America – Cradle For The Second Coming Of The
Christ
CHAPTER IX
Spiritualizing America
Truth and Love Uncover Hidden Evil
 The Truth
of Christian Science is bringing error from under cover and destroying the
myriad illusions which the five physical senses present. It is revitalizing the
religion Jesus taught, revealing the kingdom of God within the consciousness of
every man, woman, and child on earth. Christian Science teaches humanity how to
judge not according to appearances, but to judge righteously; how to see
through the universal hypnotic suggestion that makes man appear as a mortal;
and how to realize the ever-present Christhood of every individual.
Christian Science has come to set us free, once and for all.
It has come to America and the world to "crown thy good with brotherhood, thy
liberty with [infinite good's] law." Today the great truth of Christian Science
is at work everywhere, leavening and revolutionizing world thought.
Why,
then, are we still plagued with "wars and rumors of wars"? Why the moral
uncertainty, why the spiritual confusion clouding this nation's vision
today?
If we suppose today's world struggle is economic, or one
system of government versus another, we misread the present dilemma and
underestimate its peril. The conflict is between genuine Christianity and
secular power, between keeping the faith and having none. The solution lies in
accepting Mrs. Eddy's epochal discovery that in reality there is only one
power, infinite good.
Unfortunately, institutionalized religion, rather than
advancing man spiritually, can actually become an obstacle to humanity's
realization of its ever-present oneness with God. According to Webster,
"religion" means to "tie back." All too often religion has served to tie people
back to effete doctrines and dogma rather than to the healing ministry
practiced by Christ Jesus, and restored by Mary Baker Eddy in the second coming
of the Christ.
All mortal experience and much
religious doctrine mistakenly insist that there are two
powers--the power of good and the power of evil. This is a house
divided against itself; it is a false belief which mankind outgrows as it
learns and accepts that God, infinite good, is the only
power.
In Christian Science we discover that there is
no evil power, however much it appears that we can use material forces
for good or for evil, and can use mental power for good or for evil. The
beliefs in evil power are the tares which grow side by side with the wheat, the
truth that God alone is power.
As we adhere to the Principle that the kingdom of God within
our consciousness alone is power, the tares begin to wither and gradually fade
out, leaving only the wheat, the presence of God, infinite good.
What America Needs
Christopher Booker, quoted by Gordon Brown in
Civilization Lieth Foursquare, observes:
Deep down...we know that we are approaching some
tremendous crisis in our civilization--one which will require a change of heart
and perspective far deeper than anything which has yet touched any of our
public representative...sit is no good any longer looking for rebirth to the
public drama, to the outward show, to the collective--it must begin from
somewhere altogether different [it must begin in the kingdom of God within our
own consciousness].... Far down and mysteriously, in the only place which
counts...the great unimaginable process of rebirth...has already
begun.
Allan Bloom sees America's problem as the lack of a single,
sound, fundamental, principled basis for conduct. In
The Closing of the American Mind, he warns it will take an
intellectual and spiritual assault of heroic proportions to move, let alone
rout, the dead weight of relativism burdening higher education in this country.
His withering charges and stinging criticisms reach beyond campuses to
all of American society.
"The American Revolution," he writes "was the greatest
transformation of man's relations with his fellows and with nature ever
effected." Today, however, while there is constant prattle about
"self-fulfillment" and "commitment," the American people "are haunted by the
awareness that talk doesn't mean much and that commitments are lighter than
air.... The eternal conflict between good and evil has been replaced with 'I'm
okay, you're okay'.... The dreariness of the family's spiritual landscape
passes belief."
"Yet," he says, "Americans long for something lost--the
great moral truths upon which civilization rests. It is a longing for the kind
of substance that gave such breathtaking meaning to the Declaration of
Independence" when brave and noble men courageously proclaimed:
For the support of this Declaration, with a firm
reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each
other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.
Today we should heed John Adams' prophetic warning to the
generations which would follow:
Posterity, you will never know how much it cost the
present generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make a good use of
it! If you do not, I shall repent in heaven that I ever took half the pains to
preserve it.
To which Thomas Jefferson added:
Yes, we did produce a near perfect republic. But
will they keep it? Or will they, in the enjoyment of plenty, lose the memory of
freedom? Material abundance without character is the surest way to
destruction.
Mary Baker Eddy knew error must be uncovered
before its nothingness can be seen. In accordance with her teaching this
section will deal with certain grave errors today facing America.
The "Third and Last Struggle"
History tells us that during the Revolutionary War, General
George Washington had a dramatic vision of two further struggles, namely: the
Civil War and a third great struggle in which he saw America "burned to the
ground"a struggle still to come.
This third and last struggle Mrs. Eddy called "the great
battle of Armageddon" (Mis. 177:120). The anti-Christ is working
feverishly to discredit the revelator to this age and to blot out her discovery
of the Christ Science which reveals the nature of the kingdom of God--with its
infinite goodness and power--within each individual consciousness. Mrs. Eddy
warned, "There is a great struggle before us and it is for life. I dare not
tell you what I know.... Now you see what you have to do--be a transparency for
Truth. This is the work--knowing what this Science means. Get out of a sense of
apathy. This battle is today upon us." Her Manual, obeyed as
written, would have alleviated this struggle.
What was the third struggle revealed to Washington in a
vision? What is this struggle Mrs. Eddy foresaw?
