What Is Christian Science?Mangasarian, M. M. (Mangasar Mugurditch)
Religion
What Is Christian Science?
Mangasarian, M. M. (Mangasar Mugurditch)
Christian Science
Will the Christian Science healers explain the functions of the "hand,"
the "fingers," and the "spit" in "mental medicine"? If it be answered
that Jesus resorted to material means to illustrate the power of
the spirit, etc., it would follow that material means may be used to
advantage, and that there is no such feud between matter and mind as the
Eddyites proclaim.
Many other texts could be quoted to show that Jesus used material means.
He touched the bier, he laid his hands on the patient, which is the kind
of manipulation vehemently denounced by Mrs. Eddy in her comments on
mesmerism. The "touch" so frequent in the miracles performed by Jesus is
downright heresy in Mrs. Eddy's system of healing.
_Now when the sun was setting, all they that had any sick with divers
diseases brought them unto him; and he laid his hands on every one of
them. (Luke iv, 40.)_
Again, Jesus recommends to his disciples dieting by way of abstinence
from food--that is, fasting--for the healing of obstinate diseases.
Evidently he believed that dieting increased one's healing power.
In the same pamphlet published and copyrighted by the Christian Science
Publication Society, the author, William R. Rathbon, member of the Board
of Lectureship of the First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston,
writes: "He [Jesus] gave himself no concern about physical symptoms...
He cared little about what the sick man had been eating, but much about
what he had been thinking." In the New Testament, however, nearly every
patient's symptoms are described, to which Jesus listened without a word
of protest and with apparent consent. Had the evangelists believed, as
the Christian Science lecturers teach, that disease is purely mental,
they would not have gone into details in describing physical symptoms.
"And a certain woman, which had an issue of blood twelve years" (Mark
v, 25.) Does not that describe the nature and duration, as well as the
physical effects, of the woman's disease?
"Lord, have mercy upon my son, for he is a lunatic" (Matt, xvii, 15).
"And one of the multitude said, Master, I have brought unto thee my
son"; and then the father proceeds to describe the symptoms of his son's
malady: "He foameth and gnasheth with his teeth, and pineth away" (Mark
ix, 17).
In all these cases there was not a word of rebuke from the great healer
because of the symptoms described.
Jesus himself, on one occasion, asked for certain physical details
before proceeding to heal the patient:--_And he [Jesus] asked his father
[the father of the sick youth], How long is it ago since this came unto
him? (Mark ix, 21.)_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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