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Volume 1, Number 2
The
Christian Science Standard
THE EARLY
CHRISTIAN CHURCH
Having given our basic doctrinal views in the
previous issue and shown them to coincide with
those of our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, this issue of
the Standard discusses how independent
churches fit into the pattern of
history.
From the earliest
times the Christian Church has been regarded as the
Kingdom of Heaven established on earth. We agree
with the theologians in saying that "the visible
Church is called a 'kingdom.' Christ and His Father
rule in it, and maintain righteousness, order,
safety, and happiness therein. It is called the
'kingdom of heaven.' It is of heavenly origin, has
a heavenly governor and laws. and is erected to
render multitudes fit for heaven."
Bible scholars also
point out that Jesus was more intent upon bringing
his disciples and followers into his kingdom than
he was in organizing an earthly church body. His
followers were, in fact, those who broke with the
present world and threw in their lot with the new
order—or kingdom of heaven—which was "at
hand." This is the basic idea of the church, and it
is the idea on which it was originally formed, and
the membership of this church is comprised of those
who are seeking to order their thinking and lives
by the principles of that kingdom, in which the
will of God is the only law.
After his glorious
resurrection and ascension Jesus' students and
followers continued to live as they had when he was
here, but as their numbers grew they were obliged
to introduce some kind of order, which with the
passing of time became more detailed. Before long
the church became an institution with the mission
of establishing the Kingdom of God on earth in the
consciousness of Jesus' growing
followers.
The records of the
early church tell us that it had several wonderful
peculiarities which the modern church does not
possess. One of these was the evidence of intense
ardor and confidence. The disciples had seen their
Master resurrected, and then ascended into the
Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus had taught them that the
end of the world was to come after his second
appearing. They believed his return would occur in
their time.
Another peculiarity
of the primitive church was that it embraced the
whole life of its members. To them, the Kingdom of
Heaven, or New Jerusalem, was the only thing
worth troubling about. This material world was
unreal and it meant nothing, because Jesus had
proved it to them to be nothing.
They had been told
that they must give up all materiality in order to
enter his Kingdom and thus they were willing to
sacrifice all for Christ and the Church. They
literally became pilgrims on earth, whose home is
heaven.
Another special
feature of the primitive church is that there was
nothing in the nature of an ecclesiastical
hierarchy, with its political functions and dead
forms. They felt they were ruled by Christ. All
members took an active part in the church worship,
and no important step was taken except through the
common meeting, or membership meeting as we call it
today.
The requirement for
membership in the early church was the same as the
requirement for admission into the Kingdom of
Heaven,—that is, regeneration, changing one's
thinking, or purification and spiritualization of
thought. Jesus said: "Except a man be born of water
and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom
of God," into the true Church, or New
Jerusalem.
THE PATTERN OF
HISTORY
The following extracts are from Genesis of
the New England Churches by Leonard Bacon
(copyright 1874):
In the beginning,
Christianity was simply Gospel. Ecclesiastical
organization was not the cause, but the effect of
life. Churches were constituted by the spontaneous
association of believers. Individuals and families,
drawn toward each other by their common trust in
Jesus the Christ, and their common interest in the
good news concerning the kingdom of God, became a
community united, not by external bonds, but by the
vital force of distinctive ideas and principles.
New affections became the bond of a new
brotherhood, and the new brotherhood, with its
mutual duties and united responsibilities, became
an organized society. . . Their new ideas
and new sympathies and hopes were a bond of union;
and though not yet separated from the Jewish
people, nor anticipating such a separation, they
were beginning to be a distinct community with a
life of their own—a community almost
unorganized, so far as the record shows, and yet
distinct in the midst of the Jewish nation, like
that nation in the midst of the Roman Empire. A new
and unique commonwealth had begun to live, and must
needs grow into some organized form according to
its nature. . . Having seen that the process of
organization in the mother church at Jerusalem was
essentially democratic while under the immediate
guidance of the apostles, we need positive
information to convince us that in other places the
process by which believers in Christ became an
organized body was materially different. But there
is no such information. On the contrary, there are
indications that in every place the society of
believers in Christ was a little republic. .
.
