In a recent issue a visiting evangelist is quoted in opposition...

Paul Stark Seeley—Roseburg, Ore.

The News

In a recent issue a visiting evangelist is quoted in opposition to the teaching of Christian Science concerning the unreality of sin, disease, and hell. His remarks might lead one to believe that Christian Science condones the evil-doer and treats with complacency the sins of mankind. Such is in no sense the case. "Christian Science Mind-healing," Mrs. Eddy writes in "No and Yes" (p. 32), "lifts with a steady arm, and cleaves sin with a broad battle-axe. It gives the lie to sin, in the spirit of Truth; but other theories make sin true." Christian Science does not excuse or ignore iniquity. It exposes the real nature of sin as a belief in evil, called by Jesus "a liar," never attributable to God, and so without rightful relationship to the man or universe created by Him.

Sin, from the standpoint of Christian Science, is wrong believing and wrong thinking; a false belief in an evil power that can control, impel, and direct man in ways that are not God's ways, and that deceives him into believing that pleasure is found in wickedness. Christian Science teaches that every sin committed is a wrong thought expressed. The origin is mental. Therefore it is from a mental basis that sin must be eradicated and destroyed. As a lie believed is as truth to the believer, so sin and its accompanying evil conditions are as truth to the sinner until his thought is awakened to the reality of being, found in an understanding of God and man's relationship to Him. With the truth of immortal good, Christian Science destroys the lie of mortal evil, including sin and disease. In "Retrospection and Introspection" Mrs. Eddy clearly defines this process. "Christian Science heals sin," she writes, "as it heals sickness, by establishing the recognition that God is All, and there is none beside Him,—that all is good, and there is in reality no evil, neither sickness nor sin" (p. 63).

The lying, negative nature of sin has, however, never been made a reason by Christian Science for excusing its presence. So to do would be wholly unchristian, for, as Jesus well said, "Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin," and, "No man can serve two masters." In Science and Health (p. 339) the teaching of Christian Science on this subject is clearly stated: "A sinner can receive no encouragement from the fact that Science demonstrates the unreality of evil, for the sinner would make a reality of sin,—would make that real which is unreal, and thus heap up 'wrath against the day of wrath.' He is joining in a conspiracy against himself,—against his own awakening to the awful unreality by which he has been deceived. Only those, who repent of sin and forsake the unreal, can fully understand the unreality of evil."

Christian Scientists are striving to recognize in thought and act the supremacy of the one living and true God, and through their understanding of Him to meet and destroy the false claims of evil that seek to dishonor God and rob man of his spiritual sonship with the Father. Referring to the true and spiritual man, John wrote, "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; ... he cannot sin, because he is born of God;" and Paul, writing his epistle to the Romans, pointed the way to this spiritual freedom when he said, "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." And so Christian Science in the present age is demonstrating man's ability to destroy sin and disease in the degree that he lets that consciousness of God's supremacy be in him "which was also in Christ Jesus."

Sin and disease, with their accompanying conditions of distress and discord, are shown by Christian Science to be the hell of man's own making. God did not make hell. The Scriptures state, "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." But as sin is real to the sinner, so hell, the consequence of sin, is real to him until he turns from false belief in evil's power and presence to the recognition of God, good, as the one and only Mind, holding everlasting dominion over man and the universe. Man then begins more readily to discern the life that is real, and to recognize the verity of Mrs. Eddy's statement (Science and Health, p. 196), "Sin makes its own hell, and goodness its own heaven."

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