THE BATTLE WITH ANTI-CHRIST

          What is it that hinders Christendom from receiving the second appearing of Christ? It is not persons or organizations. It is anti-Christ, as described by St. John:

           Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time. . . . Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is Christ? He is an antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son. Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: [but] he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also. (I John 2:18, 22, 23)

          It is characteristic of “the last time” that some of the followers of Christ will misunderstand and “deny” Christ. If we believe that the real selfhood of everyone is Christ, or a part of Christ, are we not denying that Jesus in the flesh is Christ, “the Son” of the Father, — denying both the Son and the Father? On this subject our Leader says, “without a correct sense of its highest visible idea, we can never understand the divine Principle. . . . Ignorance of the divine idea betrays at once a greater ignorance of the divine Principle of the idea — ignorance of Truth and Love.” (S&H 560:18-19, 30-1)

          St. John warns against denying the highest visible idea:

           Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world. (I John 4:1-3, emphasis added)

          We must recognize the fact that Fatherhood and Motherhood are embraced within the Godhead. The expression of the Godhead then must include the male and female. When Peter declared, “Thou art the Christ,” he was acknowledging Jesus as Christ in the flesh, “the impersonation of the spiritual idea,” — the first representative of Christ. This inspired recognition of Jesus as Christ was the foundation, the rock, of the Christian church; and in our day, it is the inspired recognition of Mary Baker Eddy as the second representative of Christ in the flesh that is the foundation, the rock, of the Christian Science church.

           Jesus bade his disciples beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees, which he defined as human doctrines. His parable of the “leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened,” impels the inference that the spiritual leaven signifies the Science of Christ and its spiritual interpretation, — an inference far above the merely ecclesiastical and formal applications of the illustration.

        Did not this parable point a moral with a prophecy, foretelling the second appearing in the flesh of the Christ, Truth, hidden in sacred secrecy from the visible world? (S&H 117:29-9)

          We hold that the time has come for Mrs. Eddy to be recognized more completely in her spiritual identity as the second appearing of Christ.

          There is only one Christ, and for Mrs. Eddy to be Christ as well as Jesus to be Christ, she has to encompass Jesus as indicated in Jeremiah 31:22, “. . . for the Lord hath created a new thing in the earth, A woman shall compass a man.” It is not Mrs. Eddy who presents herself as Christ, it is the motherhood of God that is revealing her as Christ and causes her to encompass, not displace, Jesus; thus, reversing the Adam allegory of his division into two persons.

          Just as the Christian church is built on Jesus’ statement, “upon this rock I will build my church,” so the Christian Science church cannot survive without the “confession of the true Messiah.” (S&H 137:26-5)

          The danger of entertaining a false or even casual estimate of Christ is that it produces a total lack of concern for the gospel of Christ. It is anti-Christ that causes a lack of concern.

          Mrs. Eddy foresaw the battle with anti-Christ and exhorted her followers to heed her call:

           Never was there a more solemn and imperious call than God makes to us all, right here, for fervent devotion and an absolute consecration to the greatest and holiest of all causes. The hour is come. The great battle of Armageddon is upon us. The powers of evil are leagued together in secret conspiracy against the Lord and against His Christ, as expressed and operative in Christian Science. Large numbers, in desperate malice, are engaged day and night in organizing action against us. Their feeling and purpose are deadly, and they have sworn enmity against the lives of our standard-bearers.

What will you do about it? Will you be equally in earnest for the truth? Will you doff your lavender-kid zeal, and become real and consecrated warriors? Will you give yourselves wholly and irrevocably to the great work of establishing the truth, the gospel, and the Science which are necessary to the salvation of the world from error, sin, disease, and death? Answer at once and practically, and answer aright! (Miscellaneous Writings, p.177:1-20)

          Mrs. Eddy instructs us in the Church Manual, p. 42, “Alertness to Duty. It shall be the duty of every member of this Church to defend himself daily against aggressive mental suggestion, and not be made to forget nor to neglect his duty to God, to his Leader, and to mankind. By his works he shall be judged, — and justified or condemned.”

THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM AND THE SECOND APPEARING

          Mrs. Eddy’s teaching, Christian Science, is the gospel of Christ to be preached in all the world. To do this requires a mighty struggle in the present hour: (1) to attest to her new name, and (2) to protect and extend her teaching.

