LETTERS TO THE PRESS

from Christian Science Committees on Publication

with contributions from Mary Burrow Johnson, Colin Rücker Eddison

Mary Burrow Johnson Committee on Publication for Virginia Times-Herald, Newport News

In a recent issue of the Times-Herald there appears a letter in which there are certain statements purporting to set forth the doctrines of Christian Science, and these statements would seem to require some amplification or explanation.

The author of the letter is correct in saying that Christian Science teaches the unreality of sin, sickness, and death, but to be understood this statement needs to be elaborated. Christian Science takes this stand for the unreality of evil and the eternality of good on the ground that the Biblical record of creation as set forth in the first chapter of Genesis is spiritual, real, and enduring. The final and culminating verse of this chapter reads, "And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." If Spirit, God, created all and declared it good, then evil has no reality except as it exists in the erroneous thinking of mortal man. This mortal, material man, of whom Isaiah said, "Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?" is the counterfeit of the real and spiritual man, of whose creation we have already spoken.

Christian Science does not deny that to the physical senses evil seems very real. In fact, Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 460): "Sickness is neither imaginary nor unreal,— that is, to the frightened, false sense of the patient. Sickness is more than fancy; it is solid conviction." Mortal man will continue to experience sin, disease, and death until, through the correct understanding of man's real status as the child of God, he gives up his belief in them, and awakes to know that in reality all power belongs to God, eternal good. He will then be ready to echo Paul's declaration. "To be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace."

Regarding the Christian Scientists' belief in the atonement, which the gentleman questions, may I simply say that Christian Scientists believe in only one Saviour, and this Saviour is he of whom Simon Peter declared (Matt. 16:16), "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God."

One of the six religious Tenets of Christian Science, to be found on page 497 of Science and Health, reads as follows: "We acknowledge Jesus' atonement as the evidence of divine, efficacious Love, unfolding man's unity with God through Christ Jesus the Way-shower; and we acknowledge that man is saved through Christ, through Truth, Life, and Love as demonstrated by the Galilean Prophet in healing the sick and overcoming sin and death."

Colin Rücker Eddison Manager of Committees on Publication for Great Britain and Ireland Medical Press, London

There is a statement in a recent issue which implies that cures effected by Christian Science are the result of suggestion.

It is made clear in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, that Christian Science treatment is not a form of suggestion, nor is it the control of one human mind over another. Mrs. Eddy states (p. 185), "Such theories have no relationship to Christian Science, which rests on the conception of God as the only Life, substance, and intelligence, and excludes the human mind as a spiritual factor in the healing work."

Christian Science is proving in the experience of its students that a spiritual understanding of the true nature of God and of man made in God's image and likeness results in the healing of disease, including that which is classified as organic. Nor are its results confined to the healing of physical ills, for it is pre-eminent in its reformation of character.

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