Trinitarian Christians pray in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Mary Baker Eddy’s followers worship a different trinity, as I was reminded recently by a friend’s article in the Christian Science periodicals.

Their God, though usually called “He,” is identified as both Mother and Father, and is more often impersonally described as Principle, Mind, Soul, Spirit, Life, Truth, and Love. God’s messenger of the only way to know Him, Scientists believe, is Mrs. Eddy. The Comforter provided by Him and her, as Scientists read in their textbook, is Christian Science itself.

There are two problems with this feminized, modernized, intellectualized, depersonalized trinity. It is neither true to the Bible nor mighty to save.

Christian Scientists vaguely cite what they claim is scriptural authority for their reinterpretation of who God is, while ignoring the plain and plentiful texts that identify the real Trinity: Father, Son, Spirit. Worse, although Scientists believe their approach heals and harmonizes human experience, it does not really address the sin problem for time or for eternity.

Our ultimate reconciliation with a holy God is accomplished only by His Son’s incarnate life and atoning death. And our present escape from the trap of involuntary disobedience and broken resolves (as diagnosed by Paul in Romans 7) is possibly only through the indwelling Holy Spirit, not through the self-salvation approach of “knowing the truth.”

It’s true that Science and Health can be quoted to argue that Mrs. Eddy didn’t entirely reject the second and third Persons of the Trinity as given in the New Testament and the historic Christian creeds. In practice, however, on the evidence of oral testimonies in Christian Science churches and writings in the Journal or Sentinel, one finds that the Son and the Spirit are indeed replaced by the Discoverer and her discovery in Scientists’ religious life — much to their spiritual impoverishment.