Article June 26, 1920 Issue

The Sentinel in a recent issue contains a synopsis of a...

John M. Dean

The Knoxville (Tenn.) Sentinel

The Sentinel in a recent issue contains a synopsis of a sermon by a minister who evidently has a misconception of Christian Science.

Christian Scientists yield to no body of believers in their love for and faith in the Bible. When speaking of her great discovery Mrs. Eddy says (Science and Health, p. 110), "In following the leadings of scientific revelation, the Bible was my only textbook." In giving this discovery to the world, she therefore merely set forth the conclusions which she gained through her study and demonstration of the deep spiritual meaning of Scripture, and this was done through the medium of her book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." That this work is indeed a key to the Scriptures is proved by the experience of unnumbered Christians to whom the Bible was formerly a sealed book. To these people the Bible is now a vital, living force, and not merely a musty chronicle of a dead past. They incorporate it into their lives and daily demonstrate its teachings in the degree of their understanding.

Nowhere does Mrs. Eddy deny the relative existence of sin as a mortal belief, but she does consistently denounce it as unreal from the standpoint of the absolute. In Genesis we are told that God's work was "finished" and that He pronounced it "very good." Could a finished work which was very good degenerate into that which is classified as very bad? Evil, like darkness and ignorance, is negative in its nature. Just as light dispels darkness, and education destroys ignorance, so a right understanding of God completely eradicates sin and its resultant discords. In neither case does the negative condition assume some other form or go to some other place. It simply disappears and is thus proved to be a nonentity. Sin is terribly real to the sinner because sin and the sinner are on the same plane, but in proportion as the sinner rises above sin does he see its illusory nature and prove its powerlessness and nothingness.

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