Article November 12, 1910 Issue

Our critic has stated that all the good contained in Christian Science...

Frederick Dixon

North Herts (Eng.) Mail

Our critic has stated that all the good contained in Christian Science is found in Christianity. No Christian Scientist would feel inclined to dispute this for one moment. The question, however, naturally arises as to what Christianity is. It does not seem to have occurred to the reverend is. It does not seem to have occurred to the reverend gentleman that he had embarked on the "voyage perilous" of defining Christianity as "what I believe"; in other words, that he had entered upon that supremely dangerous thing, a definition of orthodoxy,—orthodoxy, which has been itself defined, by a prelate with a sense of humor, as "my doxy," heterodoxy being "the other fellow's doxy." As a matter of fact, anybody who will take the trouble to think, must realize that the various Christian sects have been punishing, torturing, and murdering each other for centuries, for the simple reason that they, like our critic, conceived that because their neighbors failed to accept the views which seemed good to them, they were, as he says, being led "ultimately into darkness which was worse than before."

Curiously enough, what all these critics have omitted to observe is that there is a definition of Christianity in several places in the New Testament which is quite un-equivocal in its directness. Jesus sent out the disciples "to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick," and in doing this he made the one the necessary corollary of the other. This, however, is not all. He stated distinctly on more than one occasion that those who believed in him would be able to do the works he did, and not only these works, but greater works; and so he, and no other, made the healing of the sick and the destruction of sorrow and sin the test of a man's faith, and so of his Christianity.

Is it not a little remarkable that the religion of today which is demanding that the whole of Jesus' commands should be accepted as Christianity, and not part of them, should have been selected by the preacher as a sect which was working "untold evil"? If it is evil to teach men to have that supreme reliance on the promises of Jesus which will enable them to begin to attempt to live in practical accordance with the sermon on the mount, then Christian Science is evil. Jesus said, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." The critics of Christian Science would be wiser if they were to devote their time to showing the world what this truth is, in a way which will enable it to do the greater works which Jesus spoke of, rather than to criticism of their neighbors for their attempt to accomplish the healing work, in no matter how humble a way. A single attempt to demonstrate your own knowledge of the truth which will free the world, will carry infinitely more weight, as an argument, than any quantity of denunciation of the insufficiency of your neighbor's demonstration.

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Religious teachers frequently and perhaps unconsciously...
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