Article December 26, 1914 Issue

Kindly grant me the courtesy of sufficient space for the...

Avery Coonley—Chicago, Ill.

The Sentinel

Kindly grant me the courtesy of sufficient space for the correction of some inaccuracies of statement with regard to Christian Science which appeared recently in The Sentinel in an article entitled "The Jew and Christian Science," reprinted from the Jewish Chronicle.

In the opening paragraph the writer refers to the Christian Science text-book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy, as "a new Bible." It is not a Bible, and is never so described by Christian Scientists. No Lesson-Sermon is ever given in a Christian Science church which does not embody liberal reading from the same Authorized Version of the Bible that is used by other denominations. In endeavoring to refute the Christian Science view of matter, our critic does not make much progress. Christian Scientists understand the belief in matter to be a mistake, an entire misconception of reality. The critic's admission that "what things are in themselves, our sensational perceptions can never inform us," backed up by the findings of the most advanced physicists, who now analyze matter into centers of force, does not leave him a very firm foundation upon which to base an argument. Since force is not matter, the physicists themselves have explained it by explaining it away. If this is all the stability which can be assigned to matter, there is little basis for proving the actuality of disease.

In describing Christian Science as a "pantheistic creed," the writer of the article in question entirely mistakes the basis of Christian Science, which denies the existence of the universe as matter, recognizing the material conception of it to be erroneous and the true universe to be in fact spiritual,—the reflection of God. Since the Christian Science religion and the practical demonstration thereof in the healing of sin and sickness are based upon the omnipresence, omnipotence, and actuality of God as Spirit, it not only is clearly not pantheistic, but is the very antipode of pantheism. Where the writer gets the impression that Mrs. Eddy or Christian Scientists "denounce medical science as a huge fraud" I cannot imagine. They have found that God more effectually heals their diseases than does the physician, and therefore quite naturally they prefer to rely upon God in case of sickness; but they do not denounce either the physician or his work.

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