Christianity: Universal Truth
A Christian Science perspective.
China, officially an atheist country, is persecuting Christians in what some church leaders there say is the worst crackdown in decades – demolishing church buildings and taking down crosses – as this week’s cover story reports. The Communist Party perceives the growth of Christianity in China as an invasion. But could the brotherly love that Christianity espouses truly be foreign to anyone? Wherever we are, Christianity actually embraces each one of us, because at the heart of it is the understanding that God is divine Love, and we are His offspring, as Christ Jesus taught.
This universal truth of one God, good, and of man as His image and likeness, cannot be taken away. And being universal, it knows no borders. It is on this basis of our unity with God that we earnestly pray alongside and for all those in China.
Christ Jesus showed that the power of divine Spirit lifts humanity out of sin, disease, and death. That is not something imposed involuntarily on anyone. It is the voluntary liberation available to every man, woman, and child, including those in China, from all the ills that plague human existence. Christianity shows that our true nature reflects Spirit, God, and that we are therefore spiritual, loved, and loving. Knowledge of our spiritual nature is not an outside incursion but an awakening of the heart to what is most natural within us – the spirit of divine Love.
Christ Jesus’ unwavering love for God and humanity was shown in his countless healings of the sick and the dying; he even raised the dead. Surely his teachings and example are a blessing for all humanity. Mary Baker Eddy, Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, explains what he gave to the world: “Christianity as Jesus taught it was not a creed, nor a system of ceremonies, nor a special gift from a ritualistic Jehovah; but it was the demonstration of divine Love casting out error and healing the sick, not merely in the name of Christ, or Truth, but in demonstration of Truth, as must be the case in the cycles of divine light.” (“Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” p. 135).
Christianity is accessible to every humble and honest heart because God and man are forever connected in Love. Paul’s words remind us: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?... Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8: 35, 37-39).
As members of the same infinite family of God, we can embrace each other in the spirit and practice of the healing power of universal Truth, which can never be torn down.