America – Cradle For The Second Coming Of The
Christ
CHAPTER X
THE CONSTITUTION AND THE BILL OF
RIGHTS
PROVIDE A UNIQUE FRAMEWORK
 The best
framework ever created by man within which he could develop his genius and work
to fulfill his dreams so that his entire nation might prosper, is provided by
our Constitution with its Bill of Rights, the ten amendments added in 1791.
The many temporal terrestrial problems, political and
economic, that America faces today are not the fault of our free system based
upon the Constitution. They are the result of decades of pressure from alien
materialism in our midst, a mindset that has little faith in the individual as
the master of his own fate.
This is not intended to imply that every idea originating
beyond the shores of North America is a danger. All true ideas come from one
Mind, which is our own true Mind. Once our limited sense of America is
overcome, and it is realized that America's true identity is one Nation--the
entire world--we will no longer localize America; there will no longer be a
"something else" outside of its locality that can be called "alien" or
"foreign."
What makes our founding documents so special? When the first
Congress drafted the first ten amendments it put religious liberty
first:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment
of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
Robert Ingram captures the intent of the Founding Fathers in
his book The World Under God's Law:
The First Amendment to the Constitution, the First
Article of the so-called Bill of Rights, was the anchor. It offered the most
sophisticated machinery yet devised by Christian men for pinning down the
agencies of the temporal power and preventing them from encroaching upon the
total power that can rest only in Jesus Christ.
The Bible, understood spiritually, gives us freedom within;
but without the Constitution and Bill of Rights we have no
freedom to act and grow outwardly. The first ten amendments penned our
"inalienable rights," our God-given individual liberties, giving us freedom
from a state church, freedom of worship, freedom of the press, freedom of
assembly; and among other rights, the rights of petition to trial by jury. As
the Constitution and Bill of Rights are seen spiritually as an example
of God's Law, we claim our heritage--our boundless, glorious freedom of
spiritual harmony.
The candle of liberty, lit two centuries ago by our Founding
Fathers in Philadelphia, has been a beacon for the oppressed everywhere.
America is still their dream and best hope. It is our responsibility to keep
that candle burning. Because an ignorant people are easily betrayed, it
behooves us to heed II Peter 1:5, "giving all diligence, add to your faith
virtue; and to virtue knowledge."
When a woman asked Benjamin Franklin what kind of government
they had worked out, he said: "A republic, Madam, if you can keep it."
The Christ, Not Man, Guides Our
Destiny
In Christian Science we go out from the Word of God, from an
understanding of our true being as Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth,
Love. And we see that this Word or explanation of God has a Christ, an
expression, a manifestation. It requires great courage for the human to trust
implicitly this Christ-Truth that constitutes the kingdom of God within our
consciousness. But our salvation lies in being still and listening for this
voice of Christ.
Christopher Columbus placed his trust in the Christ to guide
him. Speaking of his great voyage of discovery, he says, "It was the Lord who
put it into my mind." Note his absolute trust: "I did not make use
of...mathematics or maps," he tells us.
The same Spirit guiding Columbus had guided Saint Paul, who
said, "I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." Speaking of his abundant
labors, Paul reiterates, "Yet not I, but the grace of God which was with
me."
Emphasizing that only the Christ Mind knows all, Paul
writes, "If any man think that he knoweth anything, he
knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know." Jesus likewise stated, "Of mine own
self I can do nothing." He knew it is the Christ Mind alone that directs. Jesus
knew that the Father (Mind) within his consciousness is greater
than all that is in the world. Mrs. Eddy also taught this, and wrote, "I will
listen for Thy voice."
The Christ-Mind was the voice Columbus listened to; the
Christ was the voice the Pilgrims listened to; it was the voice George
Washington and his men listened to. During the framing of our Constitution,
beneath all the fierce contention, it was the Christ voice that came through.
It steered our Founding Fathers as they heroically manned the ship of state,
straining among the cordage. Though every timber started, and the waves beat
like battering rams upon their ship, with divine guidance it was charted to
port. The invisible divine Presence was always at the helm keeping the ship on
its course.
How truly speaks the old hymn:
Perverse and foolish oft I strayed, But yet in love He
sought me, And on His shoulder gently laid, And home, rejoicing, brought me.
Dear Lord and Father of us all, Forgive our foolish ways; Reclothe us in our
rightful mind; In purer lives Thy service find.
