Loving God is Loving Church

As we strive to understand God better we are also understanding church better. Church is one way God expresses Himself.

We should eventually arrive at that grasp of Truth where we no longer see or experience anything less than perfect church any more than we should see or experience any disease or affliction in ourselves or another. We are not living up to the standard of Christian Science if we deny error and the reality of mortal mind in our personal experience, but see mortal mind and false belief alive and well and hard at work in our churches.

Then why point out so-called problems in churches if what we really need to do is unsee them? Because we need to recognize error (separate the tares from the wheat), give it the lie, and, as Mrs. Eddy says, understand error to be nothing. False belief does not retreat in the face of a few verbal spitballs; it needs to be decisively denied and cast out and truth emphatically declared in the place where it seemed to be.

Perhaps the current situation is a salutary one in that it forces true Christian Scientists to find and express a deeper sense of God's omnipotence and omnipresence and not be tempted to give a seeming reality to error by trying to oppose it on its own dead level. This does not mean one should automatically separate himself from a church which seems to be wandering in some wilderness experience. Nor does it mean one shouldn't go his separate way. We must each follow the "kindly Light" where it leads us, but never be fooled or cajoled into actively or even passively supporting wrong doing or appearing by association to be its advocate.