Christian Science
By F. G. Huling Formerly a Student in the Bible Institute of Los Angeles
agrees with the Bible?” He replied, “O, yes.” I then asked, “Does she say that man is incapable of sin, and that sin, sickness and death are hot ideas, but illusions?” “Yes, that’s true,” he replied. Then I asked him if he would please show me some places in the Bible where those ideas were taught. Sitting back in his chair, he said, “Well, now, Mr. Huling, we don’t think that God had much to do with the writing of the Bible. It is simply the record of the ideas and experiences of the men who wrote it and the times in which they lived. It simply expresses the religious ideas and aspirations they had. “We don’t believe it is the Word of God, but that it contains the Word of God. Take the life of David, for instance. There were some things pretty bad in his life. But he wrote the 23rd Psalm and that is pretty good. We do with the Bible as we have to do with his life. We have to separate the bad from the good.” And thus he revealed the true attitude of Christian Science toward the Bible, which those who do not understand it deny, but which one who understands it and has been a practitioner for twenty years, admits. All unbiased Bible students have known this for years. This practitioner was honest and also intelligent, even if he does deny the Bible as' the true Word of God. I commented, “Then it doesn’t need to agree with the Bible,” and he replied, “No.”
HAD the opportunity of an extended conversation with a Christian Science practi tioner in Pasadena. I made notes of my conversation right afterward and following is a tran script : I thanked him for the courtesy of giving me a few minutes of his time; told him that I had read a good deal of their text book, “Science and Health,” and other of their publications; also that my next oldest sister was a Christian Scientist and had sought to interest me in “Science.” I said there were a great many things about it I could not understand ’, I had talked with a great many “Scientists” who maintained that it agreed with the Bible and the reason they could not explain to me how it agreed with the Bible was because I did not understand it, or because they did not fully understand it themselves. I wanted to talk with someone who really understood it. I asked him if he understood Christian Science. He answered, “O, yes, I have prac ticed it for twenty years.” Then I said, “Doesn’t Science and Health say that the Bible was Mrs. Eddy’s only guide in the narrow path of truth?” He answered, “Yes.” And I said, “Doesn’t she say that she plants herself unreservedly on the teach ings of Jesus and His Apostles and the prophets?” He said, •/Certainly.” “Well,” I said, “That is just what bothers me. Do you think, then, that Christian Science
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