Article July 10, 1915 Issue

The sermon dealing with Christian Science, published in...

Mrs. Elizabeth T. Bell

The Charleston (S. C.) Review

The sermon dealing with Christian Science, published in a recent issue, is filled with erroneous statements about the teaching and practice of this religion. The entire structure of Christian Science is built on the knowledge of God, revealed in the Bible as omnipresent Spirit. God is infinite; therefore He cannot be limited to a locality. Christian Science does not teach that He is "in the soil, the chair, the table." The belief that Spirit is in matter, or is associated with it, is pantheism ; and this belief of a dual existence is the basis of all false religious teaching and all suffering. As spiritual things must be "spiritually discerned," it is only as thought is purified of the belief in duality that clear thinking along religious lines can be accomplished.

In the spiritual creation, as recorded in the first chapter of Genesis, there is no sin or suffering; these falsities are the logical result of the belief in a material existence, starting with Adam. The man made in God's image and likeness must of necessity be spiritual and perfect, hence the standpoint of Christian Science, — "perfect God and perfect man" (Science and Health, p. 259). Christian Science proceeds from this standpoint as Jesus did, — "I and my Father are one;" and through this conscious unity it destroys whatever is imperfect or unlike God, — breaking down "the middle wall of partition," the belief in fleshly reality. "Heaven is not a locality, but a divine state of Mind in which all the manifestations of Mind are harmonious and immortal, because sin is not there and man is found having no righteousness of his own, but in possession of 'the mind of the Lord,' as the Scripture says" (Science and Health, p. 291).

Human will, or "the carnal mind," being "enmity against God," Christian Science teaches the necessity for complete self-surrender, that God's infinite good will may be revealed in us. The text-book of Christian Science, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," interprets the Bible from a purely spiritual view-point. The accusation that it "sticks to the letter," is directly contrary to the fact. That which will "pass away" is the false concept of God and His creation ; of a sinning, suffering, dying world, giving place to a realization through spiritual enlightenment of God's perfect world, with which He was satisfied.

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