The Orthodoxy of Christian Science

Students of Christian Science, often in referring to the church with which they were identified before coming into Science, speak of their former church as being an orthodox church, thereby implying at least, if not admitting, that Christian Science is not orthodox. Perhaps this is one reason why the denominational churches speak of Christian Science as being "a fad, a fallacy, and a cult," and of Christian Scientists as "heretics." Webster defines the word "orthodox" as meaning, "Correct in doctrine; sound in the Christian faith." As we study the doctrine of Christian Science and compare it with the spiritual interpretation of the Scriptures, we feel sure it is more nearly correct in doctrine and sound in the Christian faith than any other system of theology. The writer, having taken a three-year course in theology and having been a student of that subject for more than thirty years, is fully convinced that Christian Science presents not only the most scientific statement of God, man, and the universe, but the most correct statement of Bible doctrine of any Christian church, be it orthodox or heterodox. However, Christian Science is not a doctrinal but a practical religion. After all, it does not matter what others may say of Christian Science or Christian Scientists, as long as they can and do demonstrate the truth about God and man and overcome error and destroy sin, sickness, and all inharmonious conditions, thereby proving by demonstration all they claim for it.

It matters not if those who do not understand Christian Science call them "heretics," when we remember that some of the best men and women of all ages have been so classified. No doubt Abraham was called a heretic when he forsook the land of his nativity and the religion of his fathers and journeyed from Ur to Canaan. Moses was a heretic when he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, "choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season." Ruth was a heretic when she left the land of Moab and the gods of the Moabites and cast her lot with Naomi, saying, "Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God." John the Baptist was a heretic, when, along the banks of the Jordan, he preached with trumpet voice the new doctrine of repentance and baptism for the remission of sin, and announced the immediate coming of the Messiah. Jesus Christ was counted not only a heretic but a blasphemer when he preached the fatherhood of God and the oneness of man with God; and declared himself the Son of God, healing the sick, feeding the hungry, raising the dead, all contrary to the laws and customs of his own people. According to their law and custom he broke the Sabbath by his acts of mercy and healing. They denied his Messiahship, persecuted him, refused to accept him, and upon the charge of blasphemy they put him to death. In later times Martin Luther, Wesley, Whitefield, Otterbein, and many others were considered heretics when they began preaching the doctrine of personal salvation, the new birth, and the spiritual life.

Among all who have been called upon to suffer and be persecuted in recent years, because they discovered and preached some new-old truth, none, perhaps, has been regarded as so great a heretic as Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, a noble woman, who was good enough and spiritually minded enough to discover this wonderful truth for the healing of the people and restore to Christianity the lost art of healing. On page 330 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," she says, "Until the author of this book learned the vastness of Christian Science, the fixedness of mortal illusions, and the human hatred of Truth, she cherished sanguine hopes that Christian Science would meet with immediate and universal acceptance." Again, on page 131 of the same volume, she asks the question, "Must Christian Science come through the Christian churches as some persons insist?" and she continues, "This Science has come already, after the manner of God's appointing, but the churches seem not ready to receive it, according to the Scriptural saying, "He came unto his own, and his own received him not.' " What must have been her surprise when she offered the Christian world her discovery of the truth about God and man and the power which she knew, by her own healing, would heal the world's hurt, to have it all rejected, while she was branded as a heretic and persecuted, and the truth of her discovery was misstated, misinterpreted, ridiculed.