Article December 30, 1905 Issue

An Undivided Christianity

SAMUEL GREENWOOD.

Christian Science pleads for an undivided Christianity, and in this it should have the active as well as sympathetic support of all who desire to see Christ's kingdom come on earth. It stands without argument that the world needs the whole of Christianity to save it. Of what avail, then, is it to use but a fraction of Christianity and expect that fraction to do the work of the whole? How would Jesus have succeeded in his work had he used only so much of truth as is considered practicable by the Christian world today? How long would Christianity have survived its Founder if he had never healed the sick?

The difference between Christian Science and other Christian denominations is as to whether Christianity shall be practised in its entirety in this present world. Christian Science maintains an unqualified affirmative. It is well known that Jesus did things which he told his disciples to do, and to teach others also to do, but which are now left out of the ordinary Christian's practice. Why is it that this is so? What excuse have the Christians of this century for excluding these things, among which is the healing of disease, from their "list of Christian duties" (Science and Health, p. 31), or for condemning Christian Scientists for including them?

A part is not equal to the whole and cannot give equal service. Of what use would the finest piece of machinery be, if its parts were not complete, or were separated from each other? Yet has not Christianity, as generally accepted, been much like a dismembered engine, and has this not explained its inability to bring spiritual energy into regenerating touch with mankind? Instead of healing the sick as Jesus commanded it, the church has left this sacred duty out of its creed and its practice, giving it into the hands of material systems and beliefs that have no essential relation to Christianity at all. Instead of upholding Jesus' teaching that those who kept his word should not die, it has taken direct issue with the Master by teaching the unescapable certainty of death, no matter how closely one might follow him. It has thus left mortals in the terrifying grasp of sickness and death, and has been trying to work with only a part of Christ's perfect gospel, with the result that Christianity has still the work to do which Jesus left to it almost two thousand years ago. Is it not time that it was restored again complete, with every part in its place, so that it may be able to do what God requires of it and what humanity so sorely needs?

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