Article January 22, 1916 Issue

The recent attack of a local clergyman on Christian Science...

Judge Clifford P. Smith

Boston (Mass.) Traveler

The recent attack of a local clergyman on Christian Science differed from his others chiefly by reason of the fact that it was delivered to an audience of fellow preachers. This fact, however, did not add anything to its weight. It is vain in any circumstances for a representative of one Christian faith to say that another "rejects all distinctive Christian teachings." The most that this can signify is that his concept of the Christian religion differs from the other. In this instance the reverend gentleman named four particulars: "The personality of God, the Trinity, the salvation from sin, and the sacraments." Christian Science accepts all that Christ Jesus taught on these subjects, and does so in a simple and evident manner. An unbiased person would be far more likely to find a plain correspondence between the four gospels and "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy, than he would between the gospels and the creed subscribed to by our censorious friend.

Take, for instance, the question of salvation from sin. Jesus said to an adulteress, "Go, and sin no more." Mrs. Eddy has consistently said, "The way to escape the misery of sin is to cease sinning" (Science and Health, p. 327). Or take the question whether the Deity is one person or three. Jesus never taught that God consisted of three persons, but expressly approved the statement, "He is one; and there is none other but he" (Mark xii. 28-32, American Revised Version). So Mrs. Eddy said, "God is One,—not one of a series, but one alone and without an equal" (Science and Health, p. 117). It is a clearly proved fact that the creedal doctrine of three persons as Deity dates from the fourth century.

If any one will read "A Century's Change in Religion," a recent book by George Harris, president emeritus of Amherst College and formerly professor in Andover Theological Seminary, he will see that most of the changes noted by this author are in the direction taken by Christian Science. For example, we read on pages 89 and 90 with reference to Jesus: "Theology starts now with the historical, human person, and finds divinity in that which transcends human nature, especially in his moral perfection, in his oneness with God, in his sonship, in his health-power, in his revelation of the character of God. . . . The doctrine of the Trinity is a symbol of the various aspects of God." Also on page 71: "When the conception of the universe as mechanism running in grooves by the agency of second causes, gives place to the conception of the universe as organism throbbing with force and life, nature in all its movements is regarded as having its power and law in God, and the supernatural, if the term is retained, signifies the higher revelations of God in Christ, rather than that which overrides or interrupts the processes of natural law. . . . Health-power, exercised in the restoration of the sick, in the resuscitation of a body apparently dead, is confirmed by manifestations of similar power in our own times, a power we do not understand but cannot deny."

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