Christian Science in the Light of Reason and Revelation
By R. A. Underwood
IV. New Thought, Healing.
THEY shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables, or falsehoods. 2 Tim. 4:4. Many are accepting the new pantheism who do not claim to be Christian Scientists. It makes little difference as to the baneful results whether it is called Christian Science, New Thought, New Theology, Pantheism, or some other name, so long as its fundamental teaching is that man is his own saviour, and it thereby makes void the Gospel of Christ. Ralph Waldo Trine, author of “In Tune with the Infinite,” expresses the doctrine in these words: “All is He, since He is all, . . . and if all, then each individual, you and I, must be a vital part of that all. . . . Man is God incarnate. . . . The moment, however, we recognize our divinity, our higher, our God-selves, and the fact that we are the saviours of our fellow men, we become saviours, and stand and move in the midst of a majesty and beauty and power that proclaims us as such.” The reader may be ready to inquire, What about the many reported cures that are testified to among the followers of Christian Science? Is this all a delusion, or are persons actually cured of disease by this system of faith? These are natural questions that arise, and are worthy of consideration. There are many that are supposed to be healed. I will endeavor to consider these cases in a candid and fair manner according to the facts which have come before me. Before doing this, let me call attention to one most important factor of this faith; namely, that nobody is sick, nobody is old, or has decrepitude. All that is called sickness or pain is an illusion or a deception. So, according to the doctrine of Christian Science, to say the least, no one is healed, or cured, of pain, or can be; because all sickness is simply imaginary, and not real. So, if the Christian Scientist believes what he claims, all their boasted work of healing the sick is a fake, and not true. But let us notice the classes who claim to be healed. 1. I well remember a case in our neighborhood some years ago. The afflicted lady was my wife’s cousin, and an intimate friend. She was dying with a cancer. She and the family had accepted the faith of Christian Scientists. When the physician told the woman that she had a cancer, her first step was to send for a Christian Science healer, who came from Cleveland, Ohio. On arrival, the first thing the woman said was, “You are not sick, madam; you have no cancer. All that tell you that you are sick, or have a cancer, are under a delusion. Now, Mrs. ———, repeat what I say: ‘I am not sick; I am perfectly well.’” And so the lady repeated over and over again what the pretended healer said. This was all that the healer did. She carried out Mrs. Eddy’s instruction to an iota, as follows: “Expose and denounce the claims of evil and disease in all their forms, but acknowledge no reality in them.”—“Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” edition 1905, page 447. Now, if what she claimed were true, she could justly take no credit for healing a perfectly well person. On the other hand, if Mrs. ——— was sick, and not a perfectly well woman, as the healer had claimed, then she was simply teaching the woman a lie; and so it proved. However, Mrs. ——— and the whole family were so hypnotized by this healer, and the spirit that goes with the doctrine, that they repeated the falsehood as long as breath was left in the body of the poor woman. My wife, on other occasions when members of the family had been sick, had ministered to their comfort, but now she was forbidden to do anything to relieve the pain and suffering of her dying cousin, because it was inconsistent to do anything for the relief of pain when there was nothing of the kind that existed. The healer and all the family declared she was well till the agonies of death forced the breath of life from her body. This is a case illustrative of thousands. But a lady said to me, “I was healed.” Well, if you believe the doctrine, you should say, “I thought I was sick, but found out I was not.” That is all that the logic of Christian Science will permit you to claim, so far as being healed is concerned. I have no doubt that there are many who do think they are sick when nothing is in reality the matter with them. Others may have a mind-sickness, or the hypo, and Christian Science may cure this kind of sickness. Disease is often due to mental causes, such as anxiety and worriment of mind. The expression, “Trust, rest, and live,” contains a truth essential to the health of both the body and soul of man. Christ says, “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” Matt. 11:28, 29. Man is invited to cast all his care upon Christ, and to “rest in the Lord.” Ps. 37:7. This rest of faith is essential to man’s physical well-being; therefore it is a natural result of law that disease produced by worry is cured by removing the unrest that produced it, even tho the individual’s mind is led to trust in a false hope. When the cause of the disease is removed, nature soon rallies from its effect. Had Christian Scientists recognized this simple, scientific fact, they might have been saved from many disappointments and much reproach. 