WHAT WE BELIEVE

We believe in God, the Living Spirit Almighty; one indestructible, absolute and self-existent Cause. This One manifests itself in and through all creation but is not absorbed by its creation. The manifest universe is the body of God; it is the logical and necessary outcome of the infinite self-knowingness of God. We believe in the incarnation of the Spirit in everyone and that all people are incarnations of the One Spirit. We believe in the eternality, immortality, and the continuity of the individual soul, forever and ever expanding. We believe that Heaven is within us and that we experience it to the degree that we become conscious of it. We believe the ultimate goal of life to be a complete emancipation from all discord of every nature, and that this goal is sure to be attained by all. We believe in the unity of all life, and that the highest God and the innermost God is one God. We believe that God is personal to all who feel this Indwelling Presence. We believe in the direct revelation of Truth through the intuitive and spiritual nature of the individual, and that any person who lives in close contact with the indwelling God may become a revealer of Truth. We believe that the Universal Spirit, which is God, operates through a Universal Mind, which is the Law of God; and that we are surrounded by this Creative Mind, which receives the direct impress of our thought and acts upon it. We believe in the healing of the sick through the power of this Mind. We believe in the control of conditions through the power of this Mind. We believe in the eternal Goodness, the eternal Loving-kindness, and the eternal Givingness of Life to all. We believe in our own soul, our own spirit, and our own destiny; for we understand that the life of all is God."

WHAT IS RELIGIOUS SCIENCE?

Dr. Holmes said: “Religious Science is a correlation of laws of science, opinions of philosophy, and revelations of religion applied to human needs and the aspirations of all.”

Religious Science speaks to twentieth-century people in twentieth-century language. But what it says is ageless, eternal and godly. Because we believe in God, we believe in the allness, the nearness and the goodness of God. And we believe in the Christ-I-Am, the child of the living God, in humankind. The Church of Religious Science is also many beautiful buildings, in many wonderful cities. The temple is the visible evidence of the people’s belief in what is taught within it! I am so daily grateful for my part in all this, and for your part in all this!

1963, The Religious Scientist

WHO IS ERNEST HOLMES?

From Ernest Holmes
(1959) Sermon by the Sea
"Science of Mind is the most direct impartation of Divine Wisdom that has ever come to the world, because it incorporates the precepts of Jesus, and Emerson, and Buddha, and all the rest of the wise. . .We have rediscovered that which the great, the good, and the wise have sung about and thought about the imprisoned splendor within ourselves and within each other — and have direct contact with it. Whether we call it the Christ in us, or the Buddha, or Atman, or just the Son of God the living spirit, makes no difference. You and I are witness to the Divine fact and we have discovered an authority beyond our minds, even though our minds utilize it."

This from a man born in 1887 who later inspired the "positive thinking" of Norman Vincent Peale, Peggy Lee, Cary Grant, Cecil B. DeMille and countless others without ever intending to create a religion or a following of masses of people. He simply had a brilliant mind and wished to synthesize the writings of the times into one volume, which became the Science of Mind textbook, and was inspired by the teachings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Judge Thomas Troward and mystic Emma Curtis Hopkins. He discovered that affirmative prayer containing specific elements of recognition, unification, realization, thanksgiving and release engendered healing in lives that appeared to be broken. He offered the theory that when these treatments were spoken for and about others by spiritual counselors called "practitioners," they were even more potent. By 1927, he founded a monthly publication and an institute for Religious Science and School of Philosophy that trained spiritual mind practitioners. These institutes that grew from the first one in Los Angeles, California became Religious Science churches by the 1940's.

Holmes' teaching is based on a belief that there is a universal law of cause and effect operating in the life of humankind that is primarily mental and spiritual. (Open at the Top, the Life of Ernest Holmes, 1993). "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." He called his philosophy a science because "it can be taught, it can be learned and it can be consciously applied with a certainty of definite and repeatable results." The definition of religious science that Holmes taught is, "Religious Science is the correlation of laws of science, opinions of philosophy and revelations of religion applied to human needs and the aspirations of man." Holmes identified God as, "Universal Mind, Spirit, Intelligence, that is the origin of everything. . .This Universal life and Energy finds an outlet in and through everything that lives."

Spiritual Mind Treatment is a specific form of prayer of recognition and affirmation. It is more an accepting and receiving of what is true; it is never a prayer of supplication, or asking God for favors or help. He taught that there are two basic truths: Love and Law. Love is Divine Givingness, which is the nature of Spirit and Law is the impersonal, mechanical, and mathematical way that mental activity turns into form or experience.

And so it is.

United Church of Religious Science