In "Rudimental Divine Science" Mrs. Eddy clearly implies the necessity for "deep systematic thinking" in Christian Science and for the sincere student to possess a mind which is "inquisitive, plastic, and tractable". This is a wonderfully succinct prescription for growth in Christian Science, one further comment could not hope to enhance.
* * * * * * * *
Every member of The Mother Church has a prescribed duty to his Leader, Mary Baker Eddy. This duty would certainly include deep respect, ineffable gratitude, and tender affection for her and her lifelong, selfless sacrifices for mankind. It would also involve a ready willingness to refute in her behalf any calumny, misrepresentation, or unjust criticism. To embrace, tolerate, dither over, or simply blow off the Gillian Gill book on MBE is to violate that duty, to become a humbug, a canker, a noisome blot on the Christian Science landscape, and no disingenuous sophistry will erase this mark of the beast.
More importantly, if that is possible, the failure of committees on publication, lecturers, and, implicitly, teachers to fulfill their respective Church Manual mandated duties by boldly and unambiguously refuting the disgusting statements in this book about their Leader is craven and disloyal in the extreme and demonstrates their lack of fitness for these positions. These betrayals also reveal clearly the beast such as these have obsequiously chosen to grovel before and obey. That the lies about her in this book have now been ignored by them for years gives added force to the shame of their pusillanimous silence.
When the day of sifting comes, and it will, those who decided that the almighty dollar is more precious to them than the Almighty God may find their bargain with the beast to have been a very hard one indeed. To forsake the Discoverer of Christian Science in a time of need and fail to stoutly defend her, all the while stuffing one's pockets with the pelf this dear woman's Church has made possible, is an apostasy that will ultimately cost far more than any temporal emolument seemed to provide.
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21 comments:
Simply magnificent! I cannot applaud you enough for standing up for the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. Oh, this has needed to be said, and I just hope Committees on Publication, lecturers, and teachers currently on the church payroll will read this (and I know many will!) and hang their heads in shame.
Mary Baker Eddy deserves all the love and respect and standing up for her reputation we can muster.
God bless you, blogger...
Glorious, blogger! You hit it out of the park on this one, and so many of us out here are rejoicing that you are writing what needs to be said. Yes, the day of reckoning is going to come (if Holy Scripture means what it says!) and I feel for those who have stood mute before such wrong. For shame, I say.
Echoing the previous comments. This is your usual superb articulation of what desperately needs saying.
Forgive me, though, if I can't help thinking that the Gill "book" isn't the first "book" detrimental to Christian Science and Mrs. Eddy that was published under the imprimatur of Boston with apparent financial motives. Does anyone remember the name, Bliss Knapp?
And that begs the question, if more of the individuals with specific responsibility you describe as well as the general church membership had stepped forward to protest that first book and insist on its recall would we even be discussing Gillian Gill?
Can't help thinking the horse was stolen long ago.
Simply marvelous blog. And comments. I am going to print several copies of this, one of which is going to my COP long asleep at his job, and the other to my local reading room which sells that book, though keeping it under the counter.
Thanks, thanks, thanks to you!
An apology to many fine individuals is due with regards to my previous comment (third in line here).
On further reflection I recalled the great COP purge of the late eighties and early nineties. Many COP's did apparently raise concerns over the Knapp book. Unfortunately all the COP's who raised issue with the original "book" were summarily relieved of their duties. They were replaced by individuals who either had no objections to the book or who knew it was in their best interest to keep their feelings to themselves.
Not sure where the initiative for that purge came from--the Directors or the head of COP or both--but it definitely happened and was well documented by groups such as the Mailing Fund and Matters of Conscience.
Nothing is an isolate as the late Dr. Peter Drucker used to day. Which is to say there are reasons why we are where we are.
Was it ever disclosed how much, if any, of the Knapp millions the church finally got? Rumour with a thousand tongues has it that it was mostly eaten up in attorney fees and court costs. And of course it still rankles with those who remember how the B of D denied that they went back on the earlier Board's rulings of the 1950s. I recall my a remark of my sister (a lapsed CS), "Oh, they sold out, did they?"