          Dr. Alfred Baker, a former Quaker and a student of Mrs Eddy, taught several obstetric courses in the Board of Education of The Mother Church. Dr. and Mrs. Baker were often called upon by Mrs. Eddy to give specific metaphysical support to the Movement. In one such instance Mrs. Eddy furnished Dr. Baker a text each day to use in his support work over a four-week period. One of these daily texts given him reads:

        Mother is Christ Mary. Mother is God’s idea. Error has gone. God is made manifest. [Watches, Prayers, Arguments Given to Students By Mary Baker Eddy, Gilbert C. Carpenter, Jr., CSB, Editor. (Providence: The Carpenter Foundation, 1961), p. 54]

          The recognition of Christ’s new name, Christ Mary, is essential as the foundation stone on which the religion of Christian Science as taught by Mrs. Eddy is brought to Christendom. The recognition of the new name also fulfills the prophecy of Jesus in Revelation 3:12, “. . . and I will write upon him my new name.” This new name, — “Thou art the Christ, the [Daughter] of the living God,”— must be written on each one and given to all Christendom. If one does not have Christ’s new name he cannot understand Christian Science as taught by Mrs. Eddy.

          Professor Hermann S. Hering, CSB, invited by Mrs. Eddy to be First Reader of The Mother Church from 1902 to 1905, wrote to his students:

           It is of first importance to see Mrs. Eddy rightly as the woman of prophecy referred to in the Apocalypse, as the one through whom the Comforter came, the second coming of Christ. Unless we see that this revelation came through Mrs. Eddy under divine inspiration, and see it as the inspired word of God, we are not seeing Christian Science rightly.

        Jesus and Mrs. Eddy are the two witnesses [representatives] and must be seen as such. Just as Jesus in the flesh must be seen as the one who established the first coming of the Christ, back of whom was the divinely royal man, so Mrs. Eddy in the flesh must be seen as the one who established the second coming of the Christ, back of whom was the divinely royal woman, the God-crowned woman of the 12^th chapter of the Apocalypse.

THE ANTI-CHRIST ATTEMPTS TO DESTROY

THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM

“A SLIGHT DIVERGENCE IS FATAL IN SCIENCE.”

                                                                           — Mary Baker Eddy

          Mrs. Eddy was concerned about, and alert to prevent, variations in her teaching of Christian Science as noted by a student in one of her classes:

        From hearing Mrs. Eddy preach, from reading her book (however carefully), from talking with her, you do not get an adequate idea of her mental powers, unless you hear her also in her classes. Not only is she glowingly earnest in presenting her convictions, but her language and illustrations are remarkably well chosen. . . . she is sharp to detect variations from her own view, and to expose the difference, . . . (The Christian Science Journal, Volume 4, May 1886, p. 39, emphasis added)

          Variations occurred during the years she taught in the Massachusetts Metaphysical College in the 1880s, but because of Mrs. Eddy’s alertness to detect variations, the adherents separated themselves from Christian Science and formed organizations of their own.

          In the second installment of her interview with a New York Herald reporter, dated May 5, 1901, Mrs. Eddy makes the following statement which shows the need of correcting or condemning variations:

        The problem is not so much as to the form of government as providing an authority that will ever keep its spirit true to the Christian Science doctrine. A monitor more than a master.

          This shows Mrs. Eddy’s concern about variations. She writes in Rudimental Divine Science: “In reality there is, and can be, but one school of the Science of Mind-healing. Any departure from Science is an irreparable loss of Science. . . . A slight divergence is fatal in Science.” (Rud. 16:15-17; 17:1, emphasis added)

          In anticipating what would happen in the future when she would no longer be present to guard against divergent views, she saw that without “a monitor” to detect variations and expose the difference, variations would become entrenched in her teaching system.

          In 1913, just three years after Mrs. Eddy’s departure, a variant was detected. Mr. Archibald McLellan, Editor of the Christian Science periodicals and Chairman of the Board of Directors of The Mother Church, asked Annie M. Knott, CSD, to write “some editorials” to expose and condemn this variant teaching.

          The McLellan editorial (in part) and the two corrective editorials, written by Mrs. Knott, are reprinted on the following pages.

