If the picture and accompanying text in this image seem entirely incongruous to you, you’re right!  That’s exactly how Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer and founder of Christian Science, felt when attending Church in the late 19th century.  On the one hand, she learned that the Bible says that God is love, and that God cares for each one of us as a shepherd cares for his sheep.  On the other hand, she was told that this same God could on a whim cast man into eternal damnation, the fires of hell, with one wrong step or for no reason at all.

This week the Christian Science Bible Lesson tackles the topic Everlasting Punishment.  One of the reasons Eddy may have chosen this topic was to counter the idea of a vengeful God, so prevalent in the sermons of her time, and which continues in some Churches today.  We invite you to Church this Sunday at 11am to hear readings from the Bible and the Christian Science textbook which dispel the notion that God could be anything but loving towards his creation, and that there is no such thing as everlasting punishment.