Article July 16, 1910 Issue

POSITIVENESS IN CHRISTIAN SCIENCE

THEODORE STANGER.

A short time ago the writer overheard a remark made by a member of one of the older churches, to the effect that Christian Scientists were the most intolerant religionists he had ever met. The only reason he could give for holding this opinion was, that they were so "awfully positive" in their religious convictions.

Now, if there is any time when a Christian Scientist may with some degree of justice deserve to be called intolerant, it is when he is just beginning to be a Christian Scientist. In their new-found freedom from pain and suffering, and when looking toward a bright future, some Scientists display "a zeal ... not according to knowledge." They are apt to foist their opinions upon those who are not ready for the truth and who do not desire it, to discuss points which they themselves have but faintly grasped, to say things which must sound very foolish to an outsider, and then to feel disappointed or even to lose patience when those whom they are trying to convert do not agree with them. This period may be to some a "period of storm and stress," because of the antagonism they arouse; but they soon emerge from it. The more they learn to understand the true nature of Christian Science, and the more they rise above its letter into its spirit, the more do they see the vastness of the subject before them and their own meager knowledge of it; they become more tolerant, more ready to acknowledge all that is good in the world, in the churches and out of the churches,—all, indeed, that makes for the amelioration of suffering and the elevation of character.

No man was ever more positive in his religious convictions than our Master. "Verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." These were his words. And yet, how broad he was, how free from religious prejudice and intolerance! Professions of faith had no value in his eyes unless he saw them accompanied by proofs,—by good works. He said that the publicans and harlots would pass into the kingdom of heaven before the hypocritical representatives of the faith of his own people. In one of his parables, it was a despised Samaritan who rescued a man fallen among thieves, while a priest and a Levite passed him by. When the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman accused of violating the moral law, he said to them, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her;" and when they had all slunk out, he said to the woman: "Go, and sin no more." These instances also show that Jesus could appreciate the good the people manifested, without sanctioning their forms of religion or their faults.

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