The Church of
New Testament Times
Every reader of the New Testament books may
observe the traces and rudiments of organization
and scrutinize the pastoral epistles to ascertain
how far the development of ecclesiastical
institutions had advanced in the latest years of
Paul.
The churches
instituted by the apostles were local
institutions only. Nothing like a national
church, having jurisdiction over many congregations
within certain geographical boundaries, appears in
the writings or acts of the apostles. . . But that
the organized church, in the primitive age of
Christianity, was always a local
institution—never national, never provincial
or diocesan—is a proposition which few will
deny.
Each local church
was complete in itself, and was held responsible to
Christ for its own character, and the character of
those whom it retained in its fellowship. .
.
Particular
churches, in that age, were related to each other
as constituent portions of the Universal Church
[i.e., universal Christianity]. Their unity
was their one faith and hope, the unity of common
ideas and principles distinguishing them from all
the world besides—of common interests and
efforts, of common trials and perils, and of mutual
affection. . . Such were the churches at the date
of the New Testament Scriptures.
Church
Government at the Time of Constantine
When Christianity, by the conversion of
Constantine (A.D. 312), became the dominant
religion in the Roman Empire, the form of church
government then existing was in some respects
widely different from that of the primitive
churches. Less than three hundred years after the
beginning at Jerusalem, the government of the
churches had become essentially episcopal
[i.e., governed by bishops], though the
bishops every where were elected by the Christian
people. The authority of the bishop, instead of
being simply parochial [i.e., within a
parish], extended over many congregations, the
mother church, in which the bishop had his throne,
being surrounded with dependent congregations, all
under one government. The bishop had under him a
body of presbyters, who were his council and
helpers, and to whom he assigned their duties. Not
infrequently the bishops of a district or province
were assembled in synods or councils to deliberate
on affairs of general interest, such as disputed
points of doctrine, and questions about uniformity
in worship and discipline. There was a firmly
established distinction between clergy and laity,
the clergy consisting of three orders or
gradations, bishops, presbyters, and
deacons.
Divergence
Occurs Unnoticed;
Reformation Occurs Through Agitation
It has been sometimes assumed that what was in the
fourth century must have been from the beginning.
The fact, so conspicuous in the survey of that age,
that the then existing church government was
substantially episcopal, has been thought to prove
that the churches never were organized and governed
in any other way; especially as there are no
traces of any revolutionary conflict by which
one form of church government was substituted for
another, and no exact line can mark the beginning
of the distinction between presbyters and bishops,
or the transfer of power from self-governing
Christian assemblies to a hierarchy.
Constantine found the episcopal form of government
over the churches already existing, with its roots
in the past; and in adopting Christianity as the
religion of the empire, he adopted that
ecclesiastical form of church government. What,
then, had become of the form of government which we
find in the New Testament? At what date was it
superseded? Who introduced another form in the
place of it? Such is the outline of an argument
which often seems conclusive. The fallacy lies in
the assumption that church government [as that
which was established by the apostles], once
instituted, will perpetuate itself, and can be
changed only by a revolutionary agitation. .
.
[NOTE. The
(divergent) episcopal form of church government was
believed to have been instituted by the apostles
because that is the way people find it today.
Likewise, they also believe the teaching of the
church today is that of the apostles because that
is the way they find it today. They do not
recognize and comprehend the radical change because
it was so gradual and imperceptible and without a
revolutionary agitation.]
Growth of Church
Government means Change
The period between the day of Pentecost [A.D.
33] and the middle of the second century
[A.D. 150]—or the narrower period
between the date of the Pastoral Epistles [A.D.
50] and the beginning of that century [A.D.
100]—could not but be a period of rapid
development in the Christian commonwealth. Nor did
the growth of ecclesiastical government
terminate then. It went on, imperceptibly but
steadily, to the age of Constantine—as it went
on afterward to the age of Luther—as it goes
on now, even in communities most abhorrent of
progress and most observant of traditions. [The
change goes on until you have a revolutionary
agitation to restore its original
purity.]