Heeding the "Still, Small
Voice"
"There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew it as
we may," because it is always God that "performeth that which is given me to
do." These courageous men (our Founding Fathers) may have lost sight of that
divinity on occasions, but they were spiritually-minded. They listened for
God's voice and they lived a life that made sense divinely; this enabled them
to contribute something of great value to the world. Because they were attuned
to the divine, to God, infinite good, the one Mind could use them as
instruments for good to flow out to all mankind.
Nothing comes from one person to another person (even though
it may look as though it does)no person can be the source of good to another
person. All good comes from God, the divine kingdom within our infinite,
individual, spiritual consciousness. This is why Jesus admonished: "Why callest
thou me good? There is none good but one, that is God." It may look as though
good came from Columbus, the Pilgrims, the Revolutionary War's fiery patriots,
the Founding Fathers, or Abraham Lincoln, but actually these individuals were
only the instruments Mind or Truth used to bless mankind, and evolve its own
spiritual idea.
To the degree that an individual fervently, prayerfully
listens for God's voice, as he abides in the Word of God, an inner stillness
takes place. Into this stillness the spirit of God can flow and make the
listener an instrument through which God can work to bless the human
race, leading it to the realization that we are not human beings, but divine
beings, spiritual beings, now; and capable of all good.
Even if we are not conscious of it, the Christ-power is
always at work, translating itself to every state of consciousness, translating
mortals out of mortality into a higher and higher humanity. The Christ-power
causes us to "lay down the low laurels of vainglory, and, pressing forward in
the onward march of Truth, run in joy, health, holiness, the race set before
[us] till, home at last, [we] find the full fruition of [our] faith, hope, and
prayer [and become aware of our identity as God's presence]" (My.
155:11).
There is But One "I"
The Christ-power or divine Principle--that we in
reality are--brings to light the great truth that in reality there is only one
power at work. Jesus spoke of "my" kingdom, and taught that in his
kingdom, the kingdom of God within each individual consciousness, there are not
two powers warring with each other, but rather that the "'I' [the divine power]
in the midst of thee is mighty" (Zeph. 3:15, 17).
This God, this "I," this kingdom of God within your
consciousness, is the All, the infinite, the Only. It is ever-present, even
though the physical senses the liars from the beginning are unaware of it.
In Christian Science we learn that spiritual law, spiritual
power, alone is reality. What appears to us as persons, circumstances,
positions, human laws, are all illusion. We let the tares and the wheat grow
side by side as we study to assimilate the truth, and gradually the
illusions fade out. This does not mean we close our eyes to what looks
like error; rather that we continue to realize its nothingness, that it is
always hypnotic suggestion.
"When sin or sickness....seems true to material
sense....expose and denounce the claims of evil and disease in all their forms,
but realize no reality in them" (S&H 447:16).
Remember, since "there is but one I or us," there can be no
evil, or malpractice (claims of evil). But unless we recognize the claim of
evil and oppose it, we are in danger of being blinded to it and so becoming its
victim. "Unless malpractice [again, the false belief that evil is
real] is exposed by Christian Scientists, the world will be little
benefited by Christian Science" (Mary Baker Eddy, 1883).
Becoming Infinite Good's
Instrument
In the kingdom of God, all good is omnipresent just as the
multiplication table is omnipresent. We never have to wait until tomorrow for
it to work. The round earth was ever-present even while no one was aware
of it and everyone mistook it for a flat earth. We seem to be aware of evil,
and it seems to be more powerful than good, only because of our ignorance of
spiritual fact. In reality, there is no place on earth where God
(infinite good) is not in full and unrestricted operation, here and
now, functioning the same today as in days of yore, with Moses,
Elijah, Isaiah, Jesus, John, and St. Paul.
These saints of centuries past recognized and acknowledged
God, infinite good, in all His ways. This gave them "power with untold
furtherance." It will do the same for us, since the truth that "I and the
Father [our true Mind] are one" is still true--and forever will be--for every
man, woman and child on earth since each is Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle,
Life, Truth, and Love in reality.
As Columbus set forth on his "impossible" mission, always
guided by and abiding in the divine Presence, he was demonstrating that "where
I am, God is; where God is, I am." He was aware, as Moses centuries before was
aware, that "the place whereon thou standest is holy ground." Columbus had
glimpsed the great truth that the allness, the completeness, the fullness of
God was right where he was, in the kingdom of God within his own
consciousness.
Since "God [infinite good] is the same yesterday, today, and
forever," what was demonstrated by Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, Jesus, John, or St.
