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APOLOGETICS |
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Jesus in the Unity School of
Christianity
By
Dr. John
Ankerberg, Dr. John Weldon |
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The Jesus Christ if Unity School of
Christianity is not the Jesus Christ of the Bible, the
second person of the Holy Trinity, but the invention of
Charles Fillmore to support Unity teachings. The Jesus
of Unity is the Unity practitioner and exemplar above
all others.
According to Unity, once a person is
mentally in harmony with universal law, he or she
becomes a "God-man." Jesus, who became the Christ, was
such a God-man, and provides the supreme example to help
us discover our innate divine nature and power. Our
personality, according to Unity, is a barrier to the
innate spirituality that allows us to experience our
divinity: "We are all, in our personality, wearing the
mask that conceals the real, the spiritual I AM
[God-self]." 1
If we can remove our personality by becoming absorbed
into the divine consciousness, we can become aware of
our divine nature and thus experience our divinity. In
fact, we "become Christ": "Whoever so loses his
personality as to be swallowed up in God becomes Christ
Jesus or God-man."2
Christ is this true hidden self of each individual.
Unity informs us Jesus is not so much
unique as he is exemplary, because more than anyone,
allegedly, "Jesus Christ knew how the law of divine
imagination works." 3
He is the prototype we are destined to become, and the
sooner we begin changing our mental habits the quicker
this will happen: "There are no miracles in science.
Jesus did no miracles. All His marvelous works were done
under the laws that we may learn and use as He did."4
Thus, Jesus is different from the rest of us in degree
but not in kind. For Unity, the key difference was in
Jesus’ thought life; this is what made Him the kind of
special man He was. "To say that Jesus Christ was a man
as we are men is not correct, because He had dropped
that personal consciousness by which we separate
ourselves into men and women. He was consciously one
with the absolute principle of Being. He had no
consciousness separate from that Being, hence He was
that Being to all intents and purposes. He attained no
more than is expected of each of us."5
In other words, anyone who wishes can become exactly
like Jesus Christ
In line with its Gnostic beliefs, Unity
separates "Jesus" and "the Christ." Jesus Christ was not
the eternal second Person of the Trinity who became a
man to die for man’s sins, thus becoming two natures
(divine and human) in one Person. Jesus was only a man,
a man who attained a higher mental state, "the Christ
idea." In other words, the "Christ" is God’s idea of man
perfected in consciousness. J. Sig Paulson explains in
Unity magazine:
Because of traditional religious
heritage, most of the time we probably think of
Jesus, Jesus Christ, and Christ as
synonyms. However, as we come into a greater
understanding of these terms, we can see that there
are differences.... Each individual has within himself
the Christ potential, the Christ presence, the Christ
reality.... Most of our religious beliefs are based on
the idea [erroneous, according to Unity] that Jesus is
the only begotten Son of God. When this belief is our
foundation, we begin to think of the Kingdom of God as
something outside ourself and heaven as a destination
toward which we are headed, rather than as a potential
that is unfolding within us. 6
We can become
the Christ because the Christ is a "higher" state of
consciousness, not a person. Jesus manifested the Christ
perfectly and so can we. According to the
Metaphysical Bible Dictionary, you "reveal yourself
to yourself," "by affirming ‘I am the Christ,
son of the living God’."7
Supposedly, this affirmation will inevitably help
produce its realization. Another blasphemous affirmation
reads:
I am the son of God.... I am the only
begotten son, dwelling in the bosom of the Father. I
am the Christ of God, I am the beloved son in whom the
Father is well pleased. He that hath seen me hath seen
the Father. I and my Father are one. I am the image
and likeness of God.... Of a truth I am the son of
God.8
Again, the ability to live as the
absolute Son of God (as Christ was) is a potential that
Unity claims resides in every man and woman. It is here
that we encounter one of Unity’s many practical
failures. Unity has never adequately explained the great
futility of its program of positive thinking which, it
claims, allows people to realize and display their
Christ nature. No one in Unity has ever become who
Christ is—or even approached His perfection. Yet we are
told, "He attained no more than is expected of
each of us." So why has no one ever attained this
expectation? Could it be because Unity teachings are
false? If Jesus was really so "common," really our true
potential, why was He so unique in what He "attained"?
If the teachings of Unity have never produced another
Christ, not one among millions of people, and yet such
potential can be achieved for anyone, Unity has a
serious problem claiming to be "practical
Christianity." Unity then, is a terrible failure. The
obvious conclusion is that people do not have the
potential to become Christ.
Take the most celebrated example of the
power of positive thinking in Unity history, Charles
Fillmore and compare his life with the life of Jesus.
Examine both carefully. Did Fillmore, or do his
followers, really believe that he was the person Jesus
Christ was? How can Jesus be offered as an example of
the proof of what Unity can do for us when, normally
understood, His teachings deny every fundamental
teaching of Unity? How could Jesus have been spiritually
perfect when He rejected the doctrines of Unity?
Because the teachings of Jesus are historically
established, even Unity cannot logically deny that they
refute Unity beliefs. When Unity claims that Jesus
taught Unity ideals, the only evidence provided is
Unity’s distortion of Christ’s teachings.
Obviously, claims without verification mean little.
Because Unity has a false view of Jesus
and a false view of man, it can never attain what it
promises. Unity’s claim to be a program of spiritual
advancement toward Christhood therefore must be
rejected. Yet we are asked to believe: "Each of us has
within him the Christ, just as Jesus had, and we must
look within to recognize and realize our sonship, our
divine origin and birth, even as He did. By continually
unifying ourselves with the Highest by our thoughts and
words, we too, shall become sons of God, manifest."9
Again, where are the other Christs that
have manifested? Fillmore himself confessed that the
most serious legitimate criticism that others make of
Unity is its failure to produce other Christs. If not
even Fillmore’s advanced positive thinking could achieve
the ideal, how can the average Unity member?
Notes:
1 Charles
Fillmore, Dynamics for Living (MO: Unity School
of Christianity, 1967), p. 165.
2 Ibid., p.
321.
3 Cora
Fillmore, Christ Enthroned in Man (MO: Unity School of
Christianity, n.d.), p. 24.
4 Fillmore,
Dynamics for Living, p. 164.
5 Ibid., p.
322.
6 Unity,
October 1975, pp. 59-60.
7
Metaphysical Bible Dictionary, p. 150.
8 Fillmore,
Dynamics for Living, pp. 351-353.
9
Metaphysical Bible Dictionary, p. 150, emphasis
added.
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Copyright 2006, Ankerberg Theological Research Institute |