The Tendency to
Hierarchy
The circumstances of that early development
determined in many respects its character and
tendency. In that age the churches had no
experience to guide them or to warn them. They knew
nothing of what we know from the history of
eighteen centuries. Why should they be concerned
for their liberty? How should they be expected to
detect and resist THE BEGINNING OF LORDSHIP
[HIERARCHY] OVER GOD'S HERITAGE? In those
times of inexperience the development of the
Christian organization was a development under
pressure. Christianity, often persecuted, always
'an illicit religion,' was making its way in the
presence of powerful enemies. Its natural leaders,
the 'bishops and deacons,' freely chosen in
every church were of necessity, intrusted with
large powers over the endangered flock, and, of
course, power was accumulating in their
hands.
[NOTE. Is not
this the pattern of the development of the
Christian Science Church? The early members were
under extreme pressure. They were often persecuted
and Christian Science was considered an "illicit
religion." It was making its way in the presence of
"powerful enemies," and the organization
established at that time by our Leader, Mary Baker
Eddy, was to protect "the endangered flock." When
that danger was passed the estoppel clauses in the
Mother Church Manual were present awaiting
the time to restore the original purity that would
be lost during that period by the form of
government which was then necessary in order to
deal with those same "pressures and dangers."]
The Tendency to
Mother Churches
The churches were in cities; for it was in cities
that the new doctrine and worship could obtain a
foothold. Such churches, as they grew, were
naturally distributed, rather than divided, into a
plurality of assemblies governed by one venerable
company of bishops or elders, and served by one
corps of deacons. Equally natural was it for each
mother church to become still more extended by
spreading itself out into the suburbs and
surrounding villages; all believers in the city and
its suburbs, or in the country round about, being
recognized as constituting one ecclesia with one
administration.
From Simple
Republics to Monarchy
In the growth of such a community, as its affairs
become more complicated, one of the elders or
overseers must needs become the moderator or
chairman of the board; and to him the chief
oversight must be intrusted. At first that
presiding elder is only a leader, foremost among
brethren who are equal in authority; but by degrees
he becomes a superior officer with distinctive
powers. A tendency to monarchy begins to be
developed in what was at first a simple
republic. The principle of equality and
fraternity begins to be superseded by the spirit of
authority and subordination. This may be noted
as the first departure from the simplicity of the
primitive polity. . .
The great
Reformation in the sixteenth century was an attempt
to recover the primitive Gospel. What was, at
first, the experience of individuals struggling
with the great question, 'How shall man be just
with God,' driven back from tradition to the
Scriptures, and finding rest in Christ the one
mediator between God and men, became a new
announcement of the primitive Gospel. . . .
The
Puritans
Then began that age-long conflict in the Church of
England between government Protestantism, on
the one hand, completed and immovable, and
the demand, on the other hand, for a more thorough
reformation that should carry the National Church
and the national Christianity back to the
original purity portrayed in the Scriptures. On
one side were the court and the court clergy. On
the other side were the PURITANS, so named from
their demand for purity in the worship of God and
in the administration of Christ's ordinances. . . .
There were Puritans more or less decided in their
opinions, and more or less resolute in word and
deed; but, at first, there was no Puritan party
acting in concert under acknowledged leaders. . . .
The origin of Puritanism was not, nor did it intend
to be, a secession or separation from the National
Church. They were not Dissenters in the modern
meaning of the word. The great body of them had not
arrived at the conclusion that diocesan episcopacy
must be got rid of. At first the most advanced of
them were only 'Nonconformists,' deviating
from some of the prescribed regulations. As
Christian Englishmen, they were members of the
Church of England; and what they desired was not
liberty to withdraw from the National Church
and to organize a distinct 'denomination;' nor was
it merely liberty in the National Church to worship
according to their own idea of Christian simplicity
and purity—though, doubtless, many of them
would have been contented with that. What they
desired was reformation of the National Church
itself by national authority.
Comparison of
New Testament Churches
With the National Church
Thomas Cartwright, Professor of Divinity in the
University of Cambridge, a man of great celebrity
for learning and eloquence, began (1570) to say how
the government of the Church of England was widely
divergent from the most ancient examples, and the
authoritative precedents and principles of the New
Testament. Still holding the theory that an
independent Christian nation is an independent
Christian Church, he aimed at nothing more than
a complete reformation by the government; but the
system which he would have the queen and Parliament
establish in England was essentially that of Geneva
and of Scotland. Under Cartwright's influence,
English Puritanism became, essentially, in its
ideas and aspirations, Presbyterianism like that of
Holland or Scotland.
