I have been thinking and praying deeply about church and cherishing its role in the world today.
One afternoon I read an address that Mary Baker Eddy wrote to her students in 1894, on the occasion of laying the cornerstone of her church. In the address she shared these thoughts: “The Church, more than any other institution, at present is the cement of society, and it should be the bulwark of civil and religious liberty. But the time cometh when the religious element, or Church of Christ, shall exist alone in the affections, and need no organization to express it” (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, pp. 144–145).
What an astounding statement. It reveals Mrs. Eddy’s vision of Church as an idea of God, a fundamentally spiritual structure that will forever remain, no matter how that idea is manifested humanly. What a beautiful description of Church, expressing how eternally safe it is from extinction and irrelevance. It is consistent with the first part of her definition of Church as “the structure of Truth and Love; whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 583).
