Article December 19, 1914 Issue

Under recent date there was published an account of a...

W. D. Kilpatrick—Howell, Mich.

Livingston Tidings

Under recent date there was published an account of a sermon delivered in your city, in which Christian Science is attacked. For fifty years it has been subject to assault of this character, and during that time this great movement for good has shown a growth in every direction unparalleled by anything yet witnessed in the religious world. The first direct reference to Christian Science comes in the statement that this religion, associated in the article with several other doctrines and religious beliefs, cannot stand the test of what is called the "Five R's." We find no allusion in the Bible to the "Five R's," and therefore assume that this is a man-made test which the critic would have us accept as final.

The first of the R's mentioned is, "Ruin by the fall." We suppose reference here is had to the incident in the garden of Eden and to the fall of Adam as outlined in the third chapter of Genesis. Christian Science, in its elucidation of this part of the Scriptures, calls attention to the first chapter of Genesis, in which the creation is portrayed, wherein "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." In the second chapter we find that "there went up a mist from the earth," and a deep sleep fell upon Adam. The first three or four chapters of Genesis, therefore, portray both the true creation and the false concept thereof, the former of God, and the latter a delusion caused by the "mist" and resulting in the Adam-dream, whence comes what modern theology is pleased to call "the fall." "This is explained in Christian Science (supported absolutely by the Bible) to be the false or material sense of creation, which sense Jesus the Christ came to destroy.

The second of the R's is, "Redemption through the blood," referring to the absolute deity of Christ Jesus, and his sacrificial and finished work upon the cross. The only redemption taught in the Bible and enjoined by the prophets and by Jesus and his disciples, is the complete redemption from sin through the renewing of the mind, and the substitution of a comprehensive idea of man as created spiritually and in God's image and likeness, as described in the first chapter of Genesis, in place of a concept of man and the universe created and governed materially. The reference in this test to "his sacrificial and finished work on the cross" rather begs the question, as the Bible shows incontrovertibly that Jesus' work did not end with his experience on Calvary. Even after his resurrection we find him among men, explaining his doctrines and working out his salvation to the end that his career eventuated in complete and triumphant ascension above "the world, the flesh, and the devil."

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