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The
Christian Science Standard |
The
Christian Science Standard
Volume
10, Number 1 (January
1999)
Christian
Science Endtime Center
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“I
know what is coming. Mary Baker Eddy Mrs. Eddy, like Jesus, was concerned with the preservation of her teaching for those who were going to face the problems of the endtime. In accordance with their warnings, by restoring Jesus’ gospel of the kingdom, which is represented today in Mrs. Eddy’s class teaching of the 1880’s, our Christian Science Endtime Center is established to help prevent another situation where all are lost, such as occurred in the days of Noah: “And [they] knew not until the flood came, and took them all away” (Matthew 24:39).
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MRS.
EDDY’S FOREKNOWLEDGE On May 18, 1903, Mrs. Eddy discussed the following with her Divinity class: “I know what is coming. I dare not tell you what I know. . . . You will know some day.” (As recorded by Mrs. Eddy’s student, Lida Fitzpatrick, in Notes on the Course in Divinity, p. 9; reprinted in Rare Book Company’s Blue Book, p. 2.) After Mrs. Eddy said she did not “dare” to tell her Divinity students what was “coming,” she immediately went on to discuss the end of the world and cataclysmic changes in the earth. She said, “We are told the earth will be destroyed.” What was revealed to Mrs. Eddy at the turn of the century, which she did not “dare” to tell even her close students, was apparently more drastic than the illustration she used of the catastrophic eruption of Mt. Pelee,—a sudden explosive incineration. Here we see Mrs. Eddy stating her catastrophist position on the cataclysmic end of the world, i.e., an abrupt end. This was her stated position and should be the position of her church and her followers today. Mrs. Eddy writes: They who discern the face of the skies cannot always discern the mental signs of these times, and peer through the opaque error. Where my vision begins and is clear, theirs grows indistinct and ends. (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 347:9-12) Mrs. Eddy was practical in her foreknowledge of the end of the world as prophesied by Jesus and his apostles and the Old Testament prophets. Both Jesus and Mrs. Eddy wanted their followers to be profoundly aware of the conditions connected with the endtime. They did not want their followers to be caught in the same situation as the people in Noah’s day. In his discourse on the Mount of Olives with his close students who were inquiring about the end of the world, Jesus said: . . .[A]s in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark. And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the [second] coming of the Son of man be. (Matthew 24:38,39) Writing in the Christian Science textbook of the catastrophic events occurring at the endtime, Mrs. Eddy states: Love will finally mark the hour of harmony, and spiritualization will follow, for Love is Spirit. Before error is wholly destroyed, there will be interruptions of the general material routine. Earth will become dreary and desolate, but summer and winter, seedtime and harvest (though in changed forms), will continue unto the end,—until the final spiritualization of all things. “The darkest hour precedes the dawn.” We maintain that the “famine and pestilence, want and woe,” dreariness, and desolation are conditions of the endtime,—signs occurring today. These signs should turn us to the “hour of harmony” and “spiritualization.” To “mark the hour of harmony” means to recognize or observe that hour,—the spiritual concept of which the hour of the “end” is the counterfeit. If we are not actively striving to spiritualize consciousness, we will not mark the hour of harmony but instead be liable to experience the desolation and dreariness (catastrophic changes) of the endtime.
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THE BIBLE CONFIRMS PREVIOUS CATACLYSMS AND WARNS OF ANOTHER SERIES OF CATASTROPHES RESULTING IN THE “END OF ERROR” Malachi (4:1) describes the endtime: “the day cometh [“day of Jehovah,” i.e., the end of the world], that shall burn as an oven” to the degree “that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.” What could be clearer than that he is indicating there is going to be a heating up of the earth resulting in its destruction. The fulfilling of Jesus’ prophecy says that shortly after the second coming, the end of the world will occur. Malachi (4:2) refers to the “Sun of righteousness” (Christ) at the second coming which is in contrast with the sun that is to make the earth “burn as an oven.” In the Scofield Reference Bible, the third footnote of the first chapter of Genesis, pointing to references in the Old Testament, states: Jer. 4:2326, Isa 24:1 and 45:18 clearly indicate that the earth had undergone a cataclysmic change as the result of a divine judgment. The face of the earth bears everywhere the marks of such a catastrophe. And the apostle Peter, recalling Jesus’ words, writes concerning the “oven” phenomenon: . . .[T]he day of the Lord [i.e., the end of the world] will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? (II Peter 3:10-12; cf. Science and Health, p. 565:21: “fervent heat.” ) Do we have in the world at this time such an “oven” phenomenon taking place? We turn your thought to the current discoveries of the geologists.