Paul could also be demonstrated by all who had learned the truth about their
oneness with God, infinite good. Divine Mind could use Columbus as its
instrument because Columbus was a clear transparency for the divine plan.
Equally, God could use the Pilgrims, George Washington, the Founding Fathers;
God could use Abraham Lincoln. To bless humanity, God can use and work through
whoever is a transparency, receptive and open to God's voice.
In the "fourth dimension of Spirit" (Mis. 22:12),
where the false evidence of the physical senses does not enter, Columbus, the
Pilgrims, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, could not use God,
but, since they were responsive, receptive, awake, alive, alert, transparent to
the spiritual, God (omnipresent, infinite good) could use them in
the furtherance of a divine plan. Whoever learns to listen to the still small
voice of conscience begins to build a bridge to the kingdom of God within,
which then responds with a peace that is not of this world of materiality.
Listening for God's voice has brought about the wonderful
spirit today sweeping the land. It can be seen in the new physics, the new
emphasis on ecology, on the universal conservation of planet--earth. It is
evident in growing concern for the starving millions in the world; in the new
inclusive language of Bible scholars, in the peace movements, the civil rights
movement, and the woman's liberation movement--with men as well as women
actively calling for personal privacy and freedom of choice. These advances,
along with many more equally progressive worldwide movements, are calling forth
a new and higher consciousness. The ever-present law of Love is slowly coming
into focus, proclaiming:
The earth belongs to him who loves, And all its
fullness is his own; In kingly company he moves, Who does not seek to walk
alone. The flowers of paradise shall bloom For him who gives his heart's full
flower Or sheds his spirit's sweet perfume To cheer a brother's lonely hour.
His path shall ever grow more free, Who sets another on the road; His burden
vanish, who can see The way to lift another's load. The Meaning of the Fight
for Women's Liberation.
"One infinite God, good--equalizes the sexes; annuls the
curse on man" (S&H).
In Mary Baker Eddy, The Prophetic and
Historical Perspective, Paul Smillie writes:
[Mary Baker Eddy] knew the struggles of the Revolution
and Civil War were not over, but the principles in these two wars continued in
the third struggle. She saw the struggle taking place in this nation.
Although a Christian nation, America did not follow all
the commands of Jesus but reverted to the Old Testament concept of women.
Scholastic theology had again resisted the call for the freedom of women. Some
of the representatives to the Constitutional Convention were reminded by their
wives not to forget the women. The men did not listen. The common law of
England became the law of the American colonies. Women had no rights to own
property and actually had no legal existence unless it was through their
husbands. Married women could not sign a contract and had no right to their
earnings. They had no right to their own property, even if it was theirs by
inheritance. Religion held women in bondage. It seemed that it would be a woman
who would break these fetters, for men would not.
What Did Jesus Teach?
Some people may not realize the deep significance of the
movement for women's rights. As Genesis tells us, from the very beginning of
the Adam dream, the burden of our illusory "birth" into "matter" has fallen
most heavily on women.
Jesus literally gave his life to set women free. Are
you aware that there can be no doubt Jesus was put to death because of his
spiritual teaching regarding the sin of marriage and human progeny?
Pilate, the Roman governor, said he found no fault in Jesus. The following
teaching of Jesus shows unmistakably why the high priests decided Jesus must
die.
Did you know that Jesus taught: "In the resurrection
[resurrection from ignorance and the Adam
dream] they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are
as the angels of God in heaven" (Matt. 22:30)?
Did you know that he taught: "Call no man your father upon
earth: for one is your Father [Mind, "the kingdom of God within you"], which is
in heaven" (Matt. 23:9)?
Did you know that he taught: "Woe unto them that are with
child, and to them that give suck" (Matt. 24:19)?
"For as 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 coming of the Son of man
be" (Matt. 24:38, 39).
"For when they rise from the dead [rise from the Adam
dream--from the universal hypnotic suggestion that man is material--and gain
the spiritual true sense of being] they neither marry nor are given in
marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven" (Mark 12:25). Mark again
repeats Jesus' teaching: "Woe unto them that are with child and to them that
give suck" (Mark 13:17).
Luke also records what Jesus taught in Matthew: "They did
eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day
that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all"
(Luke 17:27).
