Article May 9, 1925 Issue

Referring to the refusal of an injured man to accept...

Aaron E. Brandt, Committee on Publication for the State of Pennsylvania,—Lebanon

Daily News,

Referring to the refusal of an injured man to accept surgical aid, your issue of recent date states, "He still sticks to his Christian Science and faith healing religious tenets." Kindly permit me to say that "faith healing," as believed in by the sect of which the man referred to is reported to be a member, is not the practice of Christian Science. Faith is belief. Christian Science requires an understanding of divine Truth as taught and practiced by Christ Jesus,—teaching which must be spiritually scientific, or it would not be true. The practice of Christian Science is therefore based on spiritual understanding. By such understanding many fractures and other bodily injuries have been healed, and with less than the usual amount of suffering.

The religious teaching of the "faith healing" sect referred to, judged by its literature, does not seem to differ radically from that of the popular churches, much less so, indeed, than it differs from Christian Science. Christian Scientists are not therefore so much concerned at the injured man's attempt to prove his faith as in maintaining the distinction between such faith and the teaching of Christian Science. The importance of this distinction appears in a statement by Mrs. Eddy, author of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," in an article written by her in 1910, as follows: "Christian Science is not a faith-cure, and unless human faith be distinguished from scientific healing, Christian Science will again be lost from the practice of religion as it was soon after the period of our great Master's scientific teaching and practice" (Christian Science Sentinel, Vol. XX, p. 10).

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