The Apostle Peter perceived and declared that Jesus was the Son of God when he said, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Matt. 16:16; In response, Christ Jesus proposed to build his church on the rock of this spiritual understanding of the Christ — a conscious structure that transcended the ancient concepts of tabernacle and temple.
As part of her discovery of Christian Science, the Science of Christ, Mary Baker Eddy gives in the Glossary of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures the spiritual significance of the biblical term "Church": "The structure of Truth and Love; whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle." Science and Health, p. 583;
This spiritual structure unfolds to individual human consciousness with the understanding of God, divine Truth and Love, infinite Mind, whose spiritual creation is perfect, harmonious, and eternal. This true spiritual structure, resting upon and proceeding from divine Principle, is unchanging, timeless divine reality, to which darkness and discord are unknown. In contrast, the counterfeit human consciousness seems to be a mental structure comprised of widely varying qualities of thought, some better than others. The understanding of true Church elevates human consciousness to immortal consciousness, where material seeming yields to spiritual being, to the conscious "structure of Truth and Love."
Looking at church in another way, we might say, too, that the church militant yields to the church triumphant. In the church militant human consciousness is combating worldliness and striving to put off the human for the divine. To exemplify the church triumphant, we need to have prevailed over material belief and achieved the understanding of spiritual reality.
Today's church member individualizes the church militant as he combats evil and strives to spiritualize his thought. Continuing her Glossary definition of "Church," the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science writes: "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." This activity is exemplified by church members working together to spiritualize world consciousness. Without the relative sense of church as an institution, mankind could not achieve the ultimate demonstration of the church triumphant, either individually or collectively. Thus the Christ, the true idea of God, guides human consciousness upward from the human to the divine.
In the book of Revelation the Christ speaks through John to the church militant, to varying levels of human thought, addressing the seven churches in Asia. To spiritualize the individual and collective consciousness of the members John commends or denounces the various mental qualities he observes in each of the churches. The Revelator is speaking, not just to the Asian churches, but to church members who, like ourselves, were espousing a sacred cause and endeavoring, often under difficult circumstances and with varying degrees of success, to keep faith with what God had revealed to them. They, like ourselves, wanted to strengthen their church through more Godlike thinking and living. Seven times the churches were solemnly offered the rewards of overcoming — of conquering the deadly mesmerism of sensuality — and urged to increase their spirituality: "Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out." Rev. 3:12;
How shall today's church member strengthen the church? Through love of good — bringing every thought into obedience to Christ, the spiritual idea of God and of man's sonship with Him. Church exists in consciousness. It is wholly a spiritual structure, indispensable to the demonstration of happiness, health, and security. Christian Science reveals our inseparability from Church and the profound meaning of Jesus' statement, "The kingdom of God is within you." Luke 17:21; Spirituality — individual and collective — is the protection and strength of our church. Our church will rise or fall according to the spirituality of its members, for without spirituality there is no church. Church in individual consciousness requires individual demonstration, as shown by Mrs. Eddy's statement, "We can unite with this church only as we are new-born of Spirit, as we reach the Life which is Truth and the Truth which is Life by bringing forth the fruits of Love, — casting out error and healing the sick." Science and Health, p. 35;
As we consciously unite with "the structure of Truth and Love," with "whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle," something appears outwardly in our experience — something humanly tangible, which elevates. It's the human institution demonstrating its utility by "elevating the race." It's not enough for the institution to profess utility or merely to give a static institutional appearance of church in the community. The utility, the effectiveness, of the institution depends on the spirituality of its members.
The world is starving for the healing utility our church can provide, but we must understand Church as more than a human institution. Public confidence in institutions has fallen drastically. Educational, religious, judicial, business, political institutions are often distrusted and viewed with suspicion. This skepticism indicates, perhaps, the erosion of religious, social, and political beliefs. Human institutions often tend to lose their potential goodness and utility under the weight of increasing materialism.
What about the church institution Mrs. Eddy defines? By this definition we may measure the collective demonstration of Christian Scientists as they understand Church today. As the integrity and morality of all citizens determine the quality of their government, so the spirituality of the members is the measure of the strength of their church.
How shall we increase our spirituality? As we consciously identify ourselves with God through prayer, His thoughts become more active in us to liberate and purify. They increase our spirituality. Spiritualized thought carries us forward and evolves the outward evidence of Church. It determines the utility of the institution. Thought moves people to action, becomes the agency for reform, healing, and progress. It's through thought that we turn to God, learn to understand divine Principle, discover the meaning of good, renew our strength, feel the touch of holiness. Spiritually scientific thought is prayer.
The thought that spiritualizes is not something we ourselves can generate. We find it outside a human sense of self; we reach out to the inspired Word of God. Our textbooks, the Bible and Science and Health, are a bottomless well of spiritual truths, which nourish consciousness as we go to them in prayer. These books represent divine Love tenderly speaking, communicating the spiritual facts we need — and their meaning, imparting angel thoughts, which not only inspire with goodness and purity but counteract suppositional evil.
Truth's omnipresence is constant. Our feeling Truth's omnipresence depends not so much on our ability to understand as on God's ability to communicate. In the Bible we are assured, "God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work." II Cor. 9:8; When we go to the Bible and Mrs. Eddy's writings it should be to yield without reservation to the truths that appear. When we go to these books, we trust Him. Then the surface turbulence of mortal thought recedes and we look deeply into the still waters of Truth.
Spiritualization of consciousness is not achieved in a day. It's the most demanding task one could undertake — impossible of accomplishment without loving God, good, more than we love ourselves, our convenience, our pride, or the approval of others. These are strong demands. They require heroic perseverance. But there is no alternative to God's demand. Ease in matter and self-satisfaction are self-destructive, so humanity has no choice but to get on with the work. Through spiritualization of consciousness we can shorten our journey and help others along the way.
Shouldn't spiritualization of thought be easy? Since God, good, is infinite and all that is real, why doesn't consistent demonstration of good come easily? After all, if one is swimming in the ocean, it shouldn't be hard to get wet! The difficulty lies in the human tendency to accept as real the mesmeric appearances of the senses, for they obscure and distort the evidence of spiritual reality. Mrs. Eddy notes this in her statement: "It is their materiality that clogs the progress of students, and 'this kind goeth not forth but by prayer and fasting.' It is materialism through which the animal magnetizer preys, and in turn becomes a prey." Miscellaneous Writings, p. 156;
For example, if we in a careless moment become ill-tempered or resentful, we're undermining in consciousness our sense of Church, the "structure of Truth and Love." Or, if the unkindness of another offends and intensifies a personal sense of ourselves, we're weakening our demonstration of Church, because the strength of our church lies in our spirituality. If we can be induced to blame, fear, or hate, we're weakening the church; we're beclouding the activity of the true idea of Church in our consciousness and becoming a hindrance to humanity's collective spiritual progress. Jesus said, "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God." Matt. 5:8. The consciousness innocent of the contamination of envy, rivalry, evil-speaking, and selfishness makes rapid strides toward understanding and demonstrating the spirituality upon which our church depends.
Man in God's likeness is spiritual today. Let us rejoice that this is our true identity and exemplify daily our innocence as the reflection of the one infinite Spirit, God. Then we will know the conscious structure of Truth and Love to be strong and unassailable. The institution will afford abundant proof of its utility. Our church membership will be of one Mind, its Sunday School will build character, its church services will heal, its Reading Room will draw the stranger, and its lectures will reach the heart of humanity.
