Article September 18, 1915 Issue

One of the contentions of a medical doctor in a recent issue...

Judge Clifford P. Smith

New Bedford (Mass.) Standard

One of the contentions of a medical doctor in a recent issue was that a person may become qualified to practise Christian Science by preparing to pass the examination of the state board of registration in medicine, and that the practice of Christian Science should therefore be confined to those who have passed such an examination. As a matter of fact, however, the preparation required for such an examination never qualified any one to practise Christian Science, and it is not intended to do so.

The practice of Christian Science is a ministry in which proficiency depends upon moral character and spiritual understanding. Moral character is of course desirable in a physician, and so is spiritual understanding, but if a physician should gain the understanding of spiritual being and power in a sufficient degree for the practice of Christian Science, he would naturally and inevitably change his practice from a material to a spiritual basis. There are a considerable number of persons who formerly practised medicine, but who now practise Christian Science. No one who comprehends both of these systems, however, will attempt to combine them while one continues to be fundamentally material and the other essentially spiritual.

Your correspondent also tried to establish a connection between Christianity, or Christian Science, and medicine, by saying, "One of Christ's disciples was a physician, and we have no record of his finding fault with this one's profession." There are two difficulties with this argument. In the first place, we have no record that Luke ever came in contact with Jesus. Luke was probably a resident of Antioch, in Syria, who became interested in Christianity through the missionary work of Paul. However this may be, the first few verses of the gospel according to Luke show that he was not an eyewitness of the events which he recorded. In the second place, there is no reason for believing that Luke continued to practise medicine after adopting Christianity. Professor Harnack, the famour theologian, who wrote a book entitled "Luke the Physician," concluded that Luke enbraced the Christian religion for the very reason that "by its means, and by quite new methods, he would be able to heal disease and drive out evil spirits." Luke was the first physician to change his practice to a distinctly Christian basis.

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