Article January 9, 1926 Issue

In your recent issue appeared a report of a sermon by an...

Arthur P. DeCamp, Committee on Publication for the State of Missouri,—Poplar Bluffs

Interstate American

In your recent issue appeared a report of a sermon by an evangelist in which there were some references to Christian Science and to its Discoverer and Founder, Mary Baker Eddy, which need correction. Any thorough student of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" written by Mrs. Eddy, knows that she does not "explain away sin," as was alleged in the sermon referred to. The primary teaching of Christian Science is to help mortals to overcome sin. The healing of sickness follows the healing of sin as a natural sequence. The Christian Science doctrine of God's allness, or the infinity of good, is in accordance with the Scriptures, as witness Isaiah: "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else." And Habakkuk testifies, "Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity." Nothing, then, is entitled to be known as real or true except that which is known to the infinite divine consciousness. All that is unlike God, including all sin, must therefore be eliminated from human consciousness on the basis of its unreality. If sin or evil were real to God, humanity could never overcome them. On page 339 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy writes: "Since God is All, there is no room for His unlikeness. God, Spirit, alone created all, and called it good. Therefore evil, being contrary to good, is unreal, and cannot be the product of God. A sinner can receive no encouragement from the fact that Science demonstrates the unreality of evil, for the sinner would make a reality of sin,—would make that real which is unreal, and thus heap up 'wrath against the day of wrath.' He is joining in a conspiracy against himself,—against his own awakening to the awful unreality by which he has been deceived. Only those who repent of sin and forsake the unreal, can fully understand the unreality of evil."

The speaker has much to say about hell. The following quotations from the Christian Science textbook on that subject will be of interest to your readers: "Sin makes its own hell, and goodness its own heaven;" ... "To envy's own hell, justice consigns the lie which, to advance itself, breaks God's commandments" (pp. 196, 542).

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