Article April 8, 1933 Issue

A speaker in your city, discussing Christian healing,...

Joseph G. Alden, Committee on Publication—for the State of Nebraska,

Republican

A speaker in your city, discussing Christian healing, observed that people are leaving the Protestant churches because these are leaving out the healing element. Then he proceeded to say, "Christian Science will never supply the people's need because it exaggerates the healing element, when it should be a minor issue." I should like to have space to state briefly what the Christian Science position is on this point.

Students of Christian Science believe that in doing the healing work they are following the injunction of the Master, who, in enumerating the "signs" that follow "them that believe," in the final chapter of Mark, said with emphasis, "They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." To Christian Scientists, sickness, like sin, is a form of inharmony. All inharmony yields to the same understanding, namely, the recognition that, since God is all-powerful, all-wise, and all-present, inharmony is not real.

The speaker erred in declaring that Christian Science places healing first. A statement by Mary Baker Eddy, author of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," sets forth very clearly the mission of Christian Science. There she has written (p. 150): "The mission of Christian Science now, as in the time of its earlier demonstration, is not primarily one of physical healing. Now, as then, signs and wonders are wrought in the metaphysical healing of physical disease; but these signs are only to demonstrate its divine origin,—to attest the reality of the higher mission of the Christ-power to take away the sins of the world."

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