Article October 3, 1931 Issue

Church Dedication

FREDA COHEN

THE dedication of the church edifice of any Church of Christ, Scientist, is a cause for great rejoicing, not only in a specific locality, but throughout the entire Field. To the Christian Scientist, dedication means more than the cancellation of a financial debt; to him it represents the externalization of the consecrated and spiritualized thought of the membership of a church. It is the outward manifestation of an inward grace.

In one of our large cities the work of church dedication has received new impetus. A combined effort is being made by the various branch churches of that community to work unitedly toward the lifting of the burden of bondage to debt. Realizing that only the bonds of love and unity have legitimate claims on men, these loyal servants in our Father's vineyard are striving, with renewed energy and courage, to release themselves and their sister churches from the illegitimate bondage of financial fetters.

This process is purely metaphysical. Were it viewed from a merely human standpoint, as, for instance, the discharging of a monetary debt in order to free a material structure from a bond, — encumbrance, — the deeper signification of dedication would be lost and the entire procedure would be merely a human activity, not necessarily a scientific demonstration. The work of true dedication, however, is recognized as being essentially spiritual, and when correctly understood and demonstrated it becomes manifest, in accordance with God's unfailing law, in free and unencumbered church edifices.

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