Article October 6, 1928 Issue

Your editorial in a recent issue entitled "Fancy Religions"...

Mrs. Annie I. Rembert, Committee on Publication for the State of South Carolina,

Columbia Record

Your editorial in a recent issue entitled "Fancy Religions" has come to my attention. You have enumerated in a facetious manner the new religions, clubs, sects, and "near churches"—as you designate them—and you have so mixed the chaff with the wheat that your readers might well be misled. It is because of the confusion which will certainly ensue from your wholesale listing of what you consider the unorthodox, that I make the following statement. The Christian Science religion, a movement which because of its fruits has spread rapidly over the globe, is not in any way to be confounded with the "Parent Church of the New Generation." You were kind enough to indicate that there was a difference, but your statement of this fact was made in such a flippant manner that it failed to be convincing. The Christian Science Mother Church and its branches have the respect, if not always the indorsement, of the theologians and religionists of differing faiths throughout the world. In the Church Manual by Mary Baker Eddy, we find on page 48 a definite rule by which all members are governed. It reads as follows: "A member of this Church shall not publish, nor cause to be published, an article that is uncharitable or impertinent towards religion, medicine, the courts, or the laws of our land." It would be well if this courtesy could always be mutual.

The Master assured his followers that the church he came to establish would have God-given power to resist and overcome hell itself. It is interesting to note in this connection the scope of the definition of "hell" as found in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy (p. 588): "Hell. Mortal belief; error; lust; remorse; hatred; revenge; sin; sickness; death; suffering and self-destruction; self-imposed agony; effects of sin; that which 'worketh abomination or maketh a lie.'" Jesus' parting instructions to his followers, who were appointed to carry on the work of salvation which he had so gloriously performed, and to all those who should believe on his name, are found in the sixteenth chapter of Mark. "Go ye into all the world," he said, "and preach the gospel to every creature. ... And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." In other words, the followers of Jesus throughout all time were to prove that "the gates of hell" could not prevail against the Word of God.

It was the great desire of Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, that this power, which was demanded by Jesus as a proof of discipleship and which was effectively demonstrated for upwards of three hundred years after Jesus' ascension, should be restored to the world. After years of faithful study of the Scriptures and earnest prayer for light, she established The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts, and mapped out in detail all the activities of the Christian Science movement. Of this church she writes (Church Manual, p. 19) that it was "designed to be built on the Rock, Christ; even the understanding and demonstration of divine Truth, Life, and Love, healing and saving the world from sin and death; thus to reflect in some degree the Church Universal and Triumphant."

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