Article April 5, 1913 Issue

It is with no desire to start a religious controversy with...

J. M. Welch

Jacksonville (Fla.) Times-Union

It is with no desire to start a religious controversy with our brother that I reply to an evangelist's statements in regard to the teachings of Christian Science. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy, is a brief exposition of the important points of Christian Science, beginning: "As adherents of Truth, we take the inspired Word of the Bible as our sufficient guide to eternal Life," etc. (p. 497). This does not repudiate any of the teachings of the Bible when interpreted spiritually. In fact, the Bible cannot be understood any other way, for God is Spirit, and we must worship Him "in spirit and in truth." There always is danger to making excerpts from any writing, in separating them from their context, for often the meaning of the whole is entirely changed and distorted.

To explain all the excerpts in the article would take up too much time and space. I can only advise a wholly unbiased reading of the Christian Science text-book to find it one of the most logical and easily understood books. Mrs. Eddy did not claim to have originated Christian Science, for this healing truth has always existed. She simply rediscovered the Christ-healing which had been covered up through many centuries of unfaith by false theology and worldliness.

In Quoting the Scriptures the evangelist calls attention to the following: "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all man;" also, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." To the carnal or dust man, sin and death are awful realities, and it would seem a lie to him to say that there is no sin and death, because he cannot cognize the things of Spirit and is not the true man. Christian Scientists are striving daily to put off this carnal man, or "old man," as St. Paul describes it, by knowing the truth about it, which makes them free from the enslavements of its beliefs. Christ Jesus came to show that this man was the unreal or temporal man, which abode not in Truth; and that the spiritual man in God's image and likeness was the real and eternal man. Jesus passed through this seeming death to show that it could not destroy the real man, calling it an enemy which would be the last to be destroyed. As death came by sin, so will death go when there is no sin in us to die. Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, knowing that he had not died. If he had believed for a single instant that God had sent death to Lazarus, he would not and could not have worked against God's will by raising him from this seeming death or have called it an enemy.

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