EDITORAL — “Impersonal Correction”

        A few months ago several letters were received from different places, indicating that there was considerable misconception extant as to Christian Science treatment. One letter, for instance, mentioned a lady who was told that her hand was an idea of God, and therefore exempt from pain. Because of the manifest sincerity of this correspondent, and because of other letters which had brought up similar questions, the editor asked one of his associates, one of Mrs. Eddy’s oldest and most trusted students, to write some editorials which would correct the false impression of Christian Science treatment which these letters indicated was abroad. These editorials appeared in the Journal for December, 1913, and the Sentinel for January 10, 1914. The erroneous views of Christian Science which were condemned in these editorials had never been taught by Mrs. Eddy, as was well known to the editors of the Journal and Sentinel, and it was not supposed by them that such views had been taught by any authorized teacher of Christian Science. They believed that these letters simply put into words some of the various vagrant misconceptions of Christian Science which pass current among many who call themselves Christian Scientists, but who have failed to grasp the true intent of the teachings set forth in Science and Health.

        Imagine the editors’ surprise, therefore, when letters began to come in which claimed that these editorials were regarded by some as having been written in condemnation of the teachings of a well-known and greatly honored and respected teacher of Christian Science. . . .

        The lessons which the field should draw from this incident are these: that the editors of the Sentinel and Journal are not taking part in any expressions of difference of opinion or any misunderstanding between individual Christian Scientists; that when they undertake to clear up some misconception of Christian Science which it is their duty to clear up, they are dealing strictly with the error to be corrected and not with any person. This is entirely in keeping with Mrs. Eddy’s statement (Science and Health, p. 452) that “incorrect reasoning leads to practical error. The wrong thought should be arrested before it has a chance to manifest itself.”

                                                                                  Archibald McLellan

                                                                                                      Christian Science Sentinel

      Vol. XVI, February 1914, p. 450

FIRST OF TWO EDITORIALS BY ANNIE M. KNOTT, CSD

          Apart from the teachings of Christian Science, the relation supposed to exist between soul and body was at one time discussed with a good deal of freedom, when we consider the impossibility of reaching any definite conclusions on the subject by material means. The writer once heard two good deacons disputing warmly over the location of the soul, one insisting that it was in the brain, and the other being quite certain that it was in the heart, and each quoted Scripture in support of his argument. It is needless

to say that no one was enlightened by the discussion. Some time after this, the subject was publicly canvassed by several well-known medical men at a convention held in Chicago, and a distinguished specialist gave it as his opinion that man had no soul, because neither scalpel nor microscope could find any trace of it.

        The tendency of the human mind has ever been to cling to the body, to study its structure and constantly minister to it, and yet the Bible counsels us to be “absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord,” the only mental state which can give us assured freedom. This state is not, however, reached in a day; indeed it can only be reached through entire spiritualization of thought, motive, and action, and this calls for an ever-advancing comprehension of the great truths taught in Christian Science. A student of Christian Science once remarked rather airily, during class instruction, that she had always believed God to be incorporeal. She was then asked if she understood man to be the image and likeness of God, and when she replied affirmatively, she was obliged to admit that the real, spiritual man must be like his creator, incorporeal.

        Mrs. Eddy says: “Man’s true consciousness is in the mental, not in any bodily or personal likeness to Spirit. Indeed, the body presents no proper likeness of divinity, though mortal sense would fain have us so believe” (Science and Health, p. 302). It is therefore a mistake to attempt to trace our likeness to God by taking the physical body, or its members, even as symbols of divine ideas, and this is done only because mortal mind is so unwilling to let go of the belief of life, substance and intelligence in matter. It is true that the Bible speaks of the “hand of the Lord,” also “the eyes of the Lord,” but it will surely be conceded by all Christian Scientists that it would be grossly materialistic, and even irreverent, to take these passages as in any wise relating to corporeality.

        On page 38 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy explains that the hand of the Lord “expresses spiritual power,” a concept of vital significance to us in every hour of need, but which loses its true meaning for the one who attempts to argue that his own hand cannot be painful or diseased because God’s hand is not, an utterly false and unspiritual logic as will be readily seen when we attempt to apply it to the digestive system, brain, nerves, etc. Its tendency would be to lead thought away from the divine teachings of Christ Jesus, who said that God must be worshiped “in spirit and in truth,” and away from obedience to the stern prohibition of the second commandment, which says, “Thou shalt not make unto thee . . . any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above,” for it is no less idolatry to materialize our thought of God than it is to make a graven image and bow down to it. The gods of the heathen were all corporeal, but not so the one infinite Mind known of old as the true deliverer, and known today in Christian Science as ever-present Life and Love.