I always thought the Knapp book was more a bio of Bliss Knapp than it was of Mary Baker Eddy. As for Gill, Virginia Harris' attempt to gain respectability with scholars greatly backfired. Cannot someone write a bio with a combination of Gill's exhaustive research, Wilbur's narrative skill, Peel's wit, and von Fettweis' passion?
Thank you, blogger, for bringing out things that we need to be very clear about. This is one of the best blogs I've found, and I can see why a friend said I ought to check it out.
What you've posted in support of our Leader just glows with love and respect for this great woman!
Oh did this need to be aired. And those at the church center will surely be reading this, make no mistake about it. And those most responsible. The CSBD, and their weak-willed apologists who insist all is well and have in effect enabled this dispicable behaviour toward the Discoverer and Founder of our religion, are going to have one heck of a price to be paid. Actually, from their fuzzy thinking, their confusion when they try to articulate their feelings, I'd say they are already meeting up with divine justice.
No sir, God is not mocked!
You brought up COPs: the one we have in our state is pathetic. Does not carry out the Manual requirements for said job, would do anything Boston said, never thinks, is this the right thing to get behind and push on the churches, just wants to please mere mortals more than standing up for her Leader. Oh, but she gets a paycheck and the smiles from downright wicked people. Is this worth losing your soul over?!
The day of balancing one's accounts with God are coming, I have no doubt.
Your words, referring to our Leader, as "this dear woman" brings tears to my eyes, so indebted am I to her discovery. And the part about Directors getting the pelf which her Church has made possible makes me mad!
Keep at it, blogger!
Hard-hitting but oh so needed. On the bright note, I am encouraged that there are so many of here apparently who do feel such love and respect for Mary Baker Eddy, and I know this number is going to grow.
Keep dishing out plain truth for us!
So well articulated. Just what more and more of us in the field are thinking. Thank you for putting it into words for us.
Wonderful blog you have here!
One thing we can count on with this blog: the author of it is sincerely devoted to CS--unlike some other protestations of same where actions do not match words!
Really enjoying what you are posting,
Yes, indeed. In the words of Christ Jesus, "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"
(Mark 8:36)
Speaking the Gill book, our modest reading room had it displayed prominently because a COP for our state said we should. A couple of church members raised a fuss, it was discussed, the majority said they must go along with what the CSBD wanted though they were disturbed by the way Mary Baker Eddy was presented. I read the whole awful thing and knew whereof I spoke. But I and the other member did not prevail. There was a compromise and the Gill book is out of sight, under the counter. But still in the reading room.
We are no longer members of this church, needless to say. And we feel clean, I assure you.
Terrific entry. So touching, so serious and something that needed to be put out there.
Thanks a lot, blogger!
I meant to add in my previous comment, that I'm going to print off all your blog posts (quite a project) and keep them to review. They're so full of good ideas, so substantive.
Excellent job. Your title says it all, but I would just like to add this from the Discoverer and Founder of CS herself where she writes on page 542 of her masterwork, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures": "Though error hides behind a lie and excuses guilt, error cannot forever be concealed. Truth, through her eternal laws, unveils error. Truth causes sin to betray itself, and sets upon error the mark of the beast. Even the disposition to excuse guilt or to conceal it is punished."
Let those in authority and all those cowards who would remain silent before wrong to our Cause read this and prepare themselves for the inevitable!
Very well written. As your first paragraph makes plain, students of Christian Science need to be wide awake, thinking deeply about issues that concern our beloved church. Yet there is far too much sleeping on the job; far too many just click off their minds and let others do the thinking for them. And look at the result of this not doing what they should be doing!
Thanks much,
Was quite interested in what Lowlywise brought out in previous comment a la Virginia Harris's purpose in putting out that montrous Gill bio, and that it was an abysmal failure. How could it not be?! As have her other iniatives been.
Oh, I am grateful Truth is overturning, revealing so much to the Field. It will only increase!
Someone's been reading Revelation. This blog is so needed right now, and I hope you won't let anything make you back down from what you are doing!
Best wishes,
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