Article November 2, 1981 Issue

Why Christian Science is not a cult—6

Editors' Note: From earliest days misrepresentations of Christian Science teachings have been circulated by critics. More recently these have reached a crescendo in a broad-scale attempt to brand Christian Science a " non-Christian cult. " We feel these questions and answers on key points, prepared by the Committee on Publication, will be of interest to our readers and inquirers. We present them in line with the purpose our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, assigned this publication, "to hold guard over Truth, Life, and Love,"^{The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 353.} and in the spirit of her words, "A lie left to itself is not so soon destroyed as it is with the help of truth-telling."^{Ibid., p. 130.}

Question: Christian Scientists use Christian language, but some say they do so deceptively to attract people into accepting ideas which are not really Christian at all.

Answer: Anyone who has really studied Christian Science knows that its use of key Christian terms is perfectly comprehensible and familiar. As shown earlier in this series, for example, when Mrs. Eddy speaks of God she does not mean "an abstract principle" or "an impersonal force," as some of her critics claim. Like Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century and Jonathan Edwards in the eighteenth century, she uses the term "Principle" to denote God as the source of all spiritual law and order, but He is also to be known as the "infinite Person"^{Science and Health, p. 116.} to whom we turn as the tender Shepherd and loving Redeemer of each individual. Where her writings do give new meanings to terms which over the centuries had been narrowed to arbitrary doctrinal definitions, she is careful to explain the difference. On the doctrine of atonement, for instance, she writes: "The real atonement—so infinitely beyond the heathen conception that God requires human blood to propitiate His justice and bring His mercy—needs to be understood. The real blood or Life of Spirit is not yet discerned. Love bruised and bleeding, yet mounting to the throne of glory in purity and peace, over the steps of uplifted humanity,—this is the deep significance of the blood of Christ. Nameless woe, everlasting victories, are the blood, the vital currents of Christ Jesus' life, purchasing the freedom of mortals from sin and death."^{No and Yes, p. 34.}