Article June 21, 1913 Issue

Our clerical critic admits that Christian Science has made...

John W. Doorly

Warrington (England) Guardian

Our clerical critic admits that Christian Science has made vast strides in this country, but denounces it as "superstitious and antichristian." He does not therefore give the people of this country much credit for intelligence. What does the gentleman suppose is causing the people to forsake his church and to seek help in the Christian Science churches?

He bewails the serious leakage, but probably if he would go a little farther he would find that the Christian Science church is offering these people something vital, and something which can be made practical in their every-day lives, and this something is the simple teaching of Jesus Christ. Christian Science is teaching these people what God really is, and man's relationship to Him. Through this teaching it is comforting the sorrowful and healing the sick and sinning. It has no rites or ceremonies, but it is revealing to mankind the power and presence of God, of good, the ever-present Christ, the "Lo, I am with you alway." These results of Christian Science are facts, of which there are many witnesses in every part of the world, and for which of these things is it antichristian?

Our critic also states that Christian Science "emphasizes the supremacy of mind over the body, of spirit over matter." Is not this teaching Christian? Is it not the teaching of Jesus Christ, who annulled every material law, walked on the waters, stilled the tempest, fed the hungry, healed the sick, and raised the dead by spiritual means alone? Christian Science teaches the absolute supremacy, not of the so-called human mind, but of that one infinite Mind named God. It acknowledges no other mind, and destroys all inharmonious conditions through the understanding that this Mind is the infinite cause, and that all effect must be the effect of this one Mind, and must necessarily be of the same nature and quality as its cause, that is, spiritual and perfect. It also teaches that matter or evil is but the false sense of this effect, and has neither cause nor reality; that it is the suppositional activity of the carnal mind, and must be corrected through the understanding of the one Mind. Christian Science is, therefore, the understanding of that one Mind or Spirit, God, and that understanding, being causative, operates to destroy a false supposititious mental condition called life in matter or evil. If Christian Scientists are antichristian for believing in the reality of spiritual things and the falsity of material existence, then they are in good company, for this is certainly the teaching of Jesus Christ when he plainly and unequivocally declared, "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing."

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