Editorial April 16, 1910 Issue

"FAITH IN CHRIST"

John B. Willis

Driven by the necessities of the case, both physicians and preachers are having much to say these days regarding the mental factor in the healing of disease. Those who concede that the beneficent works of Christ Jesus and his disciples were wrought through the realization of the efficiency and sufficiency of divine law, are free to acknowledge the inadequacy of the prevailing religious belief, and some are honestly seeking to advance in that spiritual understanding which will equip them to meet the demands which Christ Jesus laid upon all his disciples.

On the other hand, those who maintain that the Christmethod of healing is not incumbent upon his disciples today, are putting forth many theories in explanation of the undeniable healings of Christian Science. They are laying great emphasis upon the "physiological effect of faith." They point to the fact that a large proportion of the functional processes of the body are under the control of unconscious mentality, and declare that "these unconscious process are doing their best only when they feel the throb of a great faith, a great hope, love, and courage." "When fear is eliminated," say they, "and men go to God in prayer for the cure of disease with faith and love, the unconscious processes respond at once and do their full duty."

This may be said to be a distinctly improved belief, and it indicates the present drift of thought away from dependence upon drugs; but the logic of the statement takes one farther than its makers are sometimes willing to go, for it demands that any person who is not equipped in character and in spiritual apprehension to awaken and nourish this "faith and love," is altogether unprepared to meet the demands of the situation,—all of which would argue that the school of healing and the school of faith should again be united, as they were in the days of the Nazarene. The contention of many physicians, that the object and reasonableness of the patient's faith is immaterial, may be true with respect to the removal of somewhat of fear; but it would surely be a startling proposition to say that Christ Jesus encouraged and exacted faith with a view simply of supplying a needed "physiological factor in the cure of disease."

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IMMORTALITY
April 16, 1910
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