ON the title page of The Christian Science Journal are these words of St. Paul from his second letter to the Corinthians: "For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds." In the next verse Paul speaks of "casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." Surely these words are an inspired proclamation of the healing power of Truth, of the overcoming, through spiritual means alone, of the stronghold of belief in intelligence, life, or power apart from God, good.
What are the strongholds that would rear themselves in so-called mortal mind and seemingly oppose the truth as revealed to this age through the teachings of Christian Science? Strongholds of fear, doubt, lack, sorrow, sin, suffering! The erroneous belief in the reality of matter and evil claims to have a strong hold upon human thinking, and the resultant beliefs in the inevitability of death, in the so-called laws of heredity, manifested in physical and temperamental weaknesses —these are of the numerous "imaginations" which come from the carnal mind's pretensions to power. But "the weapons of our warfare are . . . mighty through God to the pulling down" of the most impregnable of mortal strongholds. Mary Baker Eddy challenges the false assumption of a power opposed to God, divine Mind, in these liberating words (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 412) :"The power of Christian Science and divine Love is omnipotent. It is indeed adequate to unclasp the hold and to destroy disease, sin, and death."
One of the most formidable strongholds that would claim to hold mortal thinking in bondage is the erroneous belief that matter is real substance. He who desires to express spiritual dominion cannot compromise in his stand on this question, for it is the unwavering conviction of the allness of Spirit which enables the Christian Scientist to triumph, as did Jesus, over materiality and evil. What if the weight of false education, based on faith in the human intellect, has given credence to the lie of life in matter? What if the consensus of world opinion would claim a mortal selfhood apart from God, Spirit? "Should not a people seek unto their God," rather than bow before false beliefs? The Christian Scientist rightfully looks to divine Mind, instead of to mindless matter, for the truth about creation.
