Article August 2, 1919 Issue

Christian Science insists upon the absolute necessity of...

Aaron E. Brandt

Corry (Pa.) Journal

Christian Science insists upon the absolute necessity of overcoming and destroying sinful habits and sinful desires in order to escape from their terrible consequences. Hence, when a clergyman, evidently referring to Christian Science, protests, as reported, against reducing "the sins of men to a mere hallucination of the mortal mind," and implies that Christian Science "gets people to think lightly of sin," and supposes that Christian Science causes people to become more sinful and careless in regard to sin and its consequences, he is making a great mistake; for the very contrary is the fact.

The success of Christian Science lies in this, that it enables people to overcome sin and its consequences in themselves and in others, who had not been able to do so by any other teaching. It is its efficacy in this respect that calls forth the praise of so many thousands to God for the freedom obtained through its spiritual teaching, and the many expressions of gratitude to its Discoverer and Founder, Mrs. Eddy. It is this very success that causes its growth, and brings forth the criticisms of those who misapprehend its teaching; for no one, it may be assumed, having the interests of mankind at heart, would knowingly withhold from them the knowledge of any practical measure of salvation from sin and its direful consequences as manifested in sickness and disease.

The clergyman's view of the necessity of the "conviction of sin as an accompaniment of every real work of grace" is not necessarily inconsistent with the teachings of Christian Science. It is evident that mortals must first recognize their own faults as errors in order to overcome them, and no teaching points out such faults more clearly than Christian Science. "Remember," writes Mrs. Eddy in Science and Health (p. 240), "that mankind must sooner or later, either by suffering or by Science, be convinced of the error that is to be overcome." As to the protest against "reducing sin to a mere hallucination of the mortal mind," permit me to say that there is only occasion for gratitude in the fact that sin is being reduced by Christian Science both in terms and in fact from its supposed position as an overmastering reality and a God-created entity. To what should that be reduced which the only creator did not create and hence has no more reality than ignorance gives it? Christian Scientists glory in the apostle's declaration that "all things were made by him [the Word]; and without him was not any thing made that was made," and that among the things made was not included an element of evil.

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