Out of the box: a conversation with David Stevens

Marilyn Jones | from The Christian Science Journal

Christian Science healing gets out of the box of asking God to fix matter. Instead, it’s based on substance, cause, and effect being spiritual.

Marilyn Jones: Dave, you said that back in your college days you experienced a lot of turmoil, that you went through a lot of questioning. Tell me about that—and the conclusions you came to.

I needed something to lift me out of that angry state of thinking and enable me to do something that was productive and useful, and that was Christian Science.

Dave Stevens: Well, I grew up in a Christian Science home, but by the time I got to college, I kind of had one foot in and one foot out of Science. At the beginning of my college years, I was the all-American sports guy. But then I became involved in the antiwar movement. I got so caught up in politics and being an angry young man about the Vietnam war and the environment and other issues that I began to realize that I was going to be an angry old man—if I even lived that long. So I just needed to have a higher perspective. I needed something to lift me out of that angry state of thinking and enable me to do something that was productive and useful, to be part of the solution instead of being caught up in the problem. And the only thing I knew that had a shot at doing that was Christian Science.

I went to Principia College for my undergraduate degree, where I studied biology, but got interested in philosophy and education along the way. About five years after graduation, I found myself back at Principia on the staff and being offered a job as dean of men. I was thinking about how to help college students make moral and ethical decisions, and that steered me toward Harvard, where there was a “Center for Moral Development.” At Harvard they were trying to map out how people develop their moral and ethical constructs—but leaving God out of it. The effort, from an education standpoint, was to figure out how to fill the gap created when prayer was taken out of US public schools in the early ’60s.

After getting my master’s degree, I worked as a student personnel dean at Principia until 1988. Then my wife, Laurie, and I took our two kids, Josh and Brooke, and lived out of a camper in Europe and a little bit in North Africa. We home-schooled the kids—and all that time in Europe I was trying to come to some definite conclusion about going into the public practice of Christian Science. When we got back in 1989, it was pretty clear that it was the practice for me—and I’ve been in it ever since. I started lecturing on Christian Science around the US in 1997. And I became a teacher of Christian Science in 2006. Today the kids are on their own—one of them working in Denver, and the other in New York City.

You did find your calling. And I imagine you’re still helping people deal with struggles over moral and ethical decisions, as well as helping them find healing of all sorts of situations. Well, let’s turn to the subject of our cover feature for this month’s [July 2008] Journal—“Discover God as Mind.” As you know, this issue concludes our series on the seven synonyms for God found in Science and Health. I’ve loved working on this series because Mary Baker Eddy had such a progressive view of what God really is rather than the traditional anthropomorphic view, the “bearded old white father in the sky” concept.

Mary Baker Eddy has given the world something just invaluable in getting God “out of the box.”

I think Mary Baker Eddy has given the world something just invaluable in getting God “out of the box.” It’s God “in the box”—a three letter word that gets kicked around and abused and often has that anthropomorphic outlook attached to it—that leaves us stuck with the belief that our inheritance is mortality and all the baggage that goes with it. All that limitation. But when we get God out of the box, as she’s done by identifying the Creator as Principle, Mind, Soul, Spirit, Life, Truth, Love, we suddenly begin to see that being made, as the Bible says, “in the image and likeness of God” means something. It has practical meaning. Otherwise, who would want to be a child of the busy switchboard operator, the grumpy old guy on the third cloud from the left? That’s not particularly inspiring. No wonder that concept is irrelevant to so many people.

And impractical—sort of fairy-tale like.

Yes, it becomes like a fairy tale and doesn’t relate to reality. Just this morning I was on a radio program, and the note that the host read from said that I was going to talk about “practical spirituality.” And she said, “What in the world is practical spirituality?” For her, there was a huge disconnect between spirituality—anything that has to do with God—and just the practical questions of what you have to get done during the day.

How do you think most people see God?

