p. 6 | Christian Science by L. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Aug 25, 1904

Christian Science

By L. A. S.

Christian Science is a phase of the great world-wide religion of human nature. The false religions which fill the world all get their hold on mankind through human nature, which exalts self and is opposed to self-sacrifice. The religion of human nature always provides some way for a man to be saved through his own works. Either he lives a life which merits salvation, or he discovers another way of salvation than that of the narrow, cross-bearing path and the strait gate. The religion of the divine nature always humbles self and exalts Christ.

Christian Science is Christianity without the cross. There can, of course, be no such thing except only in name. Human nature shrinks from the cross. It is pleasant to think that evil is only a negation, and that sin is not the positive, tangible, malignant thing, to be gotten rid of by crucifixion of the carnal nature, as it is set forth in the old-fashioned gospel. It is pleasant to be able to get rid of this carnal nature without any crucifixion, by simply relegating it to the realm of shadows and figments of the uninstructed mind. Christian Science promises to do all this. It is a very soothing, as well as seductive, doctrine.

As Christian Science is not Christian, so neither is it scientific. As one writer has said, what little is true about it is not new, and the larger, new part about it is not true. It is not scientific because it is not true, and it is not scientific because it denies the gospel. Nothing that denies the gospel can be truly scientific; for truth can not be separated from the omniscient One who is the Author of all things.

Christian Science attempts to turn truth into error, and error into truth. It tries to make real things into unreal things, and vice versa. This gives it a sort of fascination for many minds in which the reasoning, logical faculties are not predominant. As regards the healing of disease, Christian Science has appeared to be efficacious in cases where the trouble is mainly imaginary, or mainly due to the influence of the mind over the body. In common with drugs, it may get the credit for the healing that is often done by nature in spite of the treatment or lack of treatment. This leads many to believe in it as a curative agency, especially such as know least about physiology and anatomy and the nature of disease. But its greatest power is derived through its promise, before stated, to confer salvation without the cross. It does nothing to exalt Jesus as the Saviour of sinners.

Conditions in the world at the present time are well suited to the rise and spread of such a religion. The enemy of God's truth and gospel has many different religions and various organizations and confederacies by which to catch people of all phases of mind and character, and of these Christian Science is one. You can not reason with its devotees; for it is not a reasonable thing. It leads off into a realm of mysticism upon which the light of reason and revelation has never shone. It is as elusive as a shadow. Take its plainest utterances and bring to bear upon them the Bible and other acknowledged sources of truth until you have dealt it a knock-out blow, and the only result is that you will be told by the follower of Mrs. Eddy that you have wholly misrepresented Christian Science, that you do not correctly understand it. You discover then that you have been chasing a phantom.

But the power of the gospel is still greater than all else, and whosoever is willing to surrender his human nature, as an act of faith in Jesus receive in its place the divine nature, will have the light of divine wisdom, and will be able to discern what is truth, and to escape the snares of error in the subtle guises it has put on in these latter days.

L. A. S.