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RECENT GEOLOGIC DISCOVERIES In recent years the collection and study of ice cores has made dramatic changes in the way geologists and climatologists think about the record of earth’s climate and consequently its impact upon human life. Much like rings in a tree trunk, ice cores are thought to be a calendar of climate variations, since each year’s snowfall is deposited in a distinct layer. Atmospheric chemicals, dust and even bubbles trapped in the ice enable scientists to reconstruct climates of the past. (The New York Times, Sunday, August 23, 1998; National Section, p. 20) The first ice core samples were collected in Greenland but the findings were not generally accepted until a parallel study of ice cores was conducted in the Antarctic,—on the opposite end of the world. The subsequent examination of ice core samples from the Antarctic corroborated the information obtained from Greenland documenting a pattern of climatic changes dating back 160,000 years. Simply stated, from scientific analysis of the ice cores, scientists now have irrefutable evidence that the world undergoes periodic worldwide climate changes in sudden shifts, often occurring within a span of one to three years. If the ice teaches us anything, it’s that there is no room for complacency. This is a volatile world. If climate shifted abruptly in the past, not just once, but repeatedly, it’s inevitable it will happen again. The question is, when? (“Warnings from the Ice,” NOVA/PBS/WGBH Television; Air date: April 21, 1998.) Physical scientists now believe that there are critical thresholds in our climate that once crossed, trigger such an abrupt change. Consider the following: Scientists have known for some time that the climate is a “nonlinear system” that may respond marginally or not at all to initial changes—but then leap suddenly to a new equilibrium, if pushed a little further. Although it is too early to know for sure, the global climate may have just crossed such a threshold. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, human activities have added 925 billion tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) to the atmosphere, taking concentrations of this heattrapping gas to the highest levels in 160,000 years. The climate record shows that when CO2 concentrations reached even close to such levels in the past—during the Eemian interglacial period, for example, beginning 135,000 years ago—they were accompanied by a rapid rise in temperatures. (“Last Tango in Buenos Aires,” by Christopher Flavin; World Watch Magazine, Nov/Dec 1998.) Speaking of such sudden jumps in climate, Kendrich Taylor, a research scientist with the Desert Research Institute at the University of Nevada said: What it means is that there may be sort of triggers or thresholds in the climate system, so that you can be in this one climate state and you can be changing something—perhaps greenhouse gases, perhaps other aspects of the climate system—and you won’t see any change, or very much change in climate. And then, once you cross a critical threshold, or you sort of trip a trigger, if you will, the climate abruptly changes to another state. And it catches you by surprise. So, you can be sort of monitoring climate and you can be saying, “Well, there’s nothing going on, and there’s no real changes. We don’t have anything to worry about.” And then, all of a sudden—BOOM!—you’ve got a problem. And it’s there. And it’s sort of too late to do anything about it. (Nova "Warnings from the Ice" -- see above)
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EXPONENTIAL
GROWTH — “The
day of the Lord [end of the world]
Physical scientists studying the earth’s climate see no end in sight to the current nonlinear or exponential rise in month-to-month global temperature increases. What does this mean? While temperatures continue to increase around the world, the changes may seem almost inconsequential in comparison with day to day weather. In fact, the changes in the weather can seem pleasant with shorter and warmer winters. But the rate or the pacing of the process of gradually rising worldwide temperatures is what matters. According to geologists, in a nonlinear or exponential situation the danger of increasing temperatures does not appear until it is too late (like the sudden rise of flood-waters as in the days of Noah). ...exponential growth [is a] doubling [of an amount] and redoubling and doubling again. Nearly everyone is surprised by it, because most people think linearly and think of growth as a linear process. A quantity grows linearly when it increases by a constant amount in a constant time period. . . . A quantity grows exponentially when its increase is proportional to what is already there. (Beyond the Limits, by Donella and Dennis Meadows and Jorgen