Again, Jesus warned: "The children of this world [the Adam
dream world] marry, and are given in marriage; But they which shall be
accounted worthy to obtain that world [the real world, the spiritual world] and
the resurrection from the dead [from ignorance of man's birthright as having
the kingdom of God within his consciousness] neither marry nor are given in
marriage" (Luke 20:34, 35).
Did you know that Luke again reiterates Jesus' warning: "Woe
unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck...for there shall be
great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people" (Luke 21:23)? Did you
know that our great Master, Christ Jesus, insisted, according to Luke: "Blessed
are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave
suck" (Luke 23:29)?
Jesus warned, "when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth
sin: and sin when it is finished, bringeth forth death" [what Mrs. Eddy calls
"the first death" or being born into matter] (James 1:15). Jesus knew that the
flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and he forcefully, unequivocally stated, "Ye
are of your father, the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was
a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no
truth in him. When he [universal hypnotic suggestion, illusion, the Adam dream]
speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar and the father of it.
And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not" (John 8:44, 45).
Birth and Death are Illusion
Mrs. Eddy taught that human birth is the first death,
pure illusion. She taught that bringing a child into the world
"was murder," so we know that human birth is illusion. What does
that say about death? It tells us that death is also illusion. There is no
death in ever-present Life. No one has ever died. We must stop talking about
death as if it was anything but illusion, hypnotic suggestion.
Jesus certainly proved this when he restored Lazarus after
he had lain in the grave four days. Death is part of the mortal dream. When we
awaken from a sleeping dream we realize that all that went on in the sleeping
dream was totally unreal. So it is with life in matter, that springs from human
birth. There is no death. There is only an awakening to a better,
holier, more loving sense of life, where we "awake to our present ownership of
all good" (My. 356:1).
Those who have come back from having been pronounced
clinically dead say that in the experience they felt loved, and they would
never again fear death.
The Old Testament contains many statements supporting Jesus'
teaching on marriage and progeny, birth and death. Job, we are told, sinned not
in all he said, even when he cursed the hour of his birth: "Job [opened] his
mouth and cursed his day. And Job spake, and said, Let the day perish wherein I
was born, [which Mrs. Eddy calls "the first death"] and the night in which it
was said, There is a man child conceived" (Job 3:1, 2, 3).
In the following excerpts, quoted in Divinity Course and
General Collectanea from an Oxford University Press booklet entitled
Fragment of a Lost Gospel, giving account of sayings of Jesus that are
regarded as authentic by scholars, we find Jesus' statements support, and are
in complete agreement with all his recorded biblical teaching:
When Salome asked when those things about which she
questioned should be made known, the Lord said, "When ye trample upon the
garment of shame, when the two become one and the male with the female, neither
male nor female." The meaning being that Christ's kingdom on earth would not
manifest itself until man had returned to the state of innocence in which
sexual ideas and relations had no place. "When Salome asked how long death
would prevail, the Lord said, "So long as ye women bear children, for I have
come to destroy the works of the female." [In] Logia of Jesus, Christian
Science Journal, Volume 25, "Jesus was asked, "When shall the dominion of
death cease?" Jesus saith, "[Death will not cease] As long as (material) birth
continues...I came to destroy the works of birth." See Matthew 5:17 [which
indicates that destroying the works of birth must take place in order for man
to find his oneness with God--find the kingdom of God within his own
individual, infinite, spiritual consciousness.] (DCC
14)
In this spiritual consciousness each
individual is a composite of both the masculine and feminine qualities of
thought and character. Jesus knew that all that God has is given to each
individual; therefore he said, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or
the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill." Jesus came to teach
us--to awaken us to the fact--that in reality we are spiritual beings here and
now, in possession of every God-like quality. But human birth, Mrs. Eddy said,
is the first death; it pulls the wool over our eyes so that, as Paul says, "We
see through a glass darkly."
Are you aware that all this is our Master's teaching?
Doesn't ecclesiasticism teach the very opposite while paying lip service to
Jesus' teaching?
Ecclesiasticism Resists Jesus'
Teachings
When this instruction of Jesus reached the ears of the
rulers of the synagogue they knew it was time to act. "They reasoned," said
Mrs. Eddy in a class, "that if they let him go on healing, and teaching this
'dangerous' doctrine, soon all men would believe him, and then what would
happen to their nation?.'It is expedient for us that one man should die...that
the whole nation perish not.'"