I think for many, it’s probably a traditional view of the big father figure that’s been perpetrated by Christian dogma. I guess rather than seeing God as Love, for instance, as the Bible says, people have the notion that the way to obey God and to draw close to God, which are both necessary, is to be afraid. Because God will punish you. But to me that’s just not God—and actually I do think that the traditional view is shifting. Christian Science certainly takes it in the opposite direction. You know, the definition of God in the Glossary of Science and Health is a short one, but, for example, when I ask audiences in my lectures, “What do you think of when you think of God, or the divine?” I get answers that line up very much with this definition: “The great I am; the all-knowing …” [Science and Health, p. 587]. People often talk about God in terms such as infinite Life and infinite Love, or ever-present Good, omnipotence. I had a doctor say the “Great Physician.” A musician said “the Great Orchestrator” (which I love). One woman said “X.” Everybody wondered what she meant. And she said, “I have to admit I’m a former algebra teacher. I couldn’t tell you everything there is to know about God—there’s too much—but I love solving for X.”

What’s our spiritual DNA?

When I’ve used the synonyms given in Science and Health, I have a sense of God here and now. For instance, when I take the synonym Mind and I sort of “squeeze” it, what I get out are qualities or characteristics—things such as intelligence, wisdom, judgment, clarity. One little girl said, “good ideas” when I asked the question, “What would we inherit from Mind—if we were to take the premise seriously that Mind is our origin?” We were thinking of how this inheritance parallels our ideas of what we inherit from our human parents. But for us, the real question is “What’s our spiritual DNA?” We decided that it’s spiritual qualities, such as the intelligence and wisdom that we’ve just been talking about.

Certainly if we inherit good ideas from our source, then actually we’re talking about our real substance —who we are. And that’s practical spirituality.

Right. That’s the stuff we’re made of. So if you “squeeze” those synonyms—you get us. You probably know that Mary Baker Eddy often used the word expression, as in her statement “Man is the expression of God’s being” [Science and Health, p. 470]. One of the definitions of expression I’ve found relates to “juicing fruit”—to squeeze the fruit, what you get is the expression of the fruit. So when you squeeze these synonyms, what you get is the expression of those synonyms. And that’s “the image and likeness of God.”

This reminds me of a conversation the other night on TV. I was listening to a guy who is an avowed atheist. Quite dogmatic. And his argument went something like this: “I’ll be talking to someone whom I think is quite intelligent, a great thinker. But then it turns out that this person also believes in the talking snake in the Bible. Or believes that Jesus’ body flew up to heaven.” And, OK, I see why this guy’s baffled that a great thinker buys into that literal view of the Bible. But it is the traditional view. Which leads me to this question: We see an avalanche of books out there right now that advocate spiritually based living—and these books promote a progressive spirituality, not the old fire-and-brimstone theologies that say you’re damned to hell if you make a mistake or that you’re born a sinner through absolutely no fault of your own. And many, if not most, of these so-called New Age philosophies find their source in ancient wisdom teachings, including the Bible. So what makes Christian Science unique among all these theologies and philosophies?

Christian Science deals with a demonstrable approach to reality, to what really is.

Well, I think I could have a long conversation with the guy you heard on television! But, as to your question, I think Christian Science gets past a lot of that baggage, the fire-and-brimstone and some of the traditional Christian theologies that have really misled as to our true nature, or the nature of the divine. And yet, Christian Science is distinctly Christian. And the thing to me that makes it different from the New Age philosophies is that it’s not a philosophy. Philosophies deal with speculative theory and “oughts” and “shoulds,” while Christian Science deals with a demonstrable approach to reality, to what really is. Christian Science does take seriously Christ Jesus’ life, which illustrated a higher law, which is available to everyone—universally. And following his example leads to a spiritual view of what is.

An atheist might think that walking on the water or healing the sick is no more possible than the talking serpent, and yet for 150 years, since Mary Baker Eddy discovered the laws of divine Truth, Life, and Love to be the governing Principle of our existence right here where we seem to be hedged in by a lot of other things, students of this Science have been overcoming many laws of physics that have before seemed inviolable. Healing of the sick exclusively through the application of these divine laws, for instance, has been regularly proven. Now, it seems to me one of the reasons that people have gone to the New Age approach as opposed to the “fire-and-brimstone” point of view is that those old damnation theological standpoints just feel so negative—the contention that we’re all sinners. There again, Christian Science stays with the Bible, but it takes the position of original goodness as opposed to original sin.

