Article April 21, 1917 Issue

Christian Science is evidently referred to when in an interesting...

Avery Coonley

Rockford (Ill.) Morning Star

Christian Science is evidently referred to when in an interesting article the writer says: "Churches sometimes go into the healing business. They think it is Christlike." Christian Scientists make Christian healing a definite part of the business of their church and of its members, and do so because they think it is Christlike. Their reason for so thinking is furnished in part by Jesus' innumerable healing works and partly by his many commands to his followers to heal the sick, coupled with such declarations as, "These sings shall follow them that believe; ... they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover."

It is true that for nearly fifteen hundred years healing has not been a regular accompaniment of the exercise of the Christian religion; nevertheless, Christian Scientists conceive it to be both the duty and the privilege of Christians to take advantage of this healing method, and in practice they have found it more effective, as well as more uplifting and sustaining, than any other. In addition they regard this healing as important concrete evidence that they are thinking and living their Christianity.

Christian Scientists fully agree with the writer of the article in such vigorous statements as, "Everywhere the positiveness of goodness is underemphasized or ignored;" and, "Bad legislation, bad customs, bad prejudices, all go back to bad thinking." But they cannot agree that "the first principle of life is to be a good animal, the second to be a good thinker," nor with the writer's conclusions that Christianity should place hygiene above healing. There is little doubt that Jesus' understanding of the truth of being and that of those who followed his example was the greatest preventive of sickness of those times, just as it was the greatest means of cure; but the Bible record does not warrant the conclusion that "a church that will inculcate hygienic principles" so that they will be placed above cures by "faith" will prove to be "the church for the times."

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