Article February 28, 1925 Issue

Christian Science, being based on the Bible, does teach...

Edgar McLeod, Committee on Publication for Northern California,—San Francisco

Emanu-El

Christian Science, being based on the Bible, does teach faith in God, as do all the great Biblical Jewish leaders and prophets, including Moses, who led the children of Israel through the Red Sea; Daniel, who stood calmly among the lions, implicitly trusting the God of his fathers for deliverance; and David amid the perils and intrigues of camp and court, courageously declaring, "My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth." But Christian Science has no connection whatever with so-called faith healing. Certainly, then, it has no connection with the various types of faith healing so intangible, vague, and speculative as those indicated by the critic, who admits faith in human will, as exemplified in the patient who says, "I will not die, but I will live;" faith in "the wonderful influence upon their patients exercised by the personality of the physician;" faith in the surgeon, in sunny temperaments; faith in the possible efficacy of sea voyages to mend broken bones, and who finally approves the philosophy of the Archbishop of York, "when he adjured medical men not to rely merely upon drugs . . ." but "to recollect the potentiality of cure within the patient himself—natural to him, or what can be educated in him—of faith, what I have ventured to term the Sun-cure of the soul."

It is not my purpose to belittle faith; but as the gentleman has implied that the healing accomplished by Christian Science is secured through some such form of faith as those referred to, I must emphasize that Christian Science teaches plainly that any faith which relies not wholly on God cannot be acceptable to Him, who out of Sinai's thunder commanded, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." Further, it seems highly improbable that a cosmopolitan people like the Jews, surrounded throughout the ages with all forms of religious beliefs, and who have not been "carried about with every wind of doctrine," but have continued to revere the God of Abraham, would forsake the religion of their fathers for a system so vague and unpromising as that which is described by the critic, and which he apparently intends shall be regarded as synonymous with Christian Science.

He states that "the doctrines of Mrs. Eddy, as adopted by Christian Scientists, are a snare and a sham; because they teach that all that is necessary for curing anything that may be physically awry, from a corn to a cancer, is implicit faith without the help of any material remedy." Assuming that his use of the phrase "implicit faith" is not intended to mean implicit faith in Him who saith to the sea, "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further," this last statement makes it clear that the gentleman is unfamiliar with the works of Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, or at least has failed to grasp in the slightest degree their import and teachings, else he could not have overlooked the following statement by Mrs. Eddy on page 1 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures": "The prayer that reforms the sinner and heals the sick is an absolute faith that all things are possible to God,—a spiritual understanding of Him, an unselfed love." Finally, Christian Science is not a system of faith healing, but a religion based on the Bible; and the theology of this religion heals the sick and reforms the sinner.

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February 28, 1925
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