And that would be from looking at the two accounts of creation in Genesis.

What an empowering starting point we have: “I’m made in the image and likeness of God”!

The first account in Genesis says that we’re made in the image and likeness of God [Gen. 1:26]. So if we take that statement seriously and identify with that explanation of our creation rather than believing that we’re sinners because of a mistake someone made many thousands of years ago, then what an empowering starting point we have: “I’m made in the image and likeness of God”! Asserting that position takes one’s thought immediately to the question What’s God like? And then to ask What have I got woven into the fabric of my being that gives me authority, and the capacity for good, the ability to make a difference in life—that gives me the ability to maintain my health, to love, and to experience good in every category of life? It’s a powerful line of reasoning.

Which takes us back to the synonyms, because when we ask “What is God like?” we can say “Well, what is Spirit like?” or “What is Life like?”

Exactly. You know, I’ve talked with people who say they don’t believe in God, but often what they mean is that they don’t believe in that anthropomorphic God. So when I say, “I think of God as Truth,” I feel assured because I certainly believe there is such a thing as Truth—universal Truth.

If there is such a thing as universal truth, to me, that’s a way of thinking about God.

Just talking about this reminds me of the highest level of moral reasoning that one of my professors at Harvard found in his research. He found that people such as Jesus, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and a few others made their moral decisions based on what they called “universal truth.” I remember sitting in a seminar having this discussion, and I suggested that if there is such a thing as universal truth, to me, that’s a way of thinking about God. And he said, “Well, I’ll concede that—but just don’t bring it up anymore because it confuses the issue.” It seemed to me that they were trying to leave God out of it—but couldn’t.

I have a friend who’s an atheist, and I asked her once why she thought people were altruistic, if not impelled by a divinely inspired motive. And her response was that being altruistic is actually a biological necessity for our species—an evolutionary component that’s built in for survival. Otherwise, we’d kill ourselves off. Does that fit in with your studies at Harvard?

It’s a combination of that perspective of biology and also of social science. But what the researchers found was that people initially make moral or ethical decisions based on the question “What’s in it for me?” But then they begin to see a couple of reasons for altruism. One, it just makes things better, and two, it gives a person a voice. But then you get to the level of democratic thinking where you begin to value everyone’s voice.

The way they were doing the research was to give people theoretical examples of moral dilemmas and then ask them to reason through these situations. Once the people had weighed the various arguments in their own mind, the researchers would ask the participants to explain how they had come to their conclusions. And the most consistent, coherent reasoning came from people who were not thinking at all in terms of “what’s in it for me” or even for the good of society, but were thinking on the basis that certain principles are universally valuable. For instance, they might work from the premise that preservation of life is more valuable than the preservation of property as a universal truth. So, it’s clear that they landed on some things that are just universally true. To me, that’s evidence of Truth—of divine Truth practically expressed—in the world.

Don’t you think that all of this is very relevant to Christian Science? Because this Science isn’t a closed, atomized philosophy, as you said. This is an infinite Science with infinite possibilities and ramifications.

I think studying and practicing Christian Science means an ongoing discovery of what those universal truths are and the seeing and experiencing of the fact that these truths actually operate as laws in our lives.

So, let’s go back then to those millions of people seeking these nontraditional philosophies. In times past, these folks would have gone to a church or a synagogue or mosque or ashram, but now they’re walking away from their religious organizations for whatever reasons. But it seems to me there’s still a tremendous thirst for understanding our own nature, and to discovering conclusively, or at the very least practically, the nature or identity of our source.

These are central questions of being. And too often we go through life at different stages having those answers scripted for us. Whereas, to me, the most interesting approach, and the one that really brings out our freedom to be an individual, is to look at our divine origin and to take seriously the idea that we’re made in the image and likeness of God.

