The Apostle John felt so sure of God's existence that he wrote with absolute conviction, "God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God."I John 4:16;
Certainly if God is infinite, God's tender love is infinitely present and eternally manifests in infinite ways the Love that is God. Further, God is known in Christian Science as divine Principle, the fundamental source, the basis of all law and substance.
Principle, then, must mean Love. And the all-pervading love that is in and of God is evidence of Truth also, for God's love is infinitely real and eternally the fact of His nature. Our discussion of the subject "Love in the Church" will refer particularly to these three synonyms for God: Love, Principle, Truth.
Mrs. Eddy's definition of "Church" in Science and Health reads in part, "The structure of Truth and Love; whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle."Science and Health, p. 583; The infinitude of creation, whether in its order or in its vastness, includes the spiritual idea, Church. And Church exists because God exists! This statement challenges whatever denies or doubts the existence of Church.
Continuing her definition of "Church" in its relative sense, Mrs. Eddy says, "The Church is that institution, which affords proof of its utility and is found elevating the race, rousing the dormant understanding from material beliefs to the apprehension of spiritual ideas and the demonstration of divine Science, thereby casting out devils, or error, and healing the sick."
The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts, implements this definition. It has meaning, purpose, design, function; it relates to all that God creates. How encouraging and inspiring it is to see that Church is more important than material personalities and human opinions! To realize the grandeur of Church as Truth's idea, Love's expression, unfolding from the foundation of divine Principle, makes every warring concept, every opinionated belief about Church, pale to total insignificance.
An office of Church is to reveal the unity of all of God's ideas rejoicing together in the glory of God. This unity "rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle." Humanly the purpose of church is to awaken thought to practical, healing, redeeming action. In this awakened state we love our unity with God and share it more and more with mankind. This rousing, elevating, healing action casts out all that would separate us from God and from our loving unity with each other. This is beautifully expressed in a Scriptural account of the announcement of the birth of the child, Jesus: "Suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men."Luke 2:13, 14;
All strife in churches, unwillingness to give freely, unwillingness to labor and sacrifice on behalf of the church, must lie in the belief that man is material and that Church is material. This false belief would separate man from God and from Church as well. The separating argument is based on a belief of twoness, two kinds of man, two kinds of Church. This is not good, and it does not produce good results.
How can we do anything about it? The whole human experience, when viewed through material sense, seems to indicate a separation from the presence of God. And yet Christ Jesus proved that the understanding of God as the only real presence and power changed the human picture from disease, immorality, lack, and deep-seated character problems, to health, purity, abundance; and it transformed, strengthened, and beautified character. Furthermore, in the science of numbers almost anyone happily cognizes the unnaturalness—the actual unreality—of a mistake; and turning to mathematical rules which he acknowledges as laws, he corrects the mistake.
Both the presence of God and the science of numbers are invisible to human sight. Why should it seem natural to be sure of the existence and availability of the science of numbers and not of the existence and presence of God? Indeed there is reason to believe in the coincidence of the human and divine for healing; and spiritual understanding evidences this fact.
Why should there be a reluctance to turn to spiritual rules and laws to solve our problems? In answering this, one might note that human resistance to spiritual reliance is throughout history an old and sad story.
Church members historically have often failed to see the majesty of Church and have failed to defend their churches from the errors which can always be so easily dispelled. Easily? Yes, easily! All conflicts in churches, all church problems, are limited to mortal personality, clashing human wills, lack of spiritual determination to hold thought to the consciousness of the presence of divine Love. Problems in church seem difficult because members are sometimes reluctant to think and live as children of divine Love.
Does this mean we should ignore our church problems? Far from it. But it does mean that we need to solve each problem with the truth regarding it, just as we solve our problems in arithmetic. It is what we do about a problem that counts. And the doing counts most when it claims to be hard to do! Thinking and acting based on the conviction of being in the presence of God may take great self-discipline, but they bring the greatest rewards.
In solving an arithmetic problem, we take an impersonal attitude and are largely unimpressed with the problem—how it got there, what made it so bad, how we have so carelessly accepted it, and so forth. A more careful and exact application of the rules of arithmetic to the problem is the only thing that deeply concerns us. In a church problem the basic element may seem to be people, money, how to do, what to buy, what we wish as opposed to what they wish, and how they act! It matters not, really, whether we are right and they are wrong, or whether the wrong is equally divided. The thing that really matters is how, in the face of the problem, we think and act as children of divine Love.
It is in our unity with God that we find the only proper basis for our unity with each other. The answer to every church problem lies in finding our place in divine Love and in demanding of ourselves that we understand that what is true of us is true of each and every member of the church. Then in our human dealings with our brother members we can say what we need to say with a heart full of love. Usually, unless we can talk and act in the moral strength of loving-kindness and with love for our brethren in our thoughts of them, it is wise to pause and be silent.
In church is found the cement of unity so essential in the collective demonstration of God's love. These words are not mere theory; I write from experience. I was once immeasurably benefited during a church problem by winning a great struggle within myself and have been happier and quicker to turn to the right way of problem-solving ever since.
The irresistible logic of some statements by the Apostle Paul in Galatians became a rule from which I have not been able to escape since that experience. The statements are: "All the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another."Gal. 5:14, 15;
A number of years ago I had to learn to defend my conviction of the loving nature of my brother church member as the child of divine Love even as a mother bear defends its young! It takes willingness and determination to fight for the true idea of ourselves and of our brother men.
But in carrying on this battle, we are defending all that constitutes Church. In the love of Church we find our love for each other and our willingness to be patient with each other. We mentally turn away from the personal idiosyncrasies that people display and love the true goal of our endeavor, a better proof of the presence of Church, "the structure of Truth and Love."
In the problem referred to above, I found myself charged with an important responsibility about which there were many differing opinions. There were many strong views as to the way the matter should be handled and about my ability to handle the work.
The only thing that I knew to do at the start was to turn from the conflicting personal elements to the Christ, Truth. It soon became clear that the ways and means of accomplishing my trust must meet the requirement of that which "rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle." Above all I must love. But the question persisted, "How can I love these people?"
Soon I began to see that what had to be done was to love what divine Love, infinite Principle, had created. It seemed important to know more about the word "structure," and several dictionaries were consulted. One of Webster's definitions was typical: "The interrelation of parts as dominated by the general character of the whole." I saw that "the structure of Truth and Love" is dominated and controlled by Truth and Love and manifests the nature of Truth and Love.
The tender nature of each one as owned and controlled by Truth and Love became easy to see when I thought of my fellow members or when we were together. I saw that even as the sun shines on everything its light reaches, so I could shine my love of God and His Church on everyone I must deal with. The thought of people and how they acted vanished as a bullying force; and, instead, the love of what God creates dominated my thinking.
Every step I needed to take in the fulfillment of my responsibility came clearly to thought and won acceptance from my brother members. We found a new unity in the fulfillment of the plans, and the personal elements of disagreement became a thing of the past. We enjoyed a unity in love, and we all contributed to it and defended it, instead of defending our conflicting points of view. Church meant more to us than ever before, and the fact was demonstrated that in truth we rested upon and proceeded from divine Principle, to apply once again Mrs. Eddy's definition of Church. In other words, we were all demonstrating our place in Church, and the truth of what Church is was the fact dominating our collective actions in the institution that represents it.
Love in the church is the inevitable and irresistible result of the fact that the church belongs to divine Love. The church is the collective action which gives greater force to benevolence, loving-kindness, moral courage, awakening, healing, and the redemption of mankind than is possible to a lone individual.
We join the church to give. The act of joining is the act whereby we cease living to ourselves and begin living on behalf of all mankind.
Just as we know the sun by the light and energy it gives forth, just as we know a spring by the water it pours forth, so we know a church by the love it pours forth. Every phase of church work has one abiding purpose—to give—to give something which will increase the recognition right now of the presence and power and goodness of Truth and Love, of divine Principle.
The church demands love and unity among its members, for nothing less expresses Truth and Love; nothing less can proceed from the divine Principle that is God. Love in the church is beautifully expressed by Mrs. Eddy in a tender paragraph in her book Pulpit and Press. The paragraph opens with these words: "Christian Scientists, their children and grandchildren to the latest generations, inevitably love one another with that love wherewith Christ loveth us; a love unselfish, unambitious, impartial, universal,—that loves only because it is Love."Pul., p. 21.
Thus did Hezekiah ...in every work that
he began in the service of the house of God, and in the law,
and in the commandments,
to seek his God, he did it with all his heart,
and prospered.
II Chronicles 31:20, 21