Randers. (Post Mills, Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishing Co., 1992) pp. 16, 17.) The following illustrates the unexpected suddenness of exponential growth: Suppose you own a pond on which a water lily is growing. The lily plant doubles in size each day. If the plant were allowed to grow unchecked, it would completely cover the pond in 30 days, choking off the other forms of life in the water. For a long time the lily plant seems small, so you decide not to worry about it until it covers half the pond. On what day would that be? So, the pond is covered before the danger is detected. On the 29th day the pond is only half covered and there appears to be plenty of time remaining to take action. But the next day the pond is completely covered and it is too late. Why don’t we respond to such increases? [Because] we don’t respond to processes. We respond to events. It takes an eruption or an earthquake . . . or the collapse of an ice sheet to rivet our attention. I once read of a teacher who illustrated this point with a frog. First the teacher dropped the frog into a beaker of hot water [an event]. The frog jumped right out. Then the teacher put the frog in a beaker of cool water, and turned on a Bunsen burner [a process]. The frog kept swimming in the beaker and it boiled to death. (The Next One Hundred Years, by Jonathan Weiner. (New York: Bantam Books, 1990) p. 80.) Just as the person looking at his half-covered lily pond on the 29th day doesn’t see the disaster that is going to overcome his pond on the very next day, it is a tendency of the human mind to resist any association of the current weather or climate conditions with the end of the world. Just as the lily pads multiply almost imperceptibly and inconsequentially, global climate changes cannot be detected quickly because the weather from day to day or year to year is naturally variable. Climate is the long-term average of weather; therefore it can only be measured over decades. Now even the year to year and month to month changes are gradually becoming more severe and alarming. Are we, like the frog, unaware that we are in an end of the world heating process?
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“MAJOR GLOBAL CLIMATE DISRUPTION IS EXPECTED” An Associated Press report which appeared recently quoted the following: We would not have been surprised if 1998 was warmer... What we didn’t expect was that it literally would go off the chart [exponentially]. The global average temperature increased 0.2 degrees Celsius or more than 0.3 degrees Fahrenheit. That sounds small, but if the trend continues. . . major global climate disruption is expected. (Denver Rocky Mountain News; January 17, 1999, p. 46A. Quote: Lester Brown, World Watch Institute. ) Also speaking of the climate of 1998, Phillip Jones, a professor with the Climate Research unit at Britain’s University of East Anglia said: We believe that it’s not only the warmest year of this century, but it is also the warmest year of the entire millennium. . . . Compared to the last 1,000 years, the rise in temperature over the last three or four decades has been the most dramatic rise that we’ve seen. (NBC Nightly News; Reporter: Robert Hager; Air date: December 30, 1998.) Anthony Del Genio, a research scientist with NASA, in speaking of the abrupt rise in temperatures for 1998 said that a rise of “several degrees gets out of the precedent for the evolution of human civilization.” (Ibid.) And in an MSNBC report was the following: So much research effort is going into temperature change because of the fear that Earth will warm up to such a degree that our very existence might be threatened. (“1998 heading for warmest year mark,” by Miguel Llanos, MSNBC; June 8, 1998.) Thus we can see that the concept of the end of the world is not some unusual or foolish idea, or a misinterpretation of Jesus’ or Mrs. Eddy’s words, but is a present possibility and imminent certainty. Further, the Bible supports the findings of geologists regarding the pattern or repetition of cataclysmic change. Analysis of the ice core samples, like the marks on the surface of the earth, is evidence of these changes. There are future cataclysmic changes to take place, and the Old Testament prophets, as well as Jesus and the apostles in the New Testament, alerted their followers to this fact. According to the Olivet discourse in Matthew, Jesus gave signs of catastrophes for his disciples to look for that would precede this sudden end, when Peter says all your “things” (houses, offices, contents, etc.) will “be dissolved.” But Jesus went on to say that “the end is not yet.” (Matt. 24:6) He stated, then “this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world,” (Matt. 24:14) meaning that the gospel of the kingdom was to be the means of escape from the dissolving process.