It’s not a greeting card sentiment.

No, understanding that we emanate from those synonyms for the divine is not a greeting card sentiment. It’s what ultimately describes who you are as an indispensable aspect of infinity—and is absolutely necessary to complete the infinite and its infinite expression of intelligence, creativity, and all those other qualities of infinite Spirit.

I really like what you say about taking seriously the idea of our being made in the image of God. Because if you have, as you said, the script written for you, then you eventually wind up reciting prayers or dogma more or less by rote. Which doesn’t mean that you don’t take those prayers or dogma seriously, but it all just doesn’t seem that real to you, doesn’t have that practical impact that we talked about. If you really understand, for example, that Mind is your source, and that what you inherit from your source is good ideas—and that you are an expression of intelligence itself—then you can learn to rely more and more confidently on infinite Mind as your resource.

It’s your resource, yes, and your reason for being—it’s the stuff you’re made of. This reminds me of a woman who came up after a lecture I was giving a few years ago. She described herself as an “eclectic seeker—and mostly a Buddhist.” She said, “I almost didn’t come to this talk because of the word Christian—it was Christian Science.” But then she told me that during the talk she had experienced a healing of her resentment about Christianity—a healing of her negative feelings related to the way she had been raised by overzealous Christian parents. Her words to me were, “I realized that Mary Baker Eddy is not spouting Christian dogma, but leading us to the Christ consciousness.” And then her face just lit up and she said, “That’s what heals, isn’t it?”

Okay, Dave, let’s dive into that phrase a bit. What do you think she meant by “the Christ consciousness”?

The Christ consciousness champions and brings into practicality our goodness and our capacity to express the qualities of Spirit.

Maybe she was lining it up with the Buddha consciousness, the consciousness of peace. But I think she also saw that the Christ consciousness has to do with a conscious oneness with the divine, with pure good. That lifts us out of that oppressive sense of being damned and innately sinful. The Christ consciousness is that understanding that champions and brings into practicality our goodness and our capacity to express the qualities of Spirit. And this divine influence shows us innately that we’re inseparable from that benevolent, life-affirming source.

Have you had opportunities to see this Christ consciousness at work, for example, with healings that came about in just black-and-white terms—in which there just was no other explanation other than the divine at work?

Healing in Christian Science really isn’t about fixing matter. It’s about changing thought.

I’ve had a lot of those. At least I’m convinced! One experience that comes to mind taught me that healing in Christian Science really isn’t about fixing matter. It’s about changing thought, about seeing myself in this spiritual light—of being made of the substance of these spiritual qualities, of these characteristics that we’ve been talking about.

What you’re saying is that whatever situation it is—even if it’s a physical difficulty—it isn’t about something going on in the material realm at all, not even in the body itself.

Right. Whatever you’re dealing with isn’t what it appears to be. This discord, whether in a relationship or a physical difficulty, is essentially a fraud being perpetrated on us—the fraudulent proposition that our real substance is matter and that cause and effect and whatever activity—or lack of it—is determined by matter. Christian Science has shown me that all we’re ever really dealing with is thought—because in fact, we live entirely in and by thought. So if that thought is objectified as limitation, we tend to see this limited thought as matter. But if our thought is lifted up by the Christ—by the consciousness of Life’s presence and power—and our oneness with that, we begin to see that our real substance is actually comprised solely of the qualities of Life, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Truth, Love, Mind.

I had been thinking that if I just thought about the right spiritual ideas I’d fix my knee. But I wasn’t getting anywhere.

So, here’s one example of how that’s been proven in my own life. When I was playing football in college, I got a knee injury. I was familiar with Christian Science, but I still thought I was going to have to try to fix that knee somehow by trying to mentally adjust matter. I had been trying to pray about this problem for about three weeks, thinking that if I just thought about the right spiritual ideas I’d fix my knee. But I wasn’t getting anywhere. I was hobbling around and trying to just play through the pain.

Seems like you had a divided consciousness, basically. As the Bible says, “[A] house divided against itself shall not stand” [Matt. 12:25].

