Editorial February 25, 2019 Issue

Our reformation from sin is healing, too

Tony Lobl

There are wonderful benefits to gaining a clarity about the meaning of the Scriptures that brings to light the spirituality at the Bible’s core. Restoration of physical and mental health can result. We can experience a stabilizing of our emotions, improved relationships, a renewed sense of purpose.

These are the benefits I experienced when first reading the primary text on Christian Science by Christian Science Discoverer Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. Who wouldn’t want to keep experiencing more of that?

But there’s another key aspect to the practice of Christian Science, one that might seem more daunting. It’s the need to face up to attitudes and actions that rob us of the rightful sense of our relation to God. In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus alerts us to some of these. He pinpoints the need to overcome habits of thought such as anger, lust, vengefulness, hatred, and self-righteousness, and the actions stemming from them. Elsewhere he says of such traits, “Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin” (John 8:34). Other translations render the word servant as slave.