Local female Bible teacher – Florence Kinney – teaches at the Richmond campaign (1022), newspaper account

Miss F. Kinney Arraigns

“Key to the Scriptures”

Miss Florence Kinney, member of the Sunday party, spent about three quarters of an hour yesterday afternoon on Mr. Sunday’s platform and went after Christian Science without mercy and by the time she had ended, the cult was ready for the junk heap from the standpoint of the lecturer.

Taking for her subject “Christian Science Compared to the Bible,” Miss Kinney placed the writings of Mrs. Eddy against the side of the Bible and the latter triumphed, according to the plaudits of the audience who were clearly on the side of Miss Kinney and the Word of God.

“Christian Science is neither christian or scientific,” Miss Kinney declared. “Mrs. Eddy says ‘matter is non-existent. All is mind.’ In other words if you are walking down the street and a ball hits you—well it would not be the ball. It was an idea that hit you.

“There is no such thing as a material world, according to Mrs. Eddy. All right. Then if there is no material world. Miss Kinney replied in answer to that and if matter is nonexistent as Mrs. Eddy says, then you and I are myths so there must not be such a thing as humanity. There is nothing to observe. Nothing to observe with, for we are all myths says Christian Science.

“Christian science is not scientific, because Mrs. Eddy denies what she says is not there. It is not difficult to prove that Christian Science is not Christian because Mrs. Eddy denies all the fundamentals of the christian religion.”

Miss Kinney took up the tenets of Christian Science reading passage after passage from Mrs. Eddy’s “Key to the Scriptures” claiming them all wrong and backed up her arguments with verse after verse from the Bible, repeatedly asking her audience which side they would take and always for herself declaring that she was going to stand upon the Word of God. Miss Kinney attacked Christian Science from a score of angles, arraigned it upon Holy Writ and left it a quivering mass.

Mrs. Eddy denies the personality of God, putting in His place an impersonal being, Miss Kinney said. Other denials she enumerated in the following arraignment:

Denial of the personality of the devil; denies reality of sin; denies the conception; denies the atonement; denies the death of Christ and the resurrection; denies the second coming of Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit; denies prayer, declaring that it will lead people into temptation; denies death; denies that children are the fruit of the body.

Mrs. Eddy’s idea of the devil is that it is an error of the mortal mind, Miss Kinney said and to show that the thought is wrong for the glory of God,” and other passages from the Bible to combat the writings of Christian Science. “Sin is just an illusion of the mind,” Mrs. Eddy says, according to Miss Kinney.

Commenting on Mrs. Eddy’s denial of the conception, Miss Kinney says Mrs. Eddy claims that “Jesus was the result of Mary’s self-conscious communion with God and that Jesus is the human man and that Christ is the divine idea. Jesus Christ was not the one and the same person.

In contradiction to that Miss Kinney quoted God’s own words at the Saviour’s baptism. “This is my beloved Son.”

The atonement was held up. Mrs. Eddy’s definition on it and what the Bible says was read.

Jesus didn’t die, Mrs. Eddy says, was the next arraignment of Miss Kinney, like a lawyer before the bar of justice. According to Mrs. Eddy, He was in the tomb perfecting Christian Science. When He had perfected it then He came out. Mrs. Eddy says, charged the speaker.

The Christian Science idea of the resurrection, Miss Kinney said, is that the Master reappeared the third day of his “ascending thought.” This ascending thought is Christian Science, according to Mrs. Eddy, Miss Kinney said.

What the second coming of Christ means to the Christian Scientist is the awakening of the truth of Christian Science, Miss Kinney said.

What the coming of the Holy Ghost means to the Christian Scientist, according to their teaching, Miss Kinney declared, is the development of divine life and mean; Christian Science.

As Miss Kinney gave the Christian Science doctrine, she replied to them with a battery of Bible quotations that denied the statements as read from the “Key to the Scriptures.”

Although Mrs. Eddy will not accept the Old Testament as being inspired, declaring that it is part fables,” Miss Kinney said, the first verse in the Bible, “In the Beginning God,” Mrs. Eddy has changed it to, “In the beginning Christian Science.

The lecture was delivered in a cool dispassionate manner; there were no fiery utterances against Mrs. Eddy. Flowery phrases for anyone, but the cold recital of facts as the lecturer saw them. The exact words of Mrs. Eddy was quoted and the sequence built up upon logical thoughtful ground delivered by a thoughtful student. The combating evidence was the reading of the Scriptures, so that the lecture was exactly what its title said it was. It was the Bible against the “Key to the Scriptures” of Mrs. Eddy.

Cited in: The Richmond Item. Wed, May 17, 1922 ·Page 6

Editor: Miss Kinney may have lived at 22 South Fourteenth street; Miss Florence Kinney.