Mary Baker Eddy saw the profound significance of these
teachings of Jesus, and the importance of expounding them, even in the face of
the entrenched opposition, which she, too, faced. We are informed that
"opposition of theology to Mrs. Eddy's insistence that Jesus meant what he
said, and that the one evil is man's belief that he is a creator of mortal
children in his own image," caused Mrs. Eddy to plan "a Theological Course as
the final corrective offering at her College...." Mrs. Eddy retired from the
college teaching before such a course was ever institutionally given, but it
remains on record as the ultimate for those who are "taught of God" (Six
Days, p. 282).
"Heaven," Mrs. Eddy said, "is not a breeding ground for
mortals." But the world of material sense continues to hold high carnival.
Would it today really welcome Jesus if he still insisted, "I am come to destroy
the works of birth.... Blessed are the wombs that never bare, and the paps that
never gave suck"? Would he not be shunned? Would he not again be crucified in
the news media? Would not the same cry go up from the multitude, "Crucify
him!"? The Adam-race is not apt to worship the pioneer of spiritual ideas, but
oftentimes to shun him as their tormenter. While Socrates feared not the
hemlock poison, an Indian proverb says, "He that would speak the truth should
have one foot in the stirrup."
"Separation of Church and State"
Vital
There is a great diversity of religious beliefs concerning
this subject. Religious liberty is one of our most cherished traditions, yet
over the past decade attempts have been intensified to use the law to impose
narrow religious precepts upon all people--upon people who have arrived at a
higher, more spiritual understanding.
The spiritually minded must be awake to guard the freedoms
that have been won for us at such a frightful cost in human suffering. Jesus
gave his life for it. Many thousands have given their
lives in the cause of religious freedom. Think of the thousands burned at
the stake, fed to the lions, tortured and cruelly crucified. We read that
during the long night of the 13th to 18th centuries the Waldensian and
Albigensian philosophers were the only exponents of pure Christianity and were
the devoted apostles of education. "They suffered persecution and massacre
almost to the point of extermination at the hands of the Roman church. The
Christian church of today owes its very existence to these good people, for
without their faithful adherence to their high understanding of the Christ, the
sacred writings would have been destroyed or, at best, would have remained
hidden by that ecclesiasticism which has always opposed enlightenment and
progress."
The experience of these early heroes is but another
example of why our constitutional protection of freedom of religion, and "the
separation of church and state," is so vitally
important.
Religious Freedom Under Attack
Even in this late 20th century--over two centuries after the
signing of our Constitution with its Bill of Rights--religious freedom cannot
be taken for granted. "Separation of church and state" is a great
safeguard and necessity, but it must never be used as a lever to separate
America from its underlying principle.
As an example of what today is threatening our nation and
needing our attention and prayers: Carmel Baptist Church in Ruther Glen,
Virginia, faced fines of $250 a day for refusing to obtain a license from the
state to operate its educational ministries. And what happened to Carmel
Baptist Church is not an isolated incident, but a telling example of how the
religious liberties most Americans take for granted are under attack and
in danger of being lost.
The revolutionary idea that protected the first pastors of
Carmel Baptist Church was that civil government has no authority to regulate
religious expression and belief. Today, however, America's historic tradition
of freedom of religion is fast being eaten away. The last quarter century has
seen more religious freedom cases than at any time since the American
Revolution. A virulent cankerous bureaucracy at every level--federal, state and
local--is no longer hesitant about regulating church ministries, imposing stiff
fines, and even padlocking church properties.
The hidden hand of the enemy in our midst is rapidly
bringing about an erosion of First Amendment freedoms through (1) the vast
increase in bureaucratic regulation of American life, and (2) using as an
excuse, an exaggerated misperception that the First Amendment mandates not only
a "high and impregnable" wall of separation between church and state, but that
God be entirely left out of government.
In this connection Mrs. Eddy writes:
To coincide with God's government is the proper
incentive to the action of all nations.... The Constitution of the United
States does not provide that materia medica shall make laws to regulate
man's religion; rather does it imply that religion shall permeate our laws.
Mankind will be God--governed in proportion as God's government becomes
apparent, the Golden Rule utilized, and the rights of man and the liberty of
conscience held sacred. (My. 278:1; 222:22).
Mrs. Eddy is here maintaining that the one State, God, and
the one Church, "the structure of Truth and Love," are not separate since "One
infinite God, good, unifies men and nations...." The Sermon on the Mount
(Matthew 5) was the essence of Mrs. Eddy's teaching on government.
