Article August 10, 1935 Issue

I wish to express my appreciation of the very broadminded...

B. Tatham Woodhead, Committee on Publication for Lancashire, England,—Burnley

Express

I wish to express my appreciation of the very broadminded and tolerant letter from a clergyman which you quote from St. Stephen's Church Magazine in your issue of the 6th inst.; but, if he is quoted correctly, it would seem that he would shut Christian Scientists out of the Christian fellowship he upholds because of the Christian Science teaching with regard to matter. And yet this teaching as to the unreality and temporal nature of matter is based directly on the teachings of the Bible, and particularly on the teachings of Christ Jesus. Allow me to quote a few of Jesus' sayings on the subject: "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing." "The true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth." "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will love his life for my sake, the same shall save it."

Christian Scientists rejoice to agree wholeheartedly with the clergyman when he says that "at the center of the Christian religion is the eternal Son of God," but it can hardly be contended that our Saviour is still held in any of the limitations of matter from which he came to save men. The beloved disciple is very definite on the subject. For instance, he writes: "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever." Paul also makes many statements to the same effect. One of them is, "The things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal."

Christian Scientists surely cannot be shut out of Christian fellowship for teaching—and proving, too, as Jesus did—that the material sense of things with all its sin, sickness, and death, is not eternal, but is destructible, insubstantial, and therefore, in this essential sense, unreal, whilst Spirit, God, and the things of Spirit, are eternal and substantial, and therefore real.

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