Article April 10, 1926 Issue

In attacking the teachings of Christian Science, an evengelist...

Miss Emily J. Jones, Committee on Publication for the State of North Carolina,

Charlotte Observer

In attacking the teachings of Christian Science, an evengelist in a meeting at the Presbyterian Church in your city, a few weeks ago, as reported in the Observer, made some very incorrect statements, which I wish to correct. It is a matter of general observation and comment that the faces of Christian Scientists are unusually happy and bright. This would not be true if Christian Science were "the cruelest system that ever cursed the earth," as stated. The majority of Christian Scientists are those who have been healed by Christian Science of all kinds of diseases, sin, and sorrow, when medical, surgical, and other methods had failed; so they have great cause for their shining countenances, and even more so because they have found a knowledge of God, who is infinite Love, an ever present help and source of joy. Is not this Christian?

If the ills from which Christian Science heals were imaginary to the material senses, then the medical systems are guilty of gross ignorance or misdiagnosis from their own standpoint. Besides, if any one of these material systems—and their name is legion—had been found adequate to meet the needs of humanity, that one would have no rival. Why then ridicule and condemn those who prefer the wholly Christly method of healing? Christian Scientists recognize the right of every individual to choose the method he prefers; our Constitution is a safeguard against all religious intolerance and bigotry. The parent who seeks the aid of God in Christian Science for her child has the moral and usually the legal right to do so; and it may be she does so because she has learned from experience that God is her best friend and helper. This minister says, "Thousands upon thousands of people are better physically because of Christian Science." Is not this a good reason why a parent should rely on Christian Science for the welfare of her children?

Christian Science teaches that Christ is the Son of God, therefore divine; that Jesus was the Son of man, as he himself said, that is, the son of the Virgin Mary; hence the ability of Christ Jesus to meet the needs of the world. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," the Christian Science textbook (p. 497), Mrs. Eddy gives as the third tenet of the Christian Science church: "We acknowledge God's forgiveness of sin in the destruction of sin and the spiritual understanding that casts out evil as unreal. But the belief in sin is punished so long as the belief lasts." In "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany"(p. 118) Mrs. Eddy writes: "The doctrine of Buddha, which rests on a heathen basis for its Nirvana, represents not the divinity of Christian Science, in which Truth, or Christ, finds its paradise in Spirit, in the consciousness of heaven within us—health, harmony, holiness, entirely apart from limitations, which would dwarf individuality in personality and couple evil with good."

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