Article May 9, 1936 Issue

In your issue of June 22 a letter appeared in which...

Mrs. Ethel R. Parker, former Committee on Publication for Cheshire, England,—Birkenhead

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In your issue of June 22 a letter appeared in which certain statements were made that require correction. The first is that "Christian Science practically places on the creator of us all, the responsibility for any bodily ills that we may have, at the same time leaving with Christ the onus of our cure." The truth is, Christian Science definitely teaches that God never created evil or error of any kind. Christian Science teaches that sin and sickness are due to ignorance of God's laws, as the Bible teaches us. Christ Jesus taught that deliverance came through knowledge of and obedience to the truth. He said, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." He came to destroy sickness and sin, and when the disciples of John came to ask him if he were the Christ, he said, "Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see: the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them." These signs were to prove to John that the Christ, Truth, actually destroyed the works of the devil, of whom Jesus said, "He is a liar, and the father of it."

Christian Scientists claim the right, a right that is both morally and legally theirs, to choose whatever form of treatment for bodily sickness they may desire, and they turn to God for help in all their troubles. The reference to the story of the lepers as told by Luke, which your correspondent mentions, gives point to the fact that Jesus always reminded his followers of their obligations; no leper, in those days, was allowed to mix with other people unless he could show a clean bill of health from the priest. It must be pointed out that Christian Scientists are taught by Mrs. Eddy that the fulfillment of their legal obligations is a moral necessity.

In reply to this correspondent's question as to "what the poor world has done, that for eighteen centuries God has deprived it of this wonderful revelation as per pro. Mrs. Eddy?" That question must have been asked again and again, all down the centureis, whenever some new teacher or interpreter has appeared as a witness for Truth. The Bible presents to us the history of man's spiritual unfoldment, the history of his slow education through experience and through the teaching of God's messengers, who have always appeared as the need for a further enlightenment has arisen. Your correspondent smiles at the idea of the "unreality of evil." It is necessary to understand how Christian Science uses the words "real" and "unreal"; they are not used in any relative sense; the "real" is the spiritual and eternal, the "unreal" is the material and temporal. It will thus be understood that the "unreality of evil" is a fact, otherwise Christ Jesus could not have demonstrated it.

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