Down through the centuries, false religious teaching has played a major part in obstructing and hindering the progress of the race and the freedom of men. Incorrect concepts of God and man are responsible for our difficulties, and only clear scientific thinking will liberate us.
Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, recognized that a fundamental error in orthodox theology is its teaching regarding atonement; and she devotes a chapter to the subject of "Atonement and Eucharist" in her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." She has provided also for a Lesson-Sermon on the "Doctrine of Atonement," which appears twice each year in the Christian Science Quarterly, showing the Christian Science teaching on this vital subject.
A dictionary indicates that the word "atone" means fundamentally "to be, or cause to be, at one." The ordinary theological sense of the word, and the generally accepted meaning, is to make reparation, to appease, to expiate. It is obvious that as long as Jesus' lifework is regarded as merely an expiation of our sins, the great spiritual value and meaning of the atonement are lost. If Jesus' death on the cross expiated our sins, then the sins of the ages would be compensated by that single experience of the Master. But as understood in Christian Science, the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus were only two of the incidents—although the great culminating ones—in his atonement, and they have a very different meaning from that usually attached to them. Christ Jesus' whole life, every incident, every experience, every uttered word, was part of his atonement, his teaching and exemplification of the eternal unity that exists between God and man—not between just the human Jesus and God, but between man and God.
