In your issue of January 8 appeared a report of a sermon...

Oscar R. Porter, Jr., Committee on Publication for North Carolina,

Greensboro Record

In your issue of January 8 appeared a report of a sermon in which a minister was quoted as saying that "no true Christian will deny the reality of sin. He will not say, Sin is a nonentity, it has no existence, it is a delusion of the mortal mind!" Space is asked to present an explanation of the teachings of Christian Science on this point.

In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy occurs the statement (p. 474): "If sin, sickness, and death are as real as Life, Truth, and Love, then they must all be from the same source. God must be their author." In the first chapter of Genesis we are told that "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." The creations of the infinitely good and perfect God, who is Spirit, are necessarily good and spiritual; and since sin, sickness, and death are not good, it follows that these manifestations of evil are creations of the devil, of whom Jesus declared: "He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it." The lies of the devil—the carnal or mortal mind—have no validity, no power or law to uphold them. Otherwise, Christ Jesus could not have performed his mighty healing works. He said, "I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil;" but he did destroy sin, sickness, and death. In speaking of this the author of the Christian Science textbook asks the pertinent question (p. 474), "Is it possible, then, to believe that the evils which Jesus lived to destroy are real or the offspring of the divine will?"

The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science loved all mankind, and Christian Scientists are endeavoring to be obedient to her admonition (Christian Science versus Pantheism, p. 13), "Love all Christian churches for the gospel's sake; and be exceedingly glad that the churches are united in purpose, if not in method, to close the war between flesh and Spirit, and to fight the good fight till God's will be witnessed and done on earth as in heaven."

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