In Abraham Lincoln's addresses and stern reproaches to the
nation he reminded the people that "nations, like individuals, are subjected to
punishment and chastisement in this world." Then he pointedly warned: "May we
not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war...may be but a punishment
inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins to the needful end of our national
reformation as a whole people? "
Lincoln spoke of the nation's prosperity. "But," he rebuked,
"we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious
hand that preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened
us."
Mrs. Eddy saw this same tendency to forget God. Christian
education was being taken out of the home, where it had raised up men and women
who loved the Bible, people who were willing to count the cost of Christian
liberty and fight for it. She warned against the shift from the building of
individual Christian character to the building of a group character conformable
to society.
As Mary Baker Eddy and Abraham Lincoln recognized, the third
and last struggle facing America is for the mind of man--to redeem it from
under the curse of materialism. "Between the centripetal and centrifugal mental
forces of material and spiritual gravitations, we go into or we go out of
materialism or sin, and choose our course and its results" (Mis.
19:25).
The Most Imminent Dangers
In this "battle of Armageddon," which "is upon us," we need
fervently to pray that we are alert to the power of words. "Death and life are
in the power of the tongue," said Solomon (Prov. 18:21). With words we have the
power "to edify or offend, to strengthen or weaken, to give hope or to
frustrate, to purify or pollute, to build or destroy."
We also need to be mindful that we look first for the
problem in our own thinking before we condemn conditions or people outside
ourselves. Mary Baker Eddy saw that when we believe we are dealing with evil
"out there," we are thinking materially; we are being governed by hypnotic
suggestion and are not awake and listening to the Mind that is ever-present
Love and which redeems us from the curse of materialism. Jesus said, "A man's
foes shall be those of his own household" (Matt. 10:36) and admonished us to
"cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt
thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother's eye" (See
Mis. 336:14).
Even well intentioned efforts to "correct" or "help" others
can interfere with their divine sovereignty. Verna Hall, author of Teaching
and Learning America's Christian History, tells of her excitement in being
connected with federal government work where "new opportunities were opened for
government to do things for people and communities." She soon learned, to her
dismay, "that a government that can do things for the people also
can, and will, do things to the people. Thus," she says, "I
experienced the beginnings of socialism; I saw the thoroughness of socialistic
organization descend like a pall upon every facet of our economy and culture,
altering almost everything."
There can be no doubt that Mary Baker Eddy saw that
substituting the power of human law and human government for a recognition of
God's--divine Mind's--government in the affairs of men, was and is causing the
"third great struggle--the great battle of Armageddon," which she warned was
already upon us. In an article to the New York World, Mrs. Eddy
warned:
To my sense, the most imminent dangers confronting the
coming century are: the robbing of people of life and liberty under the warrant
of the Scriptures; the claims of politics and of human power, industrial
slavery, and insufficient freedom of honest competition; ritual, creed, and
trusts in place of the Golden Rule, "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to
you, do ye even so to them" (My. 266:1).
A true patriot writes:
Nothing distinguishes the kingdoms of man from the
kingdom of God more than their diametrically opposed views of the exercise of
power. One seeks to control people, the other to serve people; one promotes
self, the other prostrates self; one seeks prestige and position, the other
lifts up the lowly and despised.
It is crucial for Christians to understand this
difference. For through this upside-down view of power, the kingdom of God can
play a special role in the affairs of the world. As citizens of the kingdom
today practice this view of power, they have an opportunity to offer light to a
world often shrouded by the dark pretensions [illusions] of a devastating
succession of power-mad tyrants.
In 1776 the Declaration of Independence was the voice of the
American people speaking through their representatives. Thomas Jefferson's
words spoke for the majority then and they should speak for us now:
I swear, before the altar of God, eternal hostility to
every form of tyranny over the mind of man.
"Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith
Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage''
(Gal. 5 :1).
The Qualities That Can Save a
Nation
Through the wholesome chastisements of Love," writes Mary
Baker Eddy, "nations are helped onward towards justice, righteousness, and
peace, which are the landmarks of prosperity" (My. 282:10).
The following account is from The Christian Science
Journal, May 1887:
At a meeting of the National Christian Scientist
Association held April 13, 1887, a question was asked Mrs. Eddy which "related
to the prayer of Abraham, that if fifty, or even ten righteous men could be
found in Sodom, that city should be saved from destruction."
Mrs. Eddy's answer is of profound import to all nations
and peoples. Her reply, as reported in the Journal, was that "salvation
was in proportion to moral weight.... A life or a nation is saved, in
proportion to the predominance within of purity, patriotism, or other right
motives; and this is the inner spiritual meaning of the story of Abraham's
petition to God. If Sodom City had in it enough moral worth, it would be saved,
not otherwise."
Christian Scientists should read often what Mrs. Eddy has
said in Science and Health, on pages 96:25 to 97:25, how "during this
final conflict [the conflict between truth and error]those
who discern Christian Science will hold crime in check...."
The birth and survival of this nation remains a wonder of
the world; its future is in our hands. This nation provided the cradle for the
revelation of Christian Science. Now Christian Science can bring America to its
fullest, finest expression, if we let it. "The Science of Christianity comes
with fan in hand to separate the chaff from the wheat. Science will declare God
aright, and Christianity will demonstrate this declaration and its divine
Principle, making mankind better physically, morally and spiritually."
AMERICA book sections
Foreword | I |
II | III |
IV | V |
VI | VII |
VIII | IX |
X | XI |
XII | XIII |
Conclusion | Bibliography |