Two hundred years ago the primary threat to religious
liberty was the establishment of a state religion and intolerance toward other
religions. "The wall of separation" prevented the establishment of a state
church and the accompanying persecution of individuals and organizations with
differing beliefs.
But today the primary threats to religious liberty do not
come from churches. They are coming from the bureaucratic secular state. The
"wall of separation" is quite often used to quarantine religion, isolating it
from the vital processes of society. There are many examples.
A Baptist minister in Nebraska defied a state Department of
Education rule requiring church school teachers to be certified by the state.
When the pastor and his congregation refused to comply, a Nebraska court
ordered the church school closed. The building was padlocked. The fathers of
the pupils were jailed, and the pastor imprisoned for criminal contempt.
The Faith Bible Fellowship of Colorado Springs, Colorado,
held services in their pastor's home while saving money to purchase a church
building. Consequently, the pastor was cited seven times, fined $32,000, and
ordered to perform eighty hours of community service by the city for alleged
zoning violations.
A Stratford, Connecticut, minister held regular prayer
meetings at his house three times a week. The town informed him that further
meetings would not be allowed unless a permit to license his home as a church
building was obtained. Standing on principles of religious liberty, he chose to
face fines and imprisonment rather than obtain a license.
These examples, and several thousand more like them,
indicate that government has gone beyond its constitutional boundaries. The
rights of religious individuals--whatever their particular beliefs or
practices--to exercise their religion free of excessive and unnecessary
government entanglement, are under direct attack. Christian America today needs
a liberty--loving patriot like Patrick Henry, who warned:
It is when people forget God that tyrants forge their
chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, are
incompatible with freedom.
Churches have had much to say about the Gospel and the
hereafter. It is time they focused on the here and now.
Early Colonists, Civil Government, and the
Bible
The early colonists took the Bible as the basis of their
civil government. They understood its provisions that dealt with
self-government, man's relation to man and to God, to be applicable to human
government. Their concept of government had a biblical basis because they
recognized that the individual has rights, responsibilities, and obligations
under divine law. They understood the necessity of separating church and state
but they never entertained the notion of separation of God and
state.
Alexis de Tocqueville stated that early Americans held
freedom of religion "to be indispensable to the maintenance of Republican
institutions." The Christian concepts of self-government
and union were embodied in the American government.
Another great Christian wrote:
To the kindly influence of Christianity we owe that
degree of civil freedom and political and social happiness which mankind now
enjoys. In proportion as the genuine effects of Christianity are diminished in
any nation--either through unbelief, or the corruption of its doctrines, or the
neglect of its institutions--in the same proportion will the people of that
nation recede from the blessings of genuine freedom, and approximate the
miseries of complete despotism.... If so, it follows that all efforts made to
destroy the foundation of our holy religion ultimately tend to the subversion
also of our political freedom and happiness. Whenever the pillars of
Christianity shall be overthrown, our present republican forms of government,
and all the blessings which flow from them must fall with
them.
The Democratic Concept Under
Attack
Mrs. Eddy instructed: "When God bids one uncover iniquity,
in order to exterminate it, one should lay it bare; and divine Love will bless
this endeavor and those whom it reaches. 'Nothing is hid that shall not be
revealed'" (Mis. 348:8).
In "Ways That Are Vain," she castigates "sticklers for a
false, convenient peace," saying, "The unseen wrong to individuals and society
they are too wicked to uncover, and excuse themselves by denying that this evil
exists. This mistaken way of hiding sin in order to maintain harmony has
licensed evil, allowing it first to smolder, and then break out in devouring
flames. All that error asks is to be let alone" (My. 211:1).
Recently another great American wrote, "The tragedy of
America is that so many who profess to know Christ have allowed Christ's
enemies to turn this country into an open sewer."
Error--seeing how evident was the providential Hand of the
Almighty in the birthing of this nation--would do all possible to divorce
America from its history and divine destiny. To this end Christ-denying
educators, publishers, media, librarians--in their misguided attempts to change
the focus of this nation--have combined to remove the ancient landmarks, with
enervating and devastating results. This is today a formidable problem for
America. But gallant, sturdy, God-inspired patriots are giving themselves
wholly and irrevocably to the great work of routing the grim menace of alien
ideologies that threaten to encircle not only America but the entire world.
The anti-Christian nature of totalitarian government was
clearly stated by Karl Marx when he said, "The democratic concept of government
is false, because it is Christian. The democratic concept holds that each
man is a sovereign being. This is the illusion, dream and postulate of
Christianity, which communism would wipe out."
