Article December 3, 1927 Issue

Your comments in a recent issue of your paper upon an...

Edgar McLeod, Committee on Publication for Northern California,—Oakland

Eastlake Spokesman

Your comments in a recent issue of your paper upon an article in the November Forum include some words of praise for Christian Science, for which I wish to thank you. However, some of your statements might possibly create a misapprehension regarding the article and with respect to Christian Science. You state, in substance, that Christian Science frequently quotes a part of a saying of Jesus while ignoring the other part of it, and that it claims the promise of Jesus without fulfilling the conditions he imposes. I believe that a fair reading of the article will show that the writer of it not only quoted the Saviour's promise, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free," with an intelligent appreciation of the conditions of its fulfillment, but that he also emphasized throughout his entire statement of the subject the fact that abiding in the Master's word (striving to live in accordance with his teachings) is a prerequisite to understanding—and by understanding is meant the ability to demonstrate the truth which Christ Jesus promised would make men free. That the Master's promise is fulfilled in one's experience only as one conforms to his teachings and example is made especially clear in the closing paragraph of the article, in the following passage: "Christian Science, therefore, is a way of living that finds its chief inspiration, its perfect illustration, and its complete proof in the life of Christ Jesus. It reveals, awakens, and develops the divine possibilities that exist, latently, in everyone. It teaches how to throw off the inabilities, the disabilities, and the liabilities that have been imposed on men by ages of erroneous thinking, and how to gain true manhood." Incidentally, I believe it will be admitted that Christian Scientists are striving as earnestly as are other religious groups to abide in the Master's word; that is, they are endeavoring to obey and demonstrate his teachings and commands, including some of his injunctions which are usually overlooked, or possibly considered impracticable, by some of our modern Christian religions.

Christian Science does not rest its theology on an interpretation of Genesis alone. Its first tenet, on page 497 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, reads, "As adherents of Truth, we take the inspired Word of the Bible as our sufficient guide to eternal Life." Among the eighteen chapters contained in Science and Health, the textbook of Christian Science, there is a chapter entitled "Genesis," which deals with the account of the spiritual creation related in the first chapter and the first five verses of the second chapter of Genesis, and which also deals with the allegorical account of a material creation, beginning with verse six of the second chapter of Genesis. Which of these accounts was written first does not seem important, but it would appear to be of prime importance to determine which account shall be accepted as the true record of creation. Christian Science does not attribute to God the creation of a "man, whose breath is in his nostrils," possessed of and surrounded by all the potentialities of tragedy and disaster. On the contrary, Christian Science accepts the spiritual creation, accepts the declaration that "God created man in his own image" and beheld the glory and majesty of "every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good."

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