Article November 21, 1908 Issue

The writer of the letter on "The New Theology" went...

Frederick Dixon—London, England

English Churchman

The writer of the letter on "The New Theology" went out of his way quite unnecessarily to explain that Christian Science is "neither Christianity nor science." The word "Christian" is defined in the Oxford Dictionary, the greatest of all dictionaries, as follows: "Of persons or communities: Believing, professing, or belonging to the religion of Christ," and in this broad sense, absolutely irrespective of creeds, it is undoubtedly commonly understood. If any one wishes to circumscribe it with a dogma, he will very soon discover that he has embarked, not on a definition of Christianity, but of orthodoxy. This should be sufficient to make people careful, for the fact is that the orthodoxy of Christendom has altered from century to century, so that, as Mr. Froude writes, "the Christianity of the first century was, and yet was not, the Christianity of the fourth century. The Christianity of the fourth century was, and yet was not, the Christianity of feudal Europe. The Christianity of feudal Europe died at the Reformation, and was born again in Protestant Christianity." The idea only, he says, "is immortal and never fades;" and he goes on to wonder, if the men who piled St. Andrew's Cathedral stone upon stone by the sands of the Northern Sea were to meet the men who shattered their work to ruins, or the presbyter who walks the aisles to-day, how much they would understand the one the other.

Now, a Christian is at least one who believes in Jesus the Christ, and in the last chapter of the Gospel of Mark there occurs a definition of a believer in the words of Jesus himself: "And these signs shall follow them that believe ; In my name shall they cast out devils ; they shall speak with new tongues ; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them ; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." It is true that an attempt has been made to prove that these verses are an epilogue by a later writer, but the effort is scarcely worth the trouble for it leaves untouched the infinitely stronger saying in the fourteenth chapter of John : "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father."

The Christian Science Church has accepted Jesus' test of what constitutes belief, and it is a little curious that it should be singled out for a charge of heresy. The term "heresy" is at all times a very ridiculous one. There is not a sect that has not been, and would not in different circumstances be, heretical. This is so manifest that a great English churchman once remarked that "orthodoxy is my doxy, and heterodoxy any one else's doxy."

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