        It is true that it seems almost impossible for mortals to rise to the heights indicated and reached by Christ Jesus, indeed they can never do this until they cease clinging to the physical body in a vain attempt to make it symbolize Deity; but we are helped by knowing that the “human sense of Deity yields to the divine sense, even as the material sense of personality yields to the incorporeal sense of God and man as the infinite Principle and infinite idea, — as one Father with His universal family, held in the gospel of Love” (Science and Health, p. 576). If we could but realize always that the true sense of God and man alone can liberate us, and help us to free others from the oppressive bondage of belief in a material body with all its false pleasures and pains, we would never consent to the error of trying to link it to the spiritual idea. The “old man” must be “put off,” not retained as a type of God’s man, who is perfect because of his divine origin.

        Our Leader’s inspired teaching on pages 260 and 261 of Science and Health cannot be too often studied and pondered, especially as it meets the human need of health and happiness by directing thought away from the body to the divine Principle of all being. We are there told to “forget our bodies in remembering good and the human race;” and we have this strong assurance: “Breaking away from the mutations of time and sense, you will neither lose the solid objects and ends of life nor your own identity.”

        Christ Jesus said we should take no thought for the body, and he not only declared the freedom which the understanding of Soul gives, but he demonstrated it in healing the sick, raising the dead, in walking upon the stormiest waters and stilling them. His last commands to Peter we may well take to ourselves, “Feed my lambs,” and also, “Feed my sheep,” — not with mortal opinions, but with the truth which now and ever “giveth life unto the world.”

                                                                        Annie M. Knott

                                                                                          The Christian Science Journal

                                                                                          Volume XXXI, December 1913, p. 553

“PERFECT MODELS”

SECOND OF TWO EDITORIALS BY ANNIE M. KNOTT, CSD

        Mrs. Eddy tells us that we “must form perfect models in thought and look at them continually, or we shall never carve them out in grand and noble lives” (Science and Health, p. 248). A glance at the Concordance to Science and Health shows us where to find a number of deeply interesting and helpful references to this topic, all of which point away from the material to the spiritual. Close self-examination reveals the tendency of the human mind to cling to mortal and material concepts instead of laying hold upon the spiritual and perfect, and this explains the slow advance made by mankind in their efforts to escape from the bondage of material belief. The student of Christian Science who attempts to spiritualize matter, to his own sense or that of others, can find nothing in the teachings of Christian Science to support his views.

        In one of Mrs. Eddy’s classes, a student remarked that she always endeavored to have the perfect body in her thought when giving treatment. Mrs. Eddy at once asked her where she found her authority for such a method. The student unhesitatingly responded that it was from Science and Health, and after a little search she triumphantly read the statement on page 407, “Let the perfect model be present in your thoughts,” etc. Smiling, as one would at the mistake of a child, Mrs. Eddy then asked if she regarded the body as the “model” here referred to, and the student said she had so believed up to that moment. With the utmost patience Mrs. Eddy then explained to her students that we can only perceive the divine and perfect model as we are, to quote Paul, “absent from the body” and “present with the Lord.”

        Humanity has been slowly yielding up the belief in a corporeal God, but it still clings to the belief in a bodily model for man, while accepting the Scriptural statement that he is God’s likeness. Its model is therefore that of the sculptor who studies the human anatomy, with some regard to the emotions, passions, and tendencies of the carnal or bodily mind. Strictly speaking, we can have but one model, God’s perfect idea, with countless reflections, all governed by the one divine Principle. This does not, however, authorize us to say that there is only one eye, ear, or foot, for when we begin to talk of these we are getting away from the perfect, spiritual model. While it is true that mortals are at present dependent upon the body for the outward expression of their thought and activity, it is none the less true that the eye does not see, nor the ear hear, but that Mind and its idea alone compass seeing and hearing; and because this is true, our revered Leader bids us “look away from the body into Truth and Love, the Principle of all happiness, harmony, and immortality” (Science and Health, p. 261). Thus we shall find perfect models, and “carve them out,” not in bodily consciousness, but “in grand and noble lives” (p. 248).

