Article January 8, 1910 Issue

It is surely about time that intelligent men and women...

Frederick Dixon—London, England.

Baptist

It is surely about time that intelligent men and women gave up repeating the catch-phrase that Christian Science is neither Christian nor scientific; and if they will not, that ably conducted papers gave up reporting them. No religious sect surely knows better than the Baptists the amount of misrepresentation it is possible to subject a new movement to, or has enjoyed a more striking experience of the futility of that misrepresentation. Two and a half centuries ago, in the era of the Test and the Corporation Acts, when no non-conformist could hold office under the crown, Jeffreys was reviling Baxter as a sniveling Kidderminster bishop; today a Baptist holds one of the highest positions in the state.

The fact is that for centuries the various Christian bodies have been disputing each other's title to be regarded as Christian, in anything but a Christian spirit. Less than forty years ago a well-known church newspaper politely described the welcome extended to the non-conformist members of the revision committee of the Authorized Version of the Bible to the sacrament, at Westminster, as casting pearls before swine, an expression which echoes a medieval ecclesiastic's tribute to Wyclif. Now, there is in the Bible a definition of a believer, and consequently of a Christian, by the Founder of Christianity, which might make the Bishop of Birmingham pause. It is this: "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also." It is strange that Dr. Gore should choose for exclusion from Christendom the very people who, no matter in what other respect they may happen to differ from him, are at least striving to do this.

The use of the expression "unscientific" is equally unfortunate. It is just as easy to arrive at an orthodox view of science, with its Test and Corporation Acts, as at one of Christianity. Fortunately, perhaps, an authority so acceptable to all thinkers as Huxley has left a definition of the word it would be difficult to improve upon. Science, he says, is the answer a man makes to the question, What do I know? The miracles of Christ Jesus were the answer to such a demand on the part of the Jews. Christian healing in all the ages since has been just such an answer; and it is the answer of Christian Science today to the charge of Dr. Gore and others that it is not scientific.

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