Our attention has just been directed to a letter which appeared...

Press

Our attention has just been directed to a letter which appeared in a recent issue of the Press; and we should be much obliged if you would grant us space for a correction. Your correspondent, "Kilbirnie," entitles his letter "Christian Science Criticized." His methods of criticism are abnormal: he first misstates the teachings of Christian Science, and then he condemns his own travesty. He states that Christian Science ignores the fact of sin and its penalty; yet Christian Science has probably, in a given time, reformed more sinners than any other system. He accuses Christian Science of getting people lost in the quagmire of mysticism; but Christian Science has no connection with mysticism, and has enabled multitudes to understand the Bible as they never could before. Again, your correspondent quotes the Scripture, "God is love," but objects to Christian Scientists saying that "Love is God," implying that they believe human, sensuous, so-called love to be God. This, of course, is absurd, and is as much a criticism of the Scripture quoted as of Christian Science; for the same sense of Love is used in each case.

Nowhere in Christian Science is it taught that "goodness is God," as asserted by your correspondent, though, in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," the textbook of the subject, Mrs. Eddy writes (p. 286), "In the Saxon and twenty other tongues good is the term for God." Nowhere does Christian Science teach that "knowledge is God," or that "Good is a Principle." The term "Principle" is used as a synonym for God, meaning the source and origin, the fundamental truth of Being, the I AM. Every so-called science claims the right to use certain words in a particular sense, and even its critics must keep to the meanings used in the science. If your correspondent had carefully read the lecture on Christian Science, so accurately printed in the Press, he would not have been guilty of such misrepresentations or have styled Christian Science "vain imagination."

Enjoy 1 free Sentinel article or audio program each month, including content from 1898 to today.

September 25, 1926
Contents

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit