The Church of Christ, Scientist, is a living church in the degree that it is built on the lives of its members and to the extent that these lives express the Life that is God. Though Mrs. Eddy recognized the importance at this stage of a visible, organized expression of Church, the fundamentally spiritual character of Church is indicated in her interpretation of that word in Science and Health: "Church. The structure of Truth and Love; whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle.
"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."Science and Health, p. 583.
The fundamental character of man as God's expression is no less spiritual than that of Church. Did not Paul ask, "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you"? I Cor. 3:16.
Church and man are not basically organization but exist as the functioning presence of God-derived good, their real structure and continuity. In the case of Church, its efficacy as a useful institution will depend on the understanding of its spiritual reality expressed by church members. To the degree that we let our individual living rest on and proceed from Principle, Love, we bring to our churches the character and inspiration of the Christ. In this sense, it is perhaps appropriate to think of church membership more in terms of church living rather than church going.
As we show forth "the structure of Truth and Love" in home, office, and community, we set a standard that cannot help "elevating the race." Our understanding is roused by seeing life— the expression of Life—metaphysically instead of physically. As we gain this spiritual sense of being, the erroneous belief that true existence is less than God, Life, falls away, and in the process sickness is healed. We fulfill the purpose of the institution by living the quality of the divine structure.
Church is primarily an individual experience. Ultimately, we cannot look outside our own unity with the divine Mind for our help or inspiration. Special meetings, addresses by inspired teachers, and the achievements of others will do little to help our churches unless they encourage us to let consciousness rest on and proceed from Principle, instead of person. The strength of a Church of Christ, Scientist, is not so much found in personal combination or the multiplication of church activity as in the spiritual quality of its members. Spiritual quality attracts.
If the signs of a humanly useful institution are lacking, if membership and inspiration are declining, and if those who turn to Christian Science for healing are not being helped enough, it is easy to blame the materialism of the age, the shift in urban population, the general decline in church going, or even a favorite television program that may clash with a Wednesday testimony meeting. However plausible, these are neither reasons nor excuses. The Christ draws people across deserts, so great is its attraction. If we are not attracting, we may need to ask ourselves if we are sufficiently letting our lives rest on and proceed from Principle. Are we failing to let the Christ, rather than mortal person, characterize our living?
Human effort—advertising, talking, or building up organization—can, if we let it, be simply a deflection from the prime role of Church. Of course we want to see our church proving itself to be a useful organization, but starting with the human picture and trying to correct that is not the scientific way. Only by living the spiritual fact and embracing its human application is our church placed soundly on the Rock, Christ.
Because church building is primarily an individual experience, it is in individual consciousness that we detect and eradicate the elements that would hide the spiritual structure both of Church and man. The Bible and Mrs. Eddy's works give us the blueprint for what is right; they also warn us of the dangers that stand in the way. Stumbling blocks come from the basic belief, in one form or another, that matter is living, intelligent, or substantial. It may be useful to look at some of the disguises this basic error assumes.
The first is the attempt to contain what is fundamentally spiritual within a material framework. We do this, for example, when we start with material phenomena in trying to work out spiritual facts or try to seek the proof and confirmation of what exists spiritually through material sense. The result is a failure to let go of the mortal or material. Instead, we merely seek to improve and thus keep it. Our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, says, "Spiritualism would transfer men from the spiritual sense of existence back into its material sense."Science and Health, p. 75. Backward transformation is a denial of Science, because it rests on belief instead of understanding. When we recognize what it would claim to do and the detrimental effect it would have on spiritual advancement, we cease to be deluded by it.
Clearly allied to this error is sensualism, which, in its broadest meaning, implies worshiping and appreciating through the material senses. Matter is not the agency through which to grasp the things of Spirit, and the attempt to make it so is paganism. The tendency to appeal to worshipers through the gratification of the senses is rebuked by Christ Jesus' words: "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth."John 4:24.
The belief that man is separated from God and must, so to speak, work his passage back to the kingdom of heaven, leads to further errors: the belief, for instance, that the gap between God and man must be bridged by some mortal who, in turn, can condemn or forgive us on God's behalf. A second, which follows, is the formalism that goes with creed and ritual and that claims to be a vehicle for salvation. We have to be aware that we do not look to finite personality, in whatever guise, to substitute for our inward adherence to Principle or believe that personal intervention, for good or ill, can ever come between us and our Principle. The Bible tells us that through Jesus Christ we are made "kings and priests unto God and his Father."Rev. 1:6.
Personalization of good or evil is an error that brings much harm and leads to schism. If this error seems rife in our church, we should remember that we all find it easy to judge ourselves by our ideals and others by their actions and that any manifestation of evil has come up to be healed, not nurtured. All the good that appears to be the teaching or practice of anyone is really the one good, shining through despite, and not because of, the belief that it is human. All the evil is impersonal error, and if we put personal labels on it, we proclaim our own inability to maintain the Christ concept. If we differ from others in our approach, we can remember that the correct teaching of Science is in Science and Health and that each of us perhaps knows a little more than yesterday, but, we hope, not so much as tomorrow!
The importance of never looking outside Mind to find the reality of anything is stressed by the second commandment: "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth."Ex. 20:4. The world's resistance to Truth and the effort of mortal mind to attenuate or adulterate pure being are the same now as they were at the time of Jesus. They are also as powerless, remaining in the realm of suggestion, not fact. Our admission of its claims is all that gives suggestion its seeming power.
The answer to spurious claims is individual. As Christian Scientists, we have to ask important questions, and we have to answer them in our lives. Do I think of Church as a material structure? Am I letting an exaggerated sense of human activity hide the spiritual purpose? Am I localizing the divine idea, Church, in Boston, or Birmingham, or anywhere else? Or do I see Church to be as ever present as God? Am I personalizing the direction of The Mother Church or supporting the office of the Directors by knowing that Principle, through our Leader's provisions in the Church Manual, alone governs? Is my own sense of Christian Science being eroded by the semi-metaphysics that looks to matter as well as to Spirit for truth? Do I criticize or condemn my fellow members or love them as myself?
Am I living the truth of Church in my home, office, and community, or am I trying to use Christian Science to support and better a material sense of existence? Only if we can answer these questions rightly can we be assured that we have renewed our sense of dynamism and usefulness.
Let us be absolutely clear that we are not talking about abandoning organization but only those attitudes that would prevent the real usefulness of church membership and attendance. As long as we seem to have a temple called body, we will have one called church. When Jesus had ascended, he left no body behind for others to bury. Mrs. Eddy, speaking of church organization, comments, "After this material form of cohesion and fellowship has accomplished its end, continued organization retards spiritual growth, and should be laid off,—even as the corporeal organization deemed requisite in the first stages of mortal existence is finally laid off, in order to gain spiritual freedom and supremacy."Retrospection and Introspection, p. 45. The physical, organizational sense of everything has to be on tap but not on top, and is to be discarded only as fast as practical. But the falling away of the temple "body" and the temple "church" go on in balance.
The world would seem to be hungering for Truth; nothing short of a spiritual answer is adequate for its needs. It will be seen to be hungering for what Science has to offer as we ourselves first truly hunger for righteousness rather than after human ways and means. Let us cease to look to matter, or person, for inspiration at church services. Let's stop believing that we, as persons, are going somewhere to find God. Let us meet the various claims of evil to disrupt or delay the full mission of our church within consciousness. This is the time for the renewing of our individual sense of being from a material to a spiritual basis.
