rendering of the Scriptures makes them nothing valuable, but often is the foundation of unbelief and hopelessness. The metaphysical rendering is health and peace and hope for all” (pp. 92, 169 Mis cellaneous Writings). She wrests the meaning of the Word o f God: “ The Holy City, described in the Apocalypse, as coming down from God out of Heaven, is Christian Science” (Christian Science and Health, p. 225, 28th. Ed.). Her many renderings of the prayer the Saviour taught His disciples, which we call the Lord’s Prayer, are blasphemous in the extreme, not addressed to the Father o f our Lord Jesus Christ, but to “ Prin ciple, eternal and harmonious...,” and contains such expressions as these: “When this supremacy of Spirit shall appear, the dream of matter will disappear. Give us the understanding of Truth and Love. And loving we shall learn God, and Truth will destroy all error. And lead us into the Life that is Soul, and deliver us from the er rors of sense, sin, sickness and death. For God is life, Truth and Love forever” (1881 Version). Christian Science and God Mrs. Eddy denied the personali ty of God. Throughout her writ ings, which she claimed as in spired, she teaches that He is but a Principle, merely a basic law. Here are her statements, reword ed and repeated endlessly: “ The Principle of Divine Metaphysics is God” ; “God . . . impersonal Be ing” ; “God is identical with na ture” ; “ Prayer to a personal God is a hindrance” ; “Who would stand before a blackboard, and pray the principle o f mathematics to work out a problem?” (pp. I l l , 605, 635, 13, 308, 74th. Ed. Sci ence and Health). Mrs. Eddy repudiated the Trin ity : “ The theory o f three persons in one God suggests heathen gods” (Science and Health, p. 152, 74th Ed.). She denied God as Creator: “ Spirit, God, has created all in and of Himself. Spirit never created matter” (Sci- ience and Health, p. 335). Anoth-
by Betty Bruechert
F ourth in a S eries
W H A T 8
W r T m
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE? by Louis T. Talbot, D.D.
I N A brief treatise like this, one cannot go into the fantastic personal life o f the founder of Christian S c ien ce , Mrs. Mary Baker Glover Patterson Eddy. A neurotic, she early came under the influence of the metaphysi cians of her day, mainly one, Phineas P. Quimby, whose ideas she borrowed and incorporated in her writings. Mrs. Eddy describes the origin o f Christian Science in the pre face of the 74th Edition of Sci ence and Health, the book pub lished in 1875, which contains the basic teachings of the cult: “The first school o f Christian Science mind-healing was begun by the author in Lynn, Mass, about the year 1867, with one student. In 1881 she opened the Mass. Meta physical College, in Boston. Dur ing seven years, some four thou sand students were taught by the author in this college. Meanwhile, she was pastor o f the first estab lished Church of Christ, Scien tist; president of the first Chris tian Scientist Association; pub lisher of her own works and edi tor of the Christian Science Jour nal.” With only a limited educa tion, she produced 15 books, of which the masterpiece was Sci ence and Health, with Key to the Scriptures. Her writings, edited by experts over the years, and re paged often, still remain basical ly unchanged and are the only au thoritative documents o f the sect, as she remains its only head. Dr. I. M. Haldeman, eminent Baptist minister and Bible teach er, in his book on Christian Sci ence, described it thus: “One of
the greatest perils of the day: full o f folly and yet of wisdom; full of a simplicity akin to silliness and a subtility that, at moments, ap peals to reason; denying the Scripture and quoting it; a false system breathing the name of Christ; an angel talking of right eousness, it is a concealed hand seeking with a grip of steel to lead the sons o f men downward to darkness and woe.” Christian Science and the Bible Mrs. Eddy declared: “ I . . . plant myself unreservedly on the teachings of Jesus, o f his apostles and o f his prophets . . . the Bible has been my only authority. I have had no other guide in the ‘straight and narrow’ way of Truth” (pp. 269, 126 Science and Health). Then, like all leaders of false systems, she produces her writings as the real authority: “ A Christian Scientist requires my work Science and Health for his textbook, and so do all his stu dents and patients. Why? Because it is the voice of Truth to this age. . . . I had no human aid. The revelation o f Truth to the understanding came, as to all, through divine power. When ‘unto us a child is born,’ a new idea has birth, and ‘his name is Wonder ful.’ This is the origin of Chris tian Science in this century” (pp. 456, 201, 28th. Ed. Science and Health). From this Mrs. Eddy went to a denial of the reliability o f the Bible: “ Arrogant ignorance and pride . . . have dimmed the glory and power o f the Scriptures to which this Christian Science text book is the key. . . . The literal
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