before – like grocery shop and buy gas for my car. I am so grateful for my Ex-Christian Scientist friends, my therapist, my psychiatrist, my pharmacy, my kids, my new jobs, my paycheck, gas in my car and grocery shopping. My life is so much happier now that I have left the horrible brain washing cult of Christian Science.
– Chrystal
Words can’t begin to express the gratitude I feel at being free from the mental shackles that Christian Science binds on people. I am free to be who I truly am, and I am free from fear of physical ailments–because I can take real action to address them. I’m grateful that prompt medical attention to a serious infection a couple of years ago saved me from dire consequences that may have included the loss of a limb. Simple antibiotics rose to the occasion for me. I dread the thought of what might have happened had I tried to rely on Christian Science.
– Jeremy
I am thankful to wake up every morning and relax with a cup of tea and a good book of my choosing, rather than sitting clench-teethed at the desk in my mother’s study while forcing myself to get through the most incredibly dull, confusing, guilt-mongering, ridiculous waste of precious morning S&H crap!
– Tessa
I am so grateful for the SCIENCE of medicine. I am grateful for both compassionate and dispassionate medical professionals who use the scientific method to develop REAL CURES for ailments that are inherent in the human form.
I am grateful for objective data that supports their efforts to diagnose, help, and actually CURE me of inherited physical problems as well as physical problems made worse from medical neglect due to christian science.
I am grateful for the SCIENCE of psychology and it’s EFFECTIVE practitioners, psychotherapists. I am on the road to HEALING FROM CHRISTIAN SCIENCE.
I am grateful for non-CS extended family who have opened my eyes to the level of emotional abuse and both emotional and medical neglect that I experienced as a child growing up in the CULT called “christian science”.
I am grateful that I am now healing from existing mental illness as well as the psychological damage done to me by christian science.
I am grateful that many of my family members no longer practice christian science and that some of them get proper medical and mental care from trained & qualified professionals.
I am grateful that the practice of medicine & psychotherapy requires a legal, state-issued license and continuing education and is well-regulated to maintain proper risk/benefit assessments and quality.
I am grateful for compassionate ex-CS friends who made me feel that I was not alone after I left christian science and understood my pain, anguish, anger, confusion, and feelings of betrayal by christian science & the christian science community.
I am even more grateful for this community of ex-christian scientists that provide support, validation, share related experiences, listen, and most importantly–understand and do not deny the problems that christian science created for all of us personally and within our families.
I AM also grateful that I was raised in a religion with a female founder; I had female role models in church leadership. This is the ONLY thing I am grateful to christian science for, and this positive outcome could have been met easily via other means.
I am grateful for psychiatric medication which has helped me stop destroying my life, my marriage, and everything I have worked for.
I am grateful for allergy medication. I am grateful for surgeons who do their job well even when they are dispassionate and did not understand my terror at having a longstanding, debilitatingly painful medical problem permanently FIXED.
I am grateful that they continued diagnosing me after I burst in to tears and the surgeon requested a chaperone in the exam room to protect him from any perception of wrongdoing. And, fixed it was–despite my fear and my surgeon’s lack of understanding of my terror. Because medicine is a REAL science. It works whether you believe in it or not! Cures for ailments are scientifically derived and assessed for risk/benefit and determined objectively whether or not they are medically necessary. The risks and percentages of success are objectively assessed, no promises are made that can’t be kept, and this enabled me to make an informed, rational decision about whether or not to have surgery. While I was full of fear and in debilitating pain.
I am grateful for the kindness and understanding of my non-CS spouse supporting me through all of my medical and psychological issues when I was afraid of facing them.
I am grateful that I have the courage and support that I need in order to leave the damage done to me and my family and countless others–by christian science–behind, for good. This is enabling me to realize my true potential and do good in the world.
I am grateful for finding medical professionals who can kindly handle my fear, as an adult, of medical care even when they do not understand the devastating impact that christian science has had on my physical and mental health. These people operate with kindness and objective procedures and actually help me solve my problems, in absolute contrast to the cold, trivializing, and victim-blaming “method” of christian science “healing”.
– Spice of Life
Thank you all for your contributions. Feel free to continue sharing in the comments below.
This site offers support resources to help individuals negotiate a transition in a manner that best fits their needs and convictions. We do not advocate any one particular path but acknowledge that there are many legitimate pathways that can be personally and spiritually fulfilling.
I am grateful to freely express myself in this testimony I am about to give, the likes of which I wouldn’t have if I was still a Christian Scientist. I thank God for giving me the choice to decide if I need medical care if any health issue I may have warrants it. I also have annual physicals which I faithfully adhere to.
I am also grateful that my family shares the same freedom from this dreaded CS cult as I do. I am also glad to have the Ex- Christian Science website available to share my experiences with all the like-minded folks here, the humor, jokes, the happy talk and updates of church closures, etc. Long live this camaraderie of wonderful folks here!
Yes, Gordon, it is great to have this website. All of us understand each other in a way that someone from outside the religion could never understand.
It is great to know that one’s health can be maintained to the fullest with today’s state of the art medical science. Think of how far mankind has evolved in this point in time. The rings of Saturn have just been passed by, photographed, and sent back from the Cassini mission. Twenty thousand years of human existence, and yet you and I are living in a time when we are witnessing this. A mere 100 years ago, such experiences only existed in science fiction. So if man has intelligence, it would only follow that medical breakthroughs are very much a part of this natural progress. Isn’t an innate aspect of having this innate human intelligence that we are going to work to better ourselves?
You know, the more I get away from Christian Science, through help through sites such as this, the more that religion does look like a cult. I’m increasingly able to see it, as someone would, who had never been in the religion in the first place, and were encountering some of the more startling aspects of it for the first time. How strange the whole thing looks at a distance. It can be difficult for a person, if they were raised in it, and had no choice but to have it obligated onto you, as a child, when your own powers of reasoning weren’t fully developed. Perhaps you accepted it, then had difficulties with it, rejecting it, then eventually having to separate yourself mentally from all the programming that went along with it. But the more you get away from it, and benefit from site such as this, the more cultish the whole religion does appear…and the more you are able to free yourself from it, and to appreciate your own mental freedom and reasoning.