        In substituting one’s undeveloped or faulty concepts of Truth for the perfect ideas of Science, the student not only retards his own growth, but in pressing his views upon others he is apt to lead them even farther astray than he is himself, for the reason that it is very difficult to present metaphysical ideas through the medium of language. Before we decide any question of Science it is well to read in our text-book the various statements of the question involved and strive to apprehend them spiritually. There are a number of references to models, which may be said to correspond to the Bible phrasing of the pattern shown to Moses in the mount, a figure used by Paul more than once. To Timothy he explains how the Christ-idea was manifested by him in longsuffering, “for a pattern to them which should thereafter believe on him [Christ Jesus] to life everlasting.” It is for this reason that we should, as our Leader bids us, keep ever before our gaze perfect models, and if we love our task the result will be health, happiness, and harmony.

Annie M. Knott

Christian Science Sentinel

Vol. XVI, January 1914, p. 371

          Why is it “a mistake to attempt to trace our likeness to God by taking the physical body, or its members, even as symbols of divine ideas”? Because it tends to “link” matter to the spiritual idea and thus apparently to spiritualize matter and organs. “The ‘old man’ must be ‘put off,’ not retained as a type of God’s man, who is perfect because of his divine origin.” Mrs. Eddy says: “Entirely separate from the belief and dream of material living, is the Life divine, . . .” (Science and Health, p. 14:25)

          Mrs. Knott detects and clearly identifies the variant teaching and shows how it is to be corrected. The fact that this variant teaching described has since become the official doctrine of the Boston Headquarters was made evident from the lead article titled, “How shall we think of our body?” in the Centennial edition of The Christian Science Journal. This may be borne out by such statements as the following found in that article: “Every apparent cell, every nerve and tissue, every organ, gland, fiber, and muscle, every bone and joint, counterfeits an invisible spiritual idea.” (The Christian Science Journal, Volume 101, April 1983, p. 192)

          This article from the 1983 Journal is evidence of a 180 degree change from Mrs. Eddy’s standard of Christian Science to a doctrine “never taught by Mrs. Eddy” and which was officially exposed and “condemned” in 1913. If this Centennial lead article is read in association with the two editorials by Mrs. Knott, it is clear that they are distinctly opposite in substance.

LIFTING ALOFT GOD’S STANDARD OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE

“A MONITOR MORE THAN A MASTER”

          Stanley C. Larkin, author and editor of The Christian Science Standard (1989-2001), and founder of the Christian Science Endtime Center, wrote: 

        As the years passed, it became more and more apparent to Mr. Larkin that Mrs. Eddy’s school which she wanted preserved and promulgated must not be lost, and that in all fairness, Christian Scientists should know of the two schools referred to by Robert Peel, sometimes known as the “Boston school” (Mrs. Eddy’s teaching) and the “Chicago school” (the variant teaching); and also that there should be an institution either within or outside of the organization of The Mother Church to promote the school of Mrs. Eddy, — her classroom teaching of the 1880s.

        It is this duty to our Leader that motivated Mr. Larkin to teach and direct seminars that would reinstate Mrs. Eddy’s “sole and completely dominating aim” to advance “the religion of Christian Science as taught by her,”— the gospel of Christ for this age. The Christian Science Endtime Center is established to preserve, promote and promulgate Mary Baker Eddy’s original teaching given in her classes, and to uphold her place in Bible prophecy as the woman God-crowned, — the representative of the second coming of Christ.

SEMINARS PRESENTED BY THE ENDTIME CENTER

          The Christian Science Endtime Center conducts seminars for the purpose of presenting Christian Science as taught by Mrs. Eddy, — “this gospel of the kingdom” that Christ Jesus said would be preached throughout the world. This is the “standard of Christian Science” which we are endeavoring to lift aloft, “and then shall the end come,” — the end of the world of matter, revealing the glories of the world of Spirit!

* * * * *

For further information about our Six-day seminars on Christian Science,

please contact us:

Christian Science Endtime Center

P.O. Box 27539

Denver, CO 80227

Phone: (303) 989-9398 E-mail: mail@endtime.org Website: www.endtime.org