Article November 3, 1917 Issue

A correspondent in intimating that Christian Scientists, in...

Carl E. Herring

Omaha (Neb.) World-Herald

A correspondent in intimating that Christian Scientists, in common with every one else, use only such portions of the Bible as "suit their requirements," has touched upon the thing that through the ages has made religion dogmatic instead of spiritual. Christian Science endeavors to harmonize the Scriptures from the viewpoint of an entirety, and not by the isolated text system. Of course this fact can be made apparent only by a systematic study of Christian Science, and the matter cannot be judged of from a necessarily brief newspaper item. This unification of the Scriptures is brought about by constantly looking for the spiritual meaning of the Bible, and however contradictory the letter of the word may seem, it will be found that there is no conflict when the spiritual meaning is ascertained.

To illustrate: In the first chapter of Genesis we find that God created man in His own image, while in the second chapter we are told that man was formed from the dust of the ground. No one can read the two accounts of creation as given in the first two chapters of Genesis and find anything but contradiction under a literal interpretation; but Mrs. Eddy in the chapter on Genesis in Science and Health completely satisfies our critic's complaint, not by dogmatically presenting the issue in any narrow sense, but by illuminating the Scriptural meaning under each proposition set forth in the Biblical account of creation.

As our friend is undoubtedly a Bible student, may we not offer two propositions for serious consideration,—first, that all distinctive religious denominations, aside from Christian Science, found their right to separate existence upon one or very few isolated passages of Scripture; and second, that the creeds of the churches are frequently deductions made by theologians which bear no relation to the texts from which such deductions are supposed to be made. We so fully concur in the basic idea as set forth by our correspondent,—that the Bible needs to be studied from every dimension,—that we wish to leave no doubt of the fact that Christian Science is a sincere effort to do this very thing.

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