A Fatal
Error
The controversy in the Church of England was long
and bitter. On one side there was power, on the
other side there was the tenaciousness of
conscience, an earnest religious feeling. On the
one side was the fixed purpose to extinguish the
nonconforming and reforming party. On the other
side there was the invisible yet invincible might
of those who suffer for conscience sake. Both
held a fatal error in assuming that the reformation
of the church could be wrought only by the
legislative and executive sovereignty of the
nation. What Puritanism demanded was an
ecclesiastical reformation to be made by the
national authority. No withdrawal from the National
Church was to be thought of at first, for that
would be schism.
Oppression
Furnishes New Light
But under oppression men sometimes get new
light. As the urging of conformity to an
obnoxious ritual led Thomas Cartwright and others
to investigate the theory of church government, and
to find a warrant in Scriptures for the English
system, so, under the discipline of impoverishing
fines and tedious imprisonments, some of the
sufferers began to doubt whether the exceptional
institution called the Church of
England—having Elizabeth Tudor as its
supreme ruler on earth, to whom every minister of
God's word was responsible for his preaching and
for all his spiritual administrations—was
really a church of Christ in any legitimate
meaning of that phrase. The more they studied
the New Testament, the less they could find bearing
a resemblance to that or any other National Church.
Questions were beginning to emerge which had not
yet been fairly considered. Did the apostles
institute any national church? If not, what was
Jesus' intention when he sent forth his disciples
to convert all nations? Nonconformists
were holding conventicles in private rooms, with
the doors shut for fear of informers and
persecutors; but in what capacity or character
were they assembled? What was the relation of
such assemblies, and what was the relation
of the queen's National Church to the true
church of Christ in England? Such questionings
among the Puritans gave origin to another party
aiming at a more radical reformation. The men of
the new party, instead of remaining in the Church
of England to reform it, boldly withdrew themselves
from that ecclesiastico-political organization,
denouncing that and all other so-called national
churches as institutions unknown to the law and
mind of Christ.
The Authority of
Private Judgment
In that region (Scrooby) the idea of 'reformation
without tarrying for any' was beginning to take
effect. Men were beginning to learn that there
might be INDIVIDUAL and PERSONAL reformation,
voluntary conformity to the rules and principles
given in the New Testament, without waiting for
a reformation of the National Church by the
national government. How this came to pass and by
what stages of progress, may be best told by one
who had himself no small part in the story. Tracing
the movement from an undefined beginning, he tells
us that 'by the travail and diligence of some godly
and zealous preachers, as in other places of the
land, so in the north parts, many became
enlightened by the word of God, and had their
ignorance and sins discovered [exposed to
themselves] by the word of God's grace, and
began to reform their lives and make conscience of
their ways.' In other words, they began to be
conscientious in all things, and were
earnest to know the will of God that they might
obey it. This was nothing else than private
judgment in religion—the practical
recognition of individual responsibility to
God—the first stage of 'reformation
without tarrying for any.'
Individuals, one
by one, were beginning to reform themselves under
the guidance of the Scriptures. What next? As
soon as 'the work of God,' moving them to live
soberly, righteously, and godly, became manifest in
them. 'they were both scoffed and scorned by the
profane multitude; and the ministers', among whose
hearers such changes were taking place, began to
experience the oppressive urgency of the queen's
hierarchy. Those ministers must submit to 'the yoke
of subscription,' or be silenced. Nor was this all.
Scoffs and scorn might be endured. The silencing of
Nonconformist clergymen—if it had merely
debarred them from preaching in the pulpits of the
state church—would not have been an
intolerable hardship, so long as there were private
houses in which they could meet quietly those who
desired to hear them. But the queen's supremacy
gave them no such liberty; and the enginery of
ecclesiastical oppression was brought to bear on
the hearers as well as the preachers. 'The poor
people were so urged with apparitors and
pursuivants and the commissary courts, as truly
their affliction was not small.'
