Article February 17, 1934 Issue

The remarks of the clergyman as reported in your last...

Alfred Johnson, Committee on Publication for Yorkshire, England,

Ripon Observer

The remarks of the clergyman as reported in your last issue, whilst they are not definitely antagonistic to Christian Science, yet show that he is only superficially acquainted with it. Therefore, I should be obliged if you would publish for your readers this authoritative statement.

Our critic, although a clergyman, deprecates the fact that Christian Science teaches sole reliance on God for healing. The teachings of Christian Science are based upon the Bible, especially upon the teaching of Christ Jesus. Beginning in Genesis, and running through the Old Testament, the assurance of the helaing power of the divine presence continues throughout the Bible. It was by the signs of healing the sick and destroying the false claims of sin and sorrow—all the woes to which flesh is heir—that God was known and His presence taught and proved by His revelators, and the New Testament plainly shows that the healing of sickness was intended by Jesus to be by methods wholly spiritual. Jesus proved that there is no condition, physical, mental, or moral, so hopeless that the understanding of God cannot save therefrom. He taught us that the sick can rely upon God as truly as the sinner. If this were not so, the sick would be in a worse state than the sinner. Can there be any condition that God cannot or will not heal, and yet is within the power and generosity of men to heal? If so, and that is the implication, men are not only more powerful than God, but also more loving. There is no disease or affliction beyond God's power. Jesus made the healing of the sick as binding as preaching the gospel, and these commands, which he never separated, are as imperative to his followers today as they were in his time.

Our critic also implies that Christian Science teaches that all suffering is the result of sin. This is inaccurate, Christian Science teaches that no suffering is of God, and that all suffering results from fear of evil, from ignorance of the power and presence of God, or from sin. Jesus showed the relationship which sometimes exists between sin and sickness when he raised the man sick of the palsy, and said, "Whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and walk?" Yet again, when he healed the man born blind, in answer to the question, "Who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?" he said, "Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him." Here Jesus taught us that men should manifest neither sin nor disability, but should manifest only the works of God. Suffering cannot be of God, otherwise Jesus would not and could not have healed it, for what is of God is eternal. To Jesus, sickness and sin, indeed all the woes of mankind, were not of God; therefore, he could and did destroy them.

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