Christian Science prayer-healing doctrine

Christian Science prayer-healing doctrine is presented as a faith in which the material world, including the evils associated with it, is illusory and only spiritual reality is true. Its account of healing follows from that premise: prayer alone can remedy afflictions, while doctors are considered unnecessary. In the Simdars household, this belief was not abstract theology. It informed how Enid Simdars responded to sickness and to her daughter Joyce Simdars’s conduct.

Doctrine and Household Practice

Enid Simdars’s husband suffered from an enlarged heart and inflammatory rheumatism, yet she believed prayer, not medical care, could heal his condition. The doctrine thus stood in sharp contrast to the visible, continuing illness within the family: he continued to plow behind mules despite his ailments, while Enid regarded doctors as a waste of time.

Enid also applied her religious understanding to Joyce’s identity. She believed that only a good Joyce existed and that a misbehaving Joyce could not truly be her daughter. When Joyce misbehaved, Enid treated the offending child as an impostor, making her sit on a chair without acknowledgment until the good Joyce seemed to return. This practice is described as Enid’s belief and response within the household, rather than as a healing rule in itself.

Consequences for Joyce

The doctrine’s personal cost for Joyce lay in the uncertainty it imposed on her sense of being lovable and real. As a child, she came to fear that a wicked thought or misbehavior could make her unworthy of love and cause her to cease to exist. Years later, she recalled sitting on the chair in tears and repeatedly checking that she was still there. The episode shows how a belief that denied the reality of material affliction could also shape the family’s treatment of ordinary human behavior, turning a child’s misdeeds into a crisis of recognition.