That’s right. It was the assumption that the problem was material but that it might have a spiritual answer. But what I learned is that the real starting point in Christian Science is from the understanding that our real substance is spiritual, not material. And that’s why a spiritual uplifting of thought brings about the answer, because what we’re really changing or fixing is thought.

The physical healing is the outcome.

The problem was an illusion that had to be replaced by the clarity of understanding our oneness with Spirit.

The healing is the effect of what I think of as a revelation—that the harmony of Spirit’s being and nature and action is all that makes me up. That’s what comprises me. So when I finally called a Christian Science practitioner, and I was back to 100 percent the next day, I tried to figure out—What happened? What was the difference in our prayers? It wasn’t until later when I took primary class instruction in Christian Science that I realized that her prayer had a different starting point from mine. Her prayer was starting from the standpoint that the whole situation was an illusion, not a reality that we needed to petition God about to make better. I would go even further and say that her prayer was starting from the standpoint that all substance is spiritual and that cause and effect belong to divine Mind. So the problem was an illusion that had to be replaced by the clarity of understanding our oneness with Spirit and that we are the likeness of Spirit.

That would make you the emanation of Spirit.

Yes, the emanation of Spirit and held together by spiritual law and not by biomechanics.

So that healing can’t be explained in any other way than by the transformation of your thinking.

Right. And it was an immediate healing—and it’s been permanent. I still go out running and hiking. And when I get into conversations with people about old sports injuries, I don’t have much to say, unless they want to think more deeply with me about the cause-and-effect relationship that was so evident to me with the healing of that football injury. Lots of times people tend to identify with these old injuries—we accept them as part of ourselves. We even describe ourselves sometimes in terms of these old injuries that we still carry around with us. But going back to those seven synonyms, the more we realize that the only history we have, the only makeup we have, comes from those synonyms—well, then the present, active being of those synonyms really trumps any other supposed history or description of ourselves. And then we become more free of the baggage of identifying with past problems.

I would imagine that this healing and what you learned—to start from the spiritual standpoint rather than from matter—has been a landmark in your practice and in helping others.

Christian Science gives a perspective and an understanding of spiritual law.

It has been. You know, the medical model is always about “the problem, the problem, the problem,” and it assumes that matter is the substance of our being and that therefore problems are to be expected. And that the way to deal with them is through material remedies. But you can’t solve the problem on the same basis that created the problem. Just as you can’t pull somebody out of quicksand by jumping in. You have to get out of it altogether and stand on solid ground. Christian Science provides that solid ground. It gives a perspective and an understanding of spiritual law. My dad was a lawyer, and he used to talk about “case law.” Meaning that cases have been tried before that give legal precedent for what you’re confronting now. I think a lot about that in the practice. I remind myself that this isn’t something I’m making up as I go along—it’s been proven many times in my experience and in my practice and by countless others. It’s like drawing on that “great cloud of witnesses” that the writer of Hebrews talks about [Heb. 12:1].

And we get back to the fact that Christian Science is not a philosophy but a Science. And like any of the natural sciences, with progress and continuing study and application of what’s been proven, ever more complex problems are solved—but only by pushing forward fearlessly and always starting with the principles that are known to work.

And just understanding that the Principle of all being is always the starting point in Christian Science is huge. I love the implications of a couple of short sentences in Science and Health. One of them: “The foundation of mortal discord is a false sense of man’s origin” [Science and Health, p. 262]. If the foundation of our problems is a false sense of our origin, wouldn’t a true understanding—a clear, correct understanding—avoid those problems or solve them? And the other line is “To begin rightly is to end rightly” [Science and Health, p. 262]. To me, everything we’ve been talking about rests on what in logic is called “a priori reasoning”—reasoning from cause, the divine Principle—to see how divine law, which is entirely good, applies and governs every circumstance. Our focus can switch from bearing down on the problem to lifting our view to divine Principle. That’s the foundation of all reality.

Marilyn Jones is managing editor of the Journal.