Governance of The Millennial Church

My article, entitled The Church Manual - The Rosetta Stone Translating the Divinity of Humanity to The Children of God, states that the Manual "is the only pattern of rules that will survive and flourish in the Millennium" (see pg. 205). It is imperative to understand that Mary Baker Eddy wrote the Manual while in millennial consciousness. She saw heaven here and felt the presence of but one Mind. If Mind is ever conscious, so-called mortal mind is never conscious. Thoughts that seem to come from the brain cannot be coaxed into conformity with God. That mind of pretense must be forsaken. Beliefs about mortal consciousness and its attended material structures disappear when reality as Spirit appears. Mrs. Eddy's church and its Manual transcend matter and mortal consciousness.

When Jesus went to John for baptism, he said, "Suffer it to be so now." We may think of that act as a human concession to a divine directive, but wasn't it really a manifestation of Spirit "on earth, as in heaven"? In this simple act, the human definition of baptism was being raised to behold the wholly spiritual fact that the Mind of God was the Mind of Jesus and, by implication, the only Mind of man. "The Holy Ghost . . . descended upon him" and purified man's concept of baptism; repentance was changed into Sonship. In the same way, The Church of Christ, Scientist changed forever man's definition of church. Now, only the glory of resurrected man is authorized to serve and waken mankind "from spiritual dulness and blind belief in God into the perception of infinite possibilities" (SH 34:22).

If the organization of the Mother Church abides under the jurisdiction of Spirit and Spirit has no material counterpart, is it not just to say that its existence always has been, is, and must continue to be, spiritual - wholly spiritual? "We can unite with this church only as we are new-born of Spirit," (SH 35:20). If mankind were to mistake the divine commission and produce a counterfeit, that false concept of church would be cut off from the inspirational root and so would wither and die, for it could not conform to the laws of the infinite as a finite good. We know that the root is Spirit. Therefore the vine and its branches have the same nature and are constructed of the same spiritual substance. If the Manual - written in heaven - established a structure of Truth and Love in Boston, Massachusetts, then in this context, Boston must have its place in spiritual history "as in heaven, so on earth".

Inspired thought is spiritual consciousness, and that which is divine has no material counterpart. Inspiration never leaves heaven for earth, never loses its infinite nature, or bends to conform to human nature. Jesus knew this. Mary Baker Eddy knew this. And now, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

George Denninger ©