Article November 1, 2013

Hobbies

Originally published in the May 12, 1921 issue of The Christian Science Monitor

In a recent article on why the average man does not go to church, a parish minister wrote: “Religion, as the average man sees it, is just the power to say ‘God’ where the rest of the world says Nature, Justice, Duty, Peace, Social Service, Foreign Missions.” It is just this power to say God with certainty wherever and whenever confused and perplexed finite belief is suggesting only a very limited and subdivided sense of good, which many average men are gaining from the study of Christian Science. They are beginning to understand that God really is infinite and indivisible, demonstrably so, and that He is infinitely and indivisibly expressed and that this also is capable of proof.

Parting from psychology, with its claim that the “God experience” represents only a part, often a very small part of what one is conscious of, the student of Christian Science knows, on the contrary, that all he really can be conscious of is God. He really loves justice only as he loves and understands God, Principle; he truly conceives of nature only as he loves and understands the infinite intelligence which is expressed in spiritual creation; he can render successful social service just to the degree that he understands God, infinite Love. Nature, justice, social service are not, then, unrelated concepts, any of which can be followed to the exclusion of the others, for the truth is that as one comes to know God rightly he cannot help knowing that God and His idea are inseparable.

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