Watching Point 252

252 — WATCH lest in interviewing candidates for church membership, you mistake effect for cause, and believe that it is right, for instance, to keep out candidates because they smoke. Smoking is an evidence of a lack of demonstration, and, since our Church is based on demonstration, only those who have given proper evidence of their ability to demonstrate should be admitted into membership. Therefore, an applicant should be refused membership, not because he smokes, but because he has not proved his faith in works.

This watching point is important lest, when one who smokes is turned down, he get the impression that he is being turned down because he smokes. He should learn that he is being asked to wait until he has given further proof of his ability to demonstrate. If applicants for membership are kept out for wrong acting, rather than for wrong thinking not cast out, what is there to distinguish Christian Science from the old Christian church, in which what a man does is accounted as more important than what he thinks?