Article June 6, 1914 Issue

A recent issue of The Times contained a review of a pamphlet...

L. H. Jones—Louisville, Ky.

The Times

A recent issue of The Times contained a review of a pamphlet by one of our local ministers, attacking Christian Science. This pamphlet exhibits a misconception of Christian Science and its teaching, but, according to your reviewer, it "answers" Christian Science. Now, Christian Science has been thus answered (?) scores, perhaps hundreds, of times by doctors, both of medicine and of divinity, men of as great ability as any of our local talent may reasonably be supposed to possess. The trouble with Christian Science seems to be that it will not stay answered; for about the time it is supposed to be finally and completely answered, some influential member of the "answering" minister's congregation, who probably has also been a perennial source of good fat fees to the family physician, likewise a member of the "answering" minister's flock, whom neither the minister's prayers nor the doctor's medicines have been able to heal, wanders off to Christian Science and gets healed of some distressing malady, and forthwith Christian Science has to be answered all over again!

We are told that in this pamphlet the minister shows that Christian Science is contrary to the teaching of the Bible, and the question immediately arises, Does our good minister know what the teaching of the Bible is? So far, the ministers of the denomination to which he is accredited have succeeded in convincing only a very small fraction of Christian believers and ministers that they really know what the teaching of the Bible is. The rest of the Christian world—everybody but members of his denomination—are overwhelmingly of opinion that the Bible does not teach what this good brother thinks it teaches, and until he can persuade his brethren of the so-called orthodox churches that he knows what the teaching of the Bible is, his opinion that Christian Science is contrary to its teaching is not likely to have much weight, even with them. Indeed, until the various Christian denominations can agree among themselves as to what the Bible teaches, it seems gratuitously absurd for one of them to say that the teaching of another is contrary to the Bible.

No doubt the author of this pamphlet has proven many times, to the entire satisfaction of himself and his congreagation, that the teaching of the Presbyterians, Methodists, etc., is contrary to the teaching of the Bible, but what has it ever amounted to, pray? He simply succeeds in reassuring the Presbyterians, Methodists, etc.,—if reassurance were possible,—that he does not know what the teaching of the Bible is. What, therefore, does his opinion, or his efforts to show that Christian Science is contrary to the Bible or the teaching of Jesus, amount to? If it is evident to the rest of the Christian world that he does not understand the teaching of the Bible, which he has been studying all his life, it is no less evident to the Christian Scientists that he does not understand the teaching of Christian Science, which they as devoutly believe to be the teaching of the Bible. It is even more evident that neither he nor his reviewer understands the most rudimentary teaching of natural or secular science, for it is evident that both of them believe, as devoutly as they believe their creed, that things exist all around them in chunks of matter as they seem to see them! The mental attitude of such people is not of a nature to invite scientific discussion of any kind.

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