LETTERS TO THE PRESS FROM CHRISTIAN SCIENCE COMMITTEES ON PUBLICATION

Geith A. Plimmer

The Times

The Times
London, England

Your summary of the Report of the Archbishops' Commission on The Church's Ministry of Healing shows that the Commission has found it difficult to grant that physical healing can be brought about by spiritual means alone. This limitation is regretted by those who have proved that the spiritual rules by which the master Christian healed are as available to heal to-day as they were in his day.

Christian Scientists accordingly cannot concur with the Commission that a combining of spiritual and material means is the way to the Christly method of healing. Forsaking the material by no means implies desolation or want of security in health or happiness; on the contrary, as the Bible makes abundantly plain, it is the simple requirement of all those who would have their harmony or well-being restored by God alone. Indeed, the less obstruction there is from faith in material ways and means, the more freely can spiritual blessings reach the sufferer.

You quote the Commission's comment that Christian Science is pantheism. This is a misconception. Pantheism implies God in matter. Such a concept is set completely at nought by "the scientific statement of being" in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy. It begins with these words (p. 468): "There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all."

The one heartening thing about the Commission's report is the way it turns people to the Bible for meditation in time of sickness, and to Jesus of Nazareth as the model for spiritual healing. It can only be hoped that, as the Church progresses in its healing ministry, it will be able to conform far more uncompromisingly than at present with our Lord's statement, "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing."

Geith A. Plimmer
District Manager for Great Britain and Ireland

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