Article October 5, 1929 Issue

Doctrinal controversy will not be found as any part of...

Ralph G. Lindstrom, Committee on Publication for the—State of Colorado,

Lafayette Leader

Doctrinal controversy will not be found as any part of the Christian ministry taught by Jesus to his disciples. He sent his disciples forth to preach the gospel or good news of salvation to the poor, to heal the sick, to cleanse the lepers (both physical and moral lepers), and to regenerate mankind. His criticisms were directed wholly against those whose doctrinal reliance took the place of Christian living. His test was, "By their fruits ye shall know them."

Therefore, in regard to those who, in your community, are circulating pamphlets critical of other religions, including Christian Science, one can but wonder how it is expected that the kingdom of God and the reign of His Christ in the affairs of men shall be furthered by such practice.

In so far as these pamphlets presume to criticize Christian Science, all the difficulties of the critic authors are based on their own misconception of the teaching of Christian Science and a confusion of the real, spiritual man of God's creating with the mortal, carnal, sick, sinning, dying counterfeit, to be laid aside through salvation or regeneration, for the real. If one took the Bible and treated it in this way, it would appear full of contradictions, but the Bible as a whole is not contradictory. It deals consistently with the real man, on the one hand, and with the carnal, unreal counterfeit, on the other. This is also true of the teachings of Christian Science. The material, physical, carnal man is referred to by Isaiah When he says, "Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?" and by Paul, when he writes: "They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God." An illustration of the contrasting of the physical, carnal man with the spiritual is given by Paul when he says, "To be carnally minded is death: but to be spiritually minded is life and peace;" and by John when in the first chapter of I John he tells us, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us;" while in the fifth chapter of the same epistle he says, "We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not."

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