2. Another class who testify to being healed—and many they are—are either hypnotized, or led by the power attending this movement to claim to be well and healed, the same as my wife’s cousin, who died with a cancer. She said more than five hundred times, “I am well; I am healed,” and kept on saying this till she breathed her last; but it was an untruth. So with thousands who testify to healing. The first step in this system of healing is to declare one is well regardless of all facts in the case. They are asked to tell an untruth, if they are really sick, as the first step in being healed. They must say, “I am well,” and continue to repeat it. It is nothing strange that persons who become hypnotized by this power should continue to declare an untruth for years while suffering more or less from the disease, till they finally go down to death. The first Christian Scientist I ever had any particular conversation with was in the state of California some twenty-five years ago. The lady was a professional healer and a teacher. She wanted to make a healer and a teacher of me. I asked her to give me a few samples of what I would teach. She answered, “Whatever you believe is, is so,” and made the statement, as an illustration, “I am a girl only sixteen years old.” I said, “Madam, those stooped shoulders, gray hairs, that wrinkled brow, and your dimmed eyes, tell me you have passed three-score years or more of life’s journey.” But she insisted she was only a girl of sixteen summers. Her falsehood did not make it a truth, even tho she kept on telling it till she went down to the grave a few years later. 3. We might admit more than the logic of Christian Science will grant; namely, that some are actually healed who have suffered with disease. This I do not doubt. If this is so, is it not a good work? “To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” Isa. 8:20. We have seen that from this standard of measurement, Christian Science has no light in it, and only darkness. It is weighed in the balances and found wanting. Then from what source must this healing power come? The Bible presents two sources capable of performing wonders and even miracles. God is able, and often does, heal the sick and afflicted in a miraculous manner. See Mark 16:15-18; Acts 3:2-16. Another source of miracle working is revealed in doing great wonders for the specific purpose of turning men away from the truth of God unto a false hope. The Lord warned His people anciently against this power in these words: “If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; thou shalt not harken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams; for the Lord your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.” Deut. 13:1-3. 5In the last days, miracles will be wrought to deceive, if it were possible, the very elect. We have a description of this power given in the following warnings: “Even Him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.” 2 Thess. 2:9, 10. “For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders, in-somuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.” Matt. 24:24. A power is brought to view in Revelation 13, of which it is said, “And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do.” Verse 14. In chapter 16:14, this same wonder-working power is said to be “the spirits of devils, working miracles,” for the purpose of deceiving all that may be ensnared. Some question whether the devil has power to heal the sick. It is certain that Christ says he has power to bind men with disease. The Saviour describes, in Luke 13, a poor woman that had been bound by Satan for eighteen years with an infirmity. The Saviour healed this woman upon the Sabbath day, and was accused by the Pharisees of breaking the Sabbath in doing so. Listen to Christ’s answer to their charge. Verses 15, 16: “Thou hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering! And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?” Christ’s mission to this world is to ultimately “destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who thru fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage.” Heb. 2:14, 15. If Satan can bind a man, he certainly has power to loose him. If, then, men are all their lifetime subject to the bondage of disease, thru the power of Satan, and if he can deceive them by healing them, and lead them to reject the Gospel of Christ, he has thereby gained his object. So it is in the healing work of Christian Science. As already seen by the plainest repeated statements from the prime promoter of this delusion, it rejects, denies, and wrests the truth of the Bible, and destroys, as far as its influence goes, the Gospel of the Son of God by denying the fundamental principles underlying the whole plan of redemption. May God save the honest seeker after truth and light from the fables and delusions that await those deceived by the false claims of Christian Science. [Mr. Underwood’s article next week will consider “The Lord’s Prayer; the Ego,” from the standpoint of Christian Science.]