Article January 30, 1926 Issue

Being a grateful people, Christian Scientists were naturally...

Charles E. Heitman, Committee on Publication for the State of New York,—Niagara Falls

Gazette

Being a grateful people, Christian Scientists were naturally pleased to learn through a news item in your recent issue that a minister of the Lutheran Synod had stated in a report to his associates that the Christian Science religion was not wholly without merit. By way of kindly comment, however, it must be said that some of the criticisms advanced against this religion in his report would have come with a greater measure of grace had our friend been an avowed materialist rather than a minister of the Christian religion. As an example, he condemns Christian Science for denying the reality of the material creation, and yet the Founder of the Christian religion did precisely this thing when he said, "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing." The Apostle Paul's teaching on this subject is also especially clear. While John admonishes us in the second chapter of his first epistle to "love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. ... For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes ... is not of the Father;" and he then adds that both the world and the lust thereof pass away. In view of the foregoing statements it must be conceded that Mrs. Eddy's teachings in respect of things material rest squarely upon spiritual authority, and the same can be said of her teachings relative to the nature and character of God and His Christ.

The principal difficulty with critics such as our friend is that they fail to understand the meaning of the word "real" as used in Christian Science. In accordance with one of the dictionary definitions this word is used to denote "that which takes on the nature of fact, actual being, something existing intrinsically or inherently as distinguished from the seeming or apparent." Consistent with this meaning of the word, Christian Science maintains that Spirit and spiritual ideas alone constitute the facts or reality of being, while matter with its concomitants, sin, sickness, and death, are classified as unreal manifestations subject to change and destruction. It was exactly this distinction between the real and the unreal, the spiritual and the material, to which Jesus referred when he said, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit."

It is regrettable that our Lutheran friends seem indifferent to the fact that for more than half a century the world has had opportunity to measure the value of Christian Science by the results attained through its practical application to human affairs. Unfortunately, however, the critics of the Christian Science religion will never understand its success until they are willing to set aside religious prejudice and impartially consider the subject from the standpoing of demonstrated facts. They will then find that the unusual growth of this religious movement is directly traceable to the humble and consecrated manner in which its adherents are proving to all mankind that the healing ministry taught and practiced by the Master is just as available to meet the needs of men to-day as it was two thousand years ago.

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