Editorial November 9, 1992 Issue

Perfection and progress

Richard C. Bergenheim

The Science of Christianity walks hand in hand with Christly compassion. This is evident in the number of times the author of the Christian Science textbook, Mary Baker Eddy, refers to God as both divine Principle and Love. Similarly, her use of the term Father-Mother for Deity reveals the unity of steadfastness and tenderness, of perfection and gentleness, of law and kindness. Most would readily associate the qualities of steadfastness, perfection, and law with the word science; it is when terms such as tenderness, gentleness, and kindness are added to science that one learns the difference between the natural or behavioral sciences and the Science of God and man, which Christ Jesus taught.

Divine Science illustrates perfection. Perfect Principle, God, produces perfection. Divine Love maintains perfection. Man and the universe are the perfect expression of this divine Principle, Love. Spiritual healing requires that the Christian Science practitioner start from this basis and be undeviating in thought from this premise. What these words may fail to convey, though, is the unwavering spirit of love that animates the practitioner, the gentleness and patience that are ever present, the animus of goodness that guides the patient's awakening to perfection.

A while ago a friend whose life had achieved a fair measure of spiritual grace urged some well-meaning friends not to place him on a pedestal. It made it so difficult to take a step forward. Honesty and humility require all of us to admit that mankind has a way to go in proving the certain fact of man's spiritual perfection. How many of us feel that we have grown sufficiently in Christliness that we could safely perch on a pedestal? (Especially since such growth is apt to make us foot washers rather than pedestal ornaments!) Christians take enormous consolation and encouragement from Jesus' emphatic proof of man's true selfhood as the perfect expression of God. Our love and gratitude increase as we see that his example illustrates the way of escape from imperfection in character or health. On the other hand, no one escapes the feeling of Principle's demand for perfection, and it is Love, illustrated in the life of Christ Jesus, that works with us in fulfilling it.

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