National Church
not a New Testament Church
They were brought to the conclusion that, whatever
might be the Christian character of some
congregations in the parishes of England, and
however numerous the true followers of Christ and
members of his body might be among the English
people, the ecclesiastico-political institution
called 'the Church of England' was not at all a
church in any New Testament meaning of the
word, but was (as their experience had proved)
a positively anti-Christian institution.
[They persecuted their own people.] Having
arrived at this conclusion, they could no longer be
Puritans merely, waiting and protesting in the hope
of a new reformation to be made by national
authority in the National Church. They found
incumbent on them a personal duty of
reformation—even of church reformation
'without tarrying for any.' Assuming their rights
'as the Lord's free people,' they became, by
their covenant with each other and with God, a
church of Christ, and determinately 'shook off the
yoke of antichristian bondage.'
Pilgrims Driven
from England
Such were the men and women who were thus driven
out of their native England, yet hunted and
intercepted in their flight, as if they were
criminals escaping from justice. Why did they
suffer the spoiling of their goods, arrest,
imprisonment, exile? They had caught from the Bible
the idea of a church independent alike of the
pope and the queen, independent of Parliament as
well as of prelates and dependent only on
Christ. It was their mission to work out and
organize that idea.
(The above extracts
are from Genesis of the New England
Churches, by Leonard Bacon—1874. These
extracts may be read in a more complete form in
Christian History of the Constitution,
compiled by Verna Hall, a Christian Scientist. This
book was advertised extensively in The Christian
Science Monitor in the 1960's. It is still in
print and today it may be purchased from: The
Foundation for American Christian Education, P.O.
Box 27035, San Francisco, CA 94127.)
THE RELIGION OF
THE FUTURE
In the Christian Science Sentinel of
February 9, 1899, appeared a quotation from the
Literary Digest, as follows:
"An address was
delivered before the Church Congress, recently held
at Bradford, England, by the Right Rev. W. Boyd
Carpenter, Bishop of Ripon, containing some
passages which have excited a great deal of
comment. Bishop Carpenter was president of the
congress and the subject was, 'The Opportunities,
Needs, and Characteristics of Our Age.' The closing
passage, on 'The Religion of the Future,' which is
copied from the report of the London
Chronicle, is as follows:—
I. Polity
"The future of the world does not belong to
sectarianism, and so the dream of catholicity
[one universal Christian Church] will be
fulfilled.
II.
Doctrine
"Of another thing I am certain. As increasing light
falls upon great problems, and men begin to realize
how much of Judaistic, pagan, and scholastic
thought is mingled with popular Christianity, how
many accretions due to human weakness and race
prejudice have been incorporated in our
conceptions, they will distrust the Church. For
every new epoch has added new dogma to faith, and
with every new dogma has gone further from the
simplicity of Christ. The future of the world does
not belong to Latinism, and so the vision of
Protestantism will be fulfilled. "But of a third
thing I am convinced even more surely. The religion
of the future will neither be Protestant nor
Catholic, but simply Christian. The Dogmas of the
Churches which have separated communion from
communion will fall off as autumn leaves before the
fresh winds of God. Many views which in the very
Providence of God have played their part in
clearing the thoughts of men will pass into
forgetfulness.
"Men will not
grieve to see the old things go, for a larger faith
will be theirs; they will not think God's world
will fall apart because we tear up parchments more
or less. The Church of God will renew its youth. It
will be content with a simpler symbol because it
will have learned Christ. It will not need any
longer Trent, or Westminster, or Lambeth, or the
Vatican to lead it. It will be satisfied with
simpler thoughts and a purer faith. It will be
satisfied to realize that there is one Lord, one
faith, one baptism, one God and Father of
all."
THE CHRISTIAN
SCIENCE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE
The question is often asked. "What will Christian
Science churches be like in the future?" Based on
the general pattern of history described in this
issue, if Christian Science is to grow and succeed
it will consist of local churches throughout the
country bearing witness to Truth. It will not
include a hierarchy, for according to Mrs. Eddy
that tends to "retard spiritual growth." Society
today is moving from the organizational to the
individual. Each local church will be alive,
inspired, intensely enthusiastic in proclaiming
intelligently and scientifically the Kingdom of
Christ on earth. Christian Science as taught by
Mary Baker Eddy will survive and prevail.
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