Article May 8, 1909 Issue

It is not pleasant to think that one professing to be a...

Charles K. Skinner—Three Rivers, Mich.

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It is not pleasant to think that one professing to be a follower of the Master would wilfully distort and misrepresent the teachings of other professing Christians. For that reason I prefer to consider that the clergyman whose sermon recently appeared in the columns of the Hustler has been a superficial reader of the text-book of Christian Science, and that his views are misapprehensions based on a wrong conception of the real teachings of Christian Science.

This critic told his hearers that "Christian Science denies the Bible teaching regarding sin, the personality of Christ, and the reality of matter." It is true that Christian Science teaches the unreality of sin and sickness in the sense that God is not their creator, nor is He responsible for them. The Bible teaches plainly that God made all that was made, and without Him nothing was made. It also states that "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." From this view-point there is but one of two positions for any Christian to take: either that sin and sickness and all their attending evils are good, and therefore the creations of God, and cannot be destroyed by human power; or else they are not His creations, hence not real to Him or to the spiritual man who, according to the Bible, was created in the image and likeness of God.

Jesus, the great Exemplar, took the position that sin, sickness, and death are not real, but fraudulent claims of a belief in a power opposed to God, another mind or intelligence separate from Him; and with a sweep of his clear understanding he consigned them to oblivion and destruction. Had the Master considered evil the creation of God, he would never have attempted its destruction, for he told the people plainly that he came not to destroy, but to fulfil. In like manner Christian Science teaches that the false claims of sin and sickness must be wrestled with as falsities, and overcome by the power of God. Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health (p. 29): "Christians must take up arms against error at home and abroad. They must grapple with sin in themselves and in others, and continue this warfare until they have finished their course." The Christian Science text-book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," abounds in such statements.

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