People who have stopped going to church have some interesting things to say. Perhaps the most interesting is the complaint that churches do not deal with life's problems. Movies do, they say. Books and magazines do. Radio and television do. But churches do not. These people also argue that one does not need to be inside a church to be close to God.

Can we brush aside their comments with a simple "They don't understand"? We think not. If a church is to survive, it will have to be a church that helps one to comprehend the vital and practical facts of Life itself. And it will have to have something in its services that gives those who attend them a real sense of God's presence—a sense that affects every moment of their daily lives.

Christ Jesus' teachings and works set the standard. His Sermon on the Mount, for example, deals directly, and radically, with such topics as war, sex, social justice, hypocrisy, economic policy, law, and immortality. His healing works showed the scientific relationship between health and one's conscious relationship to God, the only real Life. People do not turn away from the church that helps them to understand the Science of the Christ, Truth—the Science Jesus taught. They turn from the church that fails—in their eyes— to do this.

The church Mary Baker Eddy founded is the Church of Christ, Scientist. Insofar as a church lives up to the definition she gives for "Church," it scientifically, radically, deals with today's problems and proves the ever-present power of Christ, Truth. In the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, her definition reads: "Church. The structure of Truth and Love; whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle.

"The Church is that institution, which affords proof of its utility and is found elevating the race, rousing the dormant understanding from material beliefs to the apprehension of spiritual ideas and the demonstration of divine Science, thereby casting out devils, or error, and healing the sick." ^{Science and Health, p. 583;}

Many today are saying that Principle is within the individual man and it is up to him to work out the kind of life and civilization he shall have. What he can find of God in his personal communion with nature and with his fellowman, they say, is enough to know of Principle.

But Jesus stressed meekness. "Blessed are the meek," he said, for they shall inherit the earth." ^{Matt. 5:5;} He explained his own works always as the Father's doing, not his own alone. And Mrs. Eddy gives the scientific basis for such meekness when she states emphatically, "This is a leading point in the Science of Soul, that Principle is not in its idea." ^{Science and Health, p. 467.}

Man is God's idea, and as such he reflects divine intelligence. But we find our purposes and our laws manifesting intelligence only as we meekly seek guidance above and outside ourselves. For this we need all the help we can get. The institution we call the church can give us a lot of help.

The fact that the institution we may have become acquainted with seems to have lost touch with today does not mean that there is no longer need for such an institution. What it does mean is that there is need for a revival of the spirit of the Christ, Truth. We need a place where we can go regularly and spend an hour in prayerful contemplation of eternal truths as they relate to contemporary problems. And the community needs the influence of this institution and its activities.

The survival of churches can well mean the survival of humankind. But attempting to prop up a sagging institution by rallying its members to more deeply entrenched traditionalism—or by denouncing as godless those who turn away from it—can only result in the failure of the institution to perform its vital function.

If Principle were in its idea, mankind would have no need for churches. But it is scientifically demonstrable that Principle, God, is not in man. A recognition of this "leading point" aligns us with God's law of Truth. And this alignment enables us to heal. Each of us individually needs the church. We need it to help us understand Truth and its demonstrable law. For without the law of divine Principle, mankind's attempts to survive will have no real scientific basis.

Rather than turn away from our church, we can bring to it the vitality that makes it "that institution, which affords proof of its utility ...." It is up to us to see that our church is more than a place for ritual or for the expression of personal opinion. The church can be a transforming, spiritual influence on the lives of those in need as well as on the community as a whole.

Churches that survive will necessarily be focal centers for the thinking of mankind on important problems. Then people seeking to understand problems relating to marriage, health, finance, education, environment, government, as well as those seeking understanding and inspiration for their daily activities, will find their thinking evolving with spiritual intelligence.

Churches will survive if they help mankind find their wonderful relationship to Life as well as to the earth and the universe. We are convinced that they can.

Carl J. Welz