Should Christian Science be more simple?

Allison W. Phinney, Jr.

Someone passed along recently a few suggestions for simplifying and updating Christian Science. One proposal was that the titles of several of the weekly Bible Lessons^{ In the Christian Science Quarterly.} be changed—for example, from "Soul and Body" to "Ascension."

The suggestion seemed to us to serve as an instructive treatise, among other things, on the challenges of achieving true simplicity. "Ascension" may be a punchy, one-word title. You and I might not concur, however, that it is in fact a simpler subject!

From the time its final edition appeared, there has usually been someone advocating that Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, the denominational textbook of Christian Science, written by Mary Baker Eddy, should be simplified. Imagine what would have happened if instead of being willing to grow in their own spiritual understanding and apply what they had learned from the book as they studied it in conjunction with the Bible, people had been free to change whatever they found difficult to understand. One man's "simplicity" might well be another person's opacity.

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