CHRISTIANITY 



1368 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 



CHRISTIANITY, the religion established by 

 Jesus Christ. The followers of Jesus were first 

 called Christians, or followers of Christ, at 

 Antioch.in Syria about A. D. 65. The funda- 

 mental doctrines of Christianity are set forth 

 in the Apostles' Creed (which see). They are 

 as follows: 



1. Belief in God as the Father. 



3-. Belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. 



3. Belief that Christ arose from the dead and 

 that He is and forever will be the Judge of both 

 the living and the dead. 



4. Belief in the Holy Spirit and the resurrec- 

 tion of the body. 



Christianity presupposes belief in the immor- 

 tality of the soul. It is considered to be of 

 supernatural origin, a religion instituted by 

 divine revelation. For this reason the follow- 

 ers of Christianity believe it to be the only 

 true religion, and that it is their duty to per- 

 suade all men to accept it. This belief lies at 

 the foundation of the missionary movement 

 of the Christian Church. 



Christianity had its birth in Palestine, from 

 whence it spread to Asia Minor, Southern 

 Europe and the countries in Northern Africa. 

 It is now the accepted religion of all the coun- 

 tries of Europe except Turkey, of all the 

 countries of North and South America, Aus- 

 tralia and the Union of South Africa. There 

 is not a country in which Christianity is not 

 known, and Christian missionaries have estab- 

 lished stations among practically all people 

 outside of Christian nations. Its followers 

 outnumber those of any other religion, as 

 shown by the following table: 



Christianity 564,500,000 



Confucianism 300,800,000 



Hinduism 210,000,000 



Mohammedanism 221,000,000 



Buddhism 138,000,000 



For a detailed list of topics connected with 

 Christianity, see the Related Subjects division 

 at the end of the article RELIGION. 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE, or THE CHURCH OP 



CHRIST, SCIENTIST, a system of religion founded 

 by Mary Baker Eddy, who gives the follow- 

 ing statement of its origin in her book, Retro- 

 spection and Introspection: 



The discovery came to pass in this way. Dur- 

 ing twenty years prior to my discovery I had 

 been trying to traqe all physical effects to a 

 mental cause; and in the latter part of 1866 P 

 gained the scientific certainty that all causation 

 was Mind, and every effect a mental phenom- 

 enon. 



My immediate recovery from the effects of 

 an injury caused by an accident, an injury that 

 neither medicine nor surgery could reach, was 



the falling apple that led me to the discovery 

 how to be well myself, and how to make others 

 so. 



The teachings of the denomination are com- 

 pletely set forth in Mrs. Eddy's book, Science 

 and Health, with Key to the Scriptures, which 

 is the Christian Science text-book. Christian 

 Science is based upon the proposition that 

 God is all, that He is infinite Spirit^, or Mind, 

 the only actual reality, and therefore cannot 

 be comprehended by the so-called material 

 senses but must be spiritually discerned. God 

 is further defined as Life, Truth and Love. 

 Christian Science teaches that since God is 

 infinitely good, He has not created any form 

 of evil, and that sin, sickness and death are 

 errors of the human mind and not the realities 

 of being. It further teaches that the healing 

 works of Jesus were a manifestation of divine, 

 natural, scientific law operative throughout all 

 time, and that this law of God expressed in 

 human affairs to-day heals the sick and the 

 sinner in accord with Jesus' promise. 



In 1879 Mrs. Eddy founded the Christian 

 Science Church "to commemorate the word and 

 works of our Master, which should reinstate 

 primitive Christianity and its lost element of 

 healing" (Church Manual). In 1892 the 

 Church was reorganized as the First Church of 

 Christ, Scientist, in Boston. All Christian 

 Science churches are branches of the Mother 

 Church, the membership of which extends 

 throughout the civilized world. 



The various churches maintain free public 

 reading rooms for the use of those seeking in- 

 formation on the subject of Christian Science. 

 One of the important activities of The Mother 

 Church is an official board of lectureship, the 

 members of which upon invitation of the 

 churches go to all parts of the world explaining 

 the teachings of Christian Science in free public 

 lectures. 



The headquarters of the movement are in 

 Boston, and all authorized Christian Science 

 literature is published by the Christian Science 

 Publishing Society, in that city. The periodi- 

 cals founded by Mrs. Eddy are The Christian 

 Science Journal, a monthly; The Christian 

 Science Sentinel, a weekly; Der Herold der 

 Christian Science, a German monthly; The 

 Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lessons; and 

 The Christian Science Monitor, a daily news- 

 paper. See EDDY, MARY BAKER. A.C. 



All approved literature b< ring upon the sub- 

 ject is restricted to the official publications, un- 

 der control of the Christian Science Publishing 

 Society. 



