Article August 19, 1916 Issue

A doctor endeavored, as reported, to belittle Christian Science...

B. W. Oppenheim—Boise, Idaho

Idaho Statesman

A doctor endeavored, as reported, to belittle Christian Science by picturing it after fifty years from its discovery as a melancholy failure, "waiting, hoping for the dismal, hopeless afterwhile." The doctor's apparent mental picture of a personal God granting special dispensations to favored individuals, is so at variance with the concept of God as taught in Christian Science, that it but illustrates how difficult it is for the indoctrinated devotee of one school fairly to judge another denomination, except by its fruits.

Christian Scientists, being in the world, have not attained the perfection of the ideal man, but they gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the perfect Science which Christ Jesus taught and proved in aiding them to overcome the problems of the world which it is their lot to meet; in other words, to solve the individual yet universal problem of salvation. In this hopeful struggle they are encouraged by the faith and sure knowledge taught in Christian Science, with the injunction to make it practical, not only that all things are possible to God, but that all men may here and now directly and individually benefit from the goodness of the ever-present divinity to whom each bears the relation of a child. If Christian Scientists await with patience the manifestation of greater works as the result of their increasing apprehension of God's nearness and power, it is no disparagement of their present attainments. Any picture of a dismal afterwhile for Christian Science is not drawn with a just appreciation of its rise and development.

It takes time for men educated by centuries of false theory and practice to turn from the contemplation of what they have regarded as real in sin, sickness, and catastrophe, to an understanding of the fundamental truth of immortality,—that only the good, the godlike, is real. But this process of transformation is not an argument for the reality of evil, as the doctor seems to imply, nor does it establish any inconsistency in Christian Science practice. Christian Science differs from some other religious beliefs in that, instead of admitting the application of the truths underlying immortality only in some future state, it acknowledges the necessity and practicability of their present application. Hence its insistence on meeting present human need by healing sickness as well as overcoming sin.

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