Editorial March 5, 2018 Issue

One Father-Mother God: foundation for progress and equality

Kim Crooks Korinek

What could a reformer from the 19th century possibly have to add to the movement for progress for men and women today?

Plenty! Mary Baker Eddy saw progress as the law of one infinite Father-Mother God and equality as a natural outcome of God, who created both male and female in His own image and likeness (see Genesis 1:26, 27). This was part of her groundbreaking discovery of Christian Science—a scientific system of ethics and healing based on the Bible, particularly the teachings of Christ Jesus.

Central to Christian Science and Christ’s teaching is the Sermon on the Mount; it includes the Golden Rule, which reads: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets” (Matthew 7:12). This is the core of true equality, rooted in Christ’s Christianity. Also included is the Lord’s Prayer that starts with “Our Father.” That beautiful word our establishes our inseparable, spiritual relation to God and to one another. In the textbook of Christian Science, Eddy’s book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, there is a deeply spiritual view of the entire Lord’s Prayer given. This includes the spiritual interpretation of the line “Our Father which art in heaven,” which is “Our Father-Mother God, all-harmonious” (p. 16). That all-inclusive phrase forms the basis for both equality and progress. Science and Health later notes: “One infinite God, good, unifies men and nations; constitutes the brotherhood of man; ends wars; fulfils the Scripture, ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself;’ annihilates pagan and Christian idolatry,—whatever is wrong in social, civil, criminal, political, and religious codes; equalizes the sexes …” (p. 340).