Article May 7, 1927 Issue

In a recent issue of your paper you quoted a paragraph...

Florence B. Russell, Committee on Publication for Hampshire, England,

Bournemouth Daily Echo

In a recent issue of your paper you quoted a paragraph from St. Stephen's Parish Magazine for January, and as it contains statements relative to the teachings of Christian Science which are distinctly contrary to those teachings, I will ask you to allow me space to correct them. The paragraph in question is as follows: "We overlooked the fact of sacramental means of healing to reinforce the skill of the doctors. So 'Christian Science' came to warn us to return to the true healing of the Christ. Believers in 'Christian Science' profit much by their faith in the power of faith but they are not scientific, for they deny a clear fact, the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ."

To say that "believers in Christian Science profit much by their faith in the power of faith" is to fall far short of the understanding of the power which heals, for it does not reach to God, who is the healer. Mere blind belief never heals a sick person, though it may change a belief of sickness into a better belief; but true faith, which is the understanding of the power, presence, and love of God, will change the wrong thinking which has brought about the wrong conditions, and so heal the sick. Did not Christ Jesus say, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free," and also, "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent"?

The paragraph goes on to state as a fact that Christian Science denies "the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ." But this statement, and what is implied by it, is entirely without the authority of the textbook of Christian Science, where all its teachings are clearly given. Christian Science does not deny the divinity of the Christ, as the bishop says, but clearly teaches it, while making very clear that the term "Christ," and the human name "Jesus," are not synonymous. Jesus of Nazareth was the son of Mary. He expressed the Christ, the Son of God. Paul said, "There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." As typical of the teaching given in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, I will quote from page 26: "This Christ, or divinity of the man Jesus, was his divine nature, the godliness which animated him." And on page 561 of the same book we read, in a chapter on the Apocalypse, "John saw the human and divine coincidence, shown in the man Jesus, as divinity embracing humanity in Life and its demonstration,—reducing to human perception and understanding the Life which is God."

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