Permit me to explain that Mary Baker Eddy in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," and in all her other writings, teaches the exact opposite of pantheism. So important did she consider right teaching on this subject, that in June, 1898, her Message to The Mother Church was a sermon entitled "Christian Science versus Pantheism." This message, which occupies fifteen pages of her book, "Christian Healing and Other Writings," goes into a detailed examination and repudiation of pantheism and other non-Christian philosophies. To sustain our point we need only offer the following quotations from page 8 of this message: "Christianity, as taught and demonstrated in the first century by our great Master, virtually annulled the so-called laws of matter, idolatry, pantheism, and polytheism. Christianity then had one God and one law, namely, divine Science." Farther on she says: "Christianity, as he taught and demonstrated it, must ever rest on the basis of the First Commandment and love for man. The doctrines that embrace pantheism, polytheism, and paganism are admixtures of matter and Spirit, truth and error, sickness and sin, life and death. They make man the servant of matter, living by reason of it, suffering because of it, and dying in consequence of it."
ONLINE BOOK Christian Science Versus Pantheism
The Trustees under the Will of Mary Baker Eddy announce a new and compact binding comprising: Retrospection and Introspection Unity of Good Pulpit and Press Rudimental Divine Science No and Yes Christian Science versus Pantheism Message to The Mother Church, 1900 Message to The Mother Church, 1901 Message to The Mother Church, 1902 Christian Healing The People's Idea of God This is a companion volume to "Miscellaneous Writings" and "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany," and together these three books contain all of the writings included in Prose Works. Beautifully bound in black, blue, or brown morocco leather with gold edges, round corners, and printed on Bible paper, the new volume is available at $6.
The Christian Science Reading Room is here to meet the spiritual and health needs of Boulder residents and visitors. It's a place to find answers to questions about the relation of Science to religion, of God (Spirit, Mind) to physical health, and to explore and study metaphysics.It's filled with books, CDs, pamphlets, magazines and internet resources to use on site, or to borrow or purchase. A children's section offers books and CD's for younger learners.Come in and read by the garden window, browse articles and testimonies of healing in our hardbound or online collection of classic writings dating to the turn of the century (1900 not 2000!) or talk with an attendant about Christian Science and the restoration it brings to all areas of life.Books by Mary Baker Eddy sold here:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (including 100 pages of healings resulting from reading and pondering the book)No and Yes Christian HealingThe People's Idea of God: Its Effect on Health and ChristianityUnity of GoodChristian Science versus Pantheism
Central to the claim that science was born of Christianity is the flip side of the coin that modern science did not emerge in any other culture. Why? The short answer is that all the other cultures were influenced by pantheism. The explanation takes more ink though.
The fruit of this denial is a rampant sectarianism of which thoughtful Protestants are deeply ashamed and which the current ecumenical movement is trying to control if not eradicate. Divisions among pagans and infidels, they admit, are expected and understandable. “But for those who are called Christ’s people to be at enmity with one another, to withdraw from one another, to have no intimate, brotherly dealing with one another, is a scandal. It is a scandal even to the unbelieving and half-believing world around us.” [31] Protestants are divided on every issue of faith and morals, and every level of religious practice. Not even the nature of God is exempt from the discord, for though most churches subscribe to the formula, “I believe in God the Father Almighty,” some, like the Christian Scientists (who call themselves Protestant) profess an open pantheism, summarized in Mrs. Baker Eddy’s maxim that, “All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All in All.” [32] They are further divided on the person of Christ, from the extreme of accepting the Nicene Creed that Christ is consubstantial with the Father to making the Incarnation a mere symbol of God’s love for mankind. The Scriptures are still believed to be inspired and inerrant by certain denominations, like the strict Baptists and conservative Lutherans. But for most Protestants, Bible authoritarian is dead. “During the past century and a half, it has crumbled under the impact of biblical and philosophical criticism.” [33] In place of the bible, human reason and personal experience have become the ultimate norms of faith, or, as among the Quakers, the Inner Light, which is variously described as the Indwelling Spirit, or the Voice of God, speaking to the soul without the encumbrance of any book or institution. Some Protestants baptize in infancy, others only after adult profession of faith, and some do not require baptism for salvation, and much less for church membership. Most Protestants have some semblance of the Eucharist which they call the Lord’s Supper, but they differ infinitely in describing what Holy Communion means. For some it is the physical body of Christ, for others His body in spirit, and for most only a symbol or sign of His redemptive love. But the acme of discord is their confusion about the very essence of Christianity, whether Christ ever founded a Church or only started a movement, and if there is a Church what are its qualities and can it be identified. Perhaps the most candid statement at the World Council of Churches in 1954 was the admission by one of its ranking leaders that while verbally "we proclaim that in some profound sense the Church is one, we are divided and stultified over defining that unity. That, of course, is a glimpse of the obvious. If we were agreed on the nature of the Church's one-ness, our struggle between each other would be over.” [34] Yet they will not have unity at the price of submitting to an ultimate authority. "Only a church with a high command" like Roman Catholicism can achieve unanimity. "Protestantism has no such dictator." and therefore "has no united voice. It does not want it on those terms” [35] --which is both an explanation of Protestant discord and a proof that the unity of Catholicism is divine. Human nature is too radically autonomous to be submissively united on such a cosmic scale, except through the special intervention of God. 2ff7e9595c
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