Marx was absolutely right in one regard; democracy and
Christianity do give each person sovereignty. This has its full
expression in Christian Science, which explicitly states that we each have
"sovereign power." But Marx was wrong about the illusion
and dream. They lie not with Christianity and democracy
but on the other side, with the denial of this Truth.
Mrs. Eddy counsels us to "definitely name the error, uncover
it, and teach truth scientifically" (My. 235: 12). Let us never forget
that "the price of liberty is eternal vigilance." The American Revolution was a
Christian revolution for individual freedom. The words of the Declaration of
Independence resound through the coming ages as they are joined by the
Christian Science "Declaration of Independence," stating: "God has endowed man
with inalienable rights, among which are self-government, reason, and
conscience. Man is properly self-governed only when he is guided rightly and
governed by his Maker, divine Truth and Love" (S&H 106:7).
Each Individual Has the Stature of
Christ
Christian Science is distinctly individualistic. It concedes
to each man his own unlimited spiritual unfoldment, teaching that every idea of
Mind has its own divine identity. Socialism and godless philosophies decree
just the opposite. They inflict false human methods, and impose a leveling
process, repressing individuality; they would bring all men to a
human state of equality like cogs in a big machine that
operates only for the benefit of the rulers, the elitists.
We must expose and denounce error in all its forms but
realize it has no reality. Since good is all and ever-present, its
opposite must ultimately be seen as illusion. As mankind accepts the
truth of its being, and Love is understood as impartial and universal,
this acceptance will form the coincidence of the human and divine, and
bring to light the kingdom of God latent within individual spiritual
consciousness.
In Christian Science-by individual effort, by "striving to
assimilate more of the divine character"all men are brought to an equal state
of divine consciousness and thus to total freedom. It is
up to each one, individually, to accept his Christ sonship, to acknowledge the
ever-present kingdom of God within his consciousness, informing him he is the
Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love, called God.
But this divinity of man, this individual spiritual
freedom is today under fierce attack. In a Fourth of July sermon,
previously quoted, Mrs. Eddy warned: "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 [infinite good] and against His Christ as expressed
and operative in Christian Science" (Mis. 177:4). Had Mrs. Eddy's
Manual been obeyed today's world would have been different.
George Washington's Vision at Valley Forge
Novelist Wesley Bradshaw, in an account entitled George
Washington's Vision, published in 1864, describes the prophetic vision
George Washington experienced during the winter at Valley Forge, a vision of
three perils that faced this nation. According to Bradshaw, the story was
recounted to him many years later by a man named Anthony Sherman, who said he
had been present as a young man when General Washington first described his
experience.
The first peril was interpreted as the Revolutionary War.
The second peril, which was foreshadowed by an ill-omened specter from
Africa--no doubt representing the curse of slavery--was clearly the Civil War,
for in it the inhabitants of America were set "in battle array against
each other" until an angel, crowned with the word "Union," said,
"Remember you are brethren."
The third peril, according to Bradshaw's account, was
described by Washington as follows:
Then my eyes beheld a fearful scene. From each of these
countries [Europe, Asia, and Africa] arose thick black clouds, which were soon
joined into one. And throughout this mass there gleamed a dark red light
by which I saw hordes of armed men who, moving with the cloud, marched by land
and sailed by sea to America, which country was enveloped in the volume of the
cloud. I dimly saw these vast armies devastate the whole country and burn the
villages, towns and cities that I had beheld springing up.
What does the "dark red light" in Washington's vision
represent? In Science and Health we read: "The looms of crime, hidden in the
dark recesses of mortal thought, are every hour weaving webs more complicated
and subtle" (p. 102:18). Mrs. Eddy, explaining the "third peril," tells us:
Christian Science and the senses are at war. It is a
revolutionary struggle. We already have had two in this nation; and they
began and ended in a contest for the true idea, for human liberty and rights.
Now cometh a third struggle for the health, holiness and the attainment
of heaven. (Mis. 101:8).
At the April, 1889 Christian Science Association meeting,
Mrs. Eddy admonished: "We must take the sword [of spirit]; sin cannot be healed
without it..." She also showed it to be the positive duty of Christian
Scientists to uncover error (as they should a nest of vipers),
"that the people may see and be warned of their danger."
Mrs. Eddy saw "the great battle of Armageddon" as imminent.
