Article March 29, 1913 Issue

I have read a critic's recent letter in reply to the one I...

Frederick Dixon—Leicester, England.

Leicester Post

I have read a critic's recent letter in reply to the one I wrote on Christian Science. The position which he takes up is quite clear, though the conclusion it leads to is an absolutely hopeless one for him. Under his definition, a heretic can be a Christian, and a Christian a heretic, which is an anomaly. When you consider that thousands of heretics have been burned precisely because they were not Christians, and that thousands of Christians have been burned because they were heretics, the historical soundness of the definition becomes even more questionable. The critic says that the holding of a certain view of the incarnation constitutes a Christian, historically. That statement would not be agreed to by half the Christian church, and it is unnecessary to go into the further intricacies of the question and its bearing on the various sects of Protestantism. When a definition of Christian is denied by about half the professing Christians of the world, its historical accuracy is scarcely as unimpeachable as it might be.

Now, there is one great authority on the English language, and that is the famous Oxford dictionary. In this dictionary the critic will find the word Christian defined thus: "Of persons and communities: believing, professing, or belonging to the religion of Christ." If, therefore, he is going to insist upon the more particular definition, he will very soon find he has embarked on a course of defining orthodoxy; and when he starts on the course of defining orthodoxy, he will discover what a certain well-known bishop meant when he defined orthodoxy as "my doxy," and heterodoxy as "anybody else's doxy."

There is no particular reason why anybody should mind being called a heretic. The best definition of heresy is, the orthodoxy of tomorrow, just as the best definition of orthodoxy is, the heresy of yesterday. Christian Science teaches a view of the incarnation different from that taught by most of the older churches and one which to the Christian Scientist is far more intelligible.

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