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IDOLS OF CIVILIZATION
The divinely inspired revelator of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, writes in her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 173), "The idols of civilization are far more fatal to health and longevity than are the idols of barbarism." One of our present-day forms of idolatry is the perhaps unconscious worship of the human body. Believing that they live in matter instead of in Mind, mortals devote themselves and their thinking to a material body, giving it a good time, making it materially comfortable, feeding, clothing, and petting it, and seeing that it has a maximum of pleasure. They are especially concerned, of course, with keeping this body healthy.
Aware of this, Mrs. Eddy asks with reason (ibid., p. 174), "Is civilization only a higher form of idolatry, that man should bow down to a flesh-brush, to flannels, to baths, diet, exercise, and air?" One may also recall the words of Christ Jesus when he said (Matt. 6:25): "I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?"
The teaching of Christian Science, revealing as it does man's incorporeal being as the expression of Spirit, establishes the understanding that health and well-being are the permanent heritage of man. It declares that man is well right now, because God and His entire creation exist eternally in perfection. Christian Science points out that to believe in the reality and power of disease is, in effect, breaking the First Commandment, because it is an acknowledgment of and a belief in the power and reality of evil and matter.
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November 11, 1950 issue
View Issue-
RIGHT MOTIVES
GERTRUDE E. VELGUTH
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PROTECTION
Leila C. Harsch
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SURE DEFENSE
FRANCIS JOHN ROSE
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"AS SINGS THE MOUNTAIN STREAM"
EDITH BAIRD ROBINSON
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MIND FORMS AND CONTROLS MAN
THOMAS CLARKE PULLEN
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THE REWARD IS SURE
CARRIETTA FULTON SIMPSON
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TRUE INSPIRATION
ADOLF ÖHMAN
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WHAT IS YOUR POSITION?
FLORENCE I. EDWARDS
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"COME BEFORE THE LORD WITH SINGING"
Mabel Cone Bushnell
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IDOLS OF CIVILIZATION
Richard J. Davis
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NO RESISTANCE TO GOD
Helen Wood Bauman
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A deep and sincere gratitude for...
Patricia McGillvray Simpson
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Christian Science first came into...
Walter Greene
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For thirty-six years I have read...
Lena G. Scholl
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I am grateful to testify that in my...
Mary Powell Simons
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In Psalms (121:1) we read, "I...
Florence Misner
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When the light of Christian Science...
Isabelle Wilson
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Christian Science has been my...
Ruth Severance
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I became interested in Christian Science...
Edwin H. Lahrman with contributions from Josephine P. Lahrman
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Early one Sunday morning I...
Lucile Phillips Warren
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"To be every whit whole, man...
Jean Louis Lachelin
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I should like to tell of an experience...
Susan L. Baker
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Signs of the Times
with contributions from Walter Tebbe, Joseph R. Sizoo, Harold A. Bosley