Article May 8, 1926 Issue

Your correspondent repeats his assertion that Christian Science...

Charles M. Shaw, Committee on Publication for Lancashire, England,—Southport

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Your correspondent repeats his assertion that Christian Science is a negation of the gospel revelation, and adduces a further reason. He declares that according to Christian Science, peace is a "reward for keeping one's end up with an incessant intellectual battle against a metaphysical maelstrom." No doubt this is a fine piece of rhetoric, but in reality there is nothing in it, that is, of truth. Neither the sentence he quotes, nor its context, nor anything in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, affords the slightest support for such a statement. There is no more "intellectual battle" in the requirements of Christian Science than in the Master's "If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free," or in Paul's "To be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." It will perhaps be news to our critic to learn that the Christian Science doctrine of salvation is based upon the divine sonship of man. "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." This perfect, unchangeable creation is the supreme act of grace on which the faith, understanding, and effort of Christian Scientists are based. So that Christian Scientists believe that salvation is of grace, not by means of an "intellectual battle."

Our critic's quibble about "barriers" is the contention of his first letter, that Christian Scientists use bricks and stones to build churches, yet do not believe in the existence of bricks and stones, dressed up in another guise. We do recognize the barriers of time and of many other things in the realm of mortal experience, but these cannot possess real substance if God, Spirit, is omnipotent and omnipresent, and if His grace and power are available for man's use, as the Scriptures teach. The answer to the question, "If Christian Science claims are true, why do they so often fail in their healing powers?" is one that must be given with regret, since Christian Science, strictly regarded, being the exact knowledge of God and of divine things as revealed by Christ Jesus, never fails; but its application by Christian Scientists does come short of the required standard. At the same time, the great extent to which Christian Science does actually heal the sins and diseases of men is evidenced by the increasing number of those who turn to it for help.

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