"The powers of evil are leagued together in secret conspiracy against the Lord
and his Christ," [and against our God-written Manual] she warned, "large
numbers, in desperate malice, are engaged day and night in organizing action
against us--their feeling and purpose are deadly...." (Mis. 177:4). But,
she comfortingly tells us, error's cause is doomed:
During this final conflict, wicked minds will endeavor
to find means by which to accomplish more evil; but those who discern Christian
Science will hold crime in check. They will aid in the ejection of error. They
will maintain law and order, and cheerfully await the certainty of ultimate
perfection. (S&H 96:31)
Washington's vision likewise predicted victory, and not by
earthly means. The embattled inhabitants were joined by an angel who "descended
from the heavens attended by legions of white spirits." Taking courage, they
renewed the battle until the dark cloud rolled back, leaving them
victorious.
"The Manual Will Save the
Cause"
Let us, as Mrs. Eddy urged, "become real and consecrated
warriors," giving ourselves wholly and irrevocably to the great work of
establishing the truth, the gospel and the Science which are necessary for the
salvation of the world from error, sin, disease, and death. But this
cannot be done while Mary Baker Eddy's God-dictated Manual is being
flagrantly disobeyed by an ecclesiastical hierarchy in Boston. But
here, dear reader, take hope. Mrs. Eddy told Prof. Herring: "The
Manual will save the Cause,"the Manual as she wrote it, "as God
dictated it."
Mary Baker Eddy saw the wrongs and enumerated them. She
faced them, saw them as aggressive mental suggestion, and showed us how to see
their powerlessness when the searchlight of truth uncovers their real nature as
nothingness.
In Vol. 111, No. 2, Journal article, "Love," Mrs.
Eddy writes:
Love closes not our eyes to the distinction between
good and bad men, it opens them wider; it blinds not a just sense of wrong but
quickens it, and stimulates a noble defense of right under all circumstances
and upon all occasions.
As before stated, if we see an evil and do not expose it, we
are punished. Remember, our defense in Christian Science is to
know that evil is unreal, an illusion. The entire human
scene is aggressive mental suggestion; our defense is to awaken from this
universal hypnotic spell. In Vol. VI, No. 11, (February) Journal, Mrs.
Eddy, writing on Malicious Animal Magnetism (the belief that evil is real--that
it is anything besides hypnotic suggestion), forewarned:
These secret, heaven-defying enormities [such as
disobedience to her God-dictated Manual] must be proclaimed, or we
become guilty before God as accessory after the fact.... It is no longer
possible to keep still concerning these things--nay, it is criminal to hold
silence and to cover crime that grows bolder and picks off its victims as sharp
shooters pick off the officers of an attacking force. [Mrs. Eddy is here
answering those who tell the field that Mrs. Eddy did not mean what she wrote,
she did not mean for material organization to stop. They claim she did not mean
to end the authority of the 5-member Board of Directors when she was no longer
here to supervise, inferring Mrs. Eddy was senile.]
Are we such cowards, knowing the facts that we do know,
as to turn and run? Shall we see the evil, the deadly danger that threatens our
brother and to hide ourselves, flee away not warning him?
The human mind must be instructed by facts, taught how
to recognize the signs of these secret crimes.... God has bidden me to uncover
this wickedness and I follow His voice.
Taking clear positions on the divinity and sacredness of
Mary Baker Eddy's Manual has made me a hero to some and a serious
annoyance to others.
It is not Christian Science to sit back and ignore error.
Many times Mrs. Eddy reminded her students: "All that error asks is to be let
alone."
Samuel Adams wrote:
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility
of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home.... We ask
not your council or your arms.... May your chains [sit] lightly on you, and may
posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.
People have attained great and powerful civilizations but in
time these civilizations have disappeared. Why? Because they were not based on
divine Principle. "Spirituality is the basis of all true thought and volition"
(Mis. 156:23). All that is not based on Principle, God, is simply
hypnotic suggestion, error, and eventually disappears. "Come out from among
them and be ye separate," expresses the truth about America as the spiritual
idea of Love and Mind.
What is needed to bring harmony and peace on earth is a
totally new structure of consciousness that goes out from the understanding
that the kingdom of God is within our own consciousness. This kingdom is Love,
infinite good. Eventually, with spiritual progress, it will be seen that
Christian Science is the world.
AMERICA book sections
Foreword | I |
II | III |
IV | V |
VI | VII |
VIII | IX |
X | XI |
XII | XIII |
Conclusion | Bibliography |