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THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM Jesus identified the process needed to meet this final cataclysmic change (end of the world) as salvation or transfiguration. The process of transfiguration is the same as the process of salvation. Jesus’ disciples were led to believe that the end of the world would take place in their lifetime, following his second appearing in the flesh. However, the second appearing of Christ did not occur until 1866, when Christian Science was revealed to Mary Baker Eddy. According to the book of Revelation, which describes the events of the second coming of Christ, the second advent would be in the form of a woman crowned with twelve stars. (cf. Revelation 12:1. The twelve stars represent all nations and the crown represents rulership. The fact that she wears a crown of twelve stars symbolizes that she represents the second coming of Christ.) At the time of the first coming, the subject of Jesus’ teaching was “Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matt. 4:17) This was also the theme of the ministry of Jesus’ predecessor, John the Baptist, who made the challenging statement to some of his followers regarding the endtime, “who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” (Matt. 3:7) Today this “wrath” can be understood to mean what Mrs. Eddy referred to in the Christian Science textbook as the dreariness and desolation of the endtime. The process of transfiguration or salvation is a mental spiritualization of consciousness,—actively getting out of the flesh as fast as you can. (cf. Science and Health, p. 117:19-23 “exit from the flesh.”) The textbooks for this process are the Bible and the “little book” prophesied by Daniel and in Revelation 10, which is the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, as revealed to Mary Baker Eddy. Mrs. Eddy was committed to the overcoming of “the world, the flesh, and the devil.” (cf. First Church of Christ Scientist and Miscellany, p. 268:20-24; Book of Common Prayer; see also Science and Health, p. 10:12-13.) This vein of thought ran through her teaching in the Massachusetts Metaphysical College in the 1880’s,—the same as with Jesus (“Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Matt. 4:17). Since she said without hesitation that she knew what was coming, what would logically be the focal point of her teaching? It would necessarily be the kingdom of heaven as a remedy for the endtime and the destruction of “the world, the flesh, and the devil.” It could not be confined just to healing the sick. It must include regeneration, the process of transfiguration, and the overcoming of all material sense as fundamental elements.
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A CHANGE OF THINKING REQUIRED The belief in a material world is utterly false,—a creation of a material sense of things. As Mrs. Eddy says: “There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter.” (S&H 468:9) The present belief that the world is made up of matter is similar to the time when people believed the earth was flat. At no time was this true; that millions of people believed it to be so never made it a fact. Humanity eventually accepted the teaching that the earth was round based on the evidence explained by natural science. Columbus’ discovery opened whole new realms of thought which resulted in socalled material prosperity. It took time for the collective thinking of the world to be able to comprehend that the world was round. The discovery of the round earth required a degree of spiritual growth on the part of the advanced nations (the result of their advancing understanding of the Bible, i.e., Wycliffe’s translation of the Bible in 1382). What they had to do was to change their thinking. Nobody had to be transferred from a flat earth to a round earth. The gospel of the kingdom at the endtime doesn’t move us from a material planet to a spiritual planet; it destroys the false material sense of things, and we resume our “individual spiritual being” (cf. Mis. 105:8-11). George Gilder, in his book Microcosm, tells us: “The central event of the twentieth century is the overthrow of matter.” (Microcosm, by George Gilder. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989) p. 17. ) What Mrs. Eddy dared not tell her close students at the turn of the century should now be common knowledge. A student of Mrs. Eddy reported that she said “by the end of this century there would be an end to the material sense of things.” (Reported in an address by Mrs. Daisette McKenzie to the workers at the Christian Science Publishing House in the summer of 1946. For more information see Standard Vol. 2, No. 4, p. 5.) The time has come for the “overthrow of matter” because the metaphysical thinking in the advanced nations has grown through states and stages to a point where it can be accepted and implemented. Humanity must come to the realization that they do not live in a material world or a material environment. Mrs. Eddy writes: “This time-world flutters in my thought as an unreal shadow . . .” (My. 268:20) In order to escape from the “famine and pestilence, want and woe,” and the dreariness and desolation of the endtime in the way Jesus taught—the way God provided—it is necessary to have the teaching as given by the representative of the second coming, Mary Baker Eddy, in her Massachusetts Metaphysical College in the 1880’s and preserved and brought forward by the Christian Science Endtime Center.
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