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THIS TEXT is from the FOUNDATIONAL MATERIAL written by Charles Fillmore, Founder of the Unity Movement.
This is found in Fillore's book: DYNAMICS FOR LIVING
Practical Christianity
PEOPLE everywhere on earth are now realizing as never before that the well-being of this world rests with its inhabitants.

It is no longer a religious dogma or a philosophical theory that the destiny of the race is in the hands of man.

Humanity has built age after age only to find that its structures do not endure.

They are faulty because the divine plan has not been consulted by the builder. Our Bible plainly teaches that God implanted in man executive ability to carry out all the creative plans of the Great Architect.


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The great and most important issue before
the people today is the development of man's spiritual mind and through it unity with God.

The taproot of all confusion is our failure to use our minds intelligently.

Religion and all that it implies in prayer and recognition of God in idea and manifestation is the one and only way out of the chaos in which we find ourselves.

We must therefore begin at once to develop this unity with the Father mind by incorporating divine ideas into all that we think and speak.

People in this atomic age civilization ask why God does not reveal Himself now as He did in Bible days. The fact is that God is talking to people everywhere, but they do not understand the message.

We need to divest ourselves of the thought that wise men of the Bible were especially inspired by God, that they were divinely appointed by the Lord to do His work.

Everything points to their spiritual insight as the result of work on their part to that end.

Thus, practical Christianity is the only system of religions before the people today that, because of its universal appeal to the pure reason in man, can be accepted and applied by everyone and every nation under the sun.

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Revival
Modern metaphysics is merely a revival of the philosophies taught by an almost forgotten past. The principles that underlie existence are being again brought to the attention of men. The race is again entering the cycle of knowledge. We catch once more the light of pure reason and honest logic.

Few people have come into the light. Pure reason is almost an unknown quantity.

When strict deductive methods are introduced into religion, and logical conclusions are reached from a stated premise, the average believer is at sea.

People have been taught that certain relations exist arbitrarily no matter how opposed these relations may be to the logic necessary to cause and effect.

In order to arrive at a mutually harmonious and correct conclusion, the result of a logical argument, we must have a premise or point of beginning upon which we can all agree.

Logic in its strictest sense is the only accurate method for arriving at truth.

That system of philosophy or religious doctrine which does not admit of the rules of perfect logic in reaching its conclusions from a stated premise must be outside the pale of pure reason and in the realm of manmade dogma.

To know accurately about the reality of things we must disregard all appearances as indicated by the five senses and go into pure reason--the Spirit from which was created everything that has permanent existence.

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The Difference
Practical Christianity and Truth stand upon the same foundation and are interchangeable terms. Practical Christianity is not a theory having origin in the human mind; nor is it a revelation to humanity from some prophet whose word alone must be taken as unquestionable authority.

It is in this respect totally different from the other religious systems of the world because it does not in any respect rest its authority upon revelation.

It has no dogmas nor creeds, nor are its students expected to believe anything which they cannot logically demonstrate to be true.

It takes as the basis of its doctrine a fundamental truth that is known alike by savage and civilized, and from that truth, by cold, deductive reasoning, arrives at each and every one of the conclusions which are presented.

Thus it does not in any manner partake of the popular concept of religion, as a vague something which has to be accepted on faith, and believed regardless of its consistencies.

On the contrary, it invites the closest mental scrutiny. The analytical logician will find a new world open to him in following the sequential deductions which this science of pure reasoning evolves.
Truth of the Ages
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This system of deductions from intuitively ascertained facts is not new, nor are its conclusions new, for the historian tells us that similar methods of arriving at the fundamental truth of things were in vogue thousands of years ago. Long before the historical period, legend and tradition report the existence of temples where pure reason was taught.

History also tells of similar schools that existed five thousand years before Christ.
Faithfulness
You will find, if you are faithful in following the line of argument here presented, that a principle will be disclosed to you which will demonstrate itself in an unmistakable manner.

The logical deductions from the premise stated may not come to your full comprehension at once because of certain intellectual limitations into which the race has plunged itself.

Men have been so long divorced from logic and pure reason that they are confused when a clear-cut proposition is stated and carried to a conclusion along the lines of perfect sequence.

Independent Thought
To think in an independent, untrammeled way about anything is foreign to the habit of the races of the Occident. Our lines of thought and act are based upon precedent and

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arbitrary authority. We boast much of our freedom and independence, but the facts are that we defer to custom and tradition.

Our whole civilization is based upon manmade opinions. We have never thought for ourselves in religion, consequently we do not know how to think accurately and consecutively upon any proposition.

We have not been trained to draw conclusions each for himself from a universal pivotal truth. Consequently, we are not competent to pass judgment upon any statement so predicated.

Our manner of deciding whether or not certain statements are true or false is to apply the mental bias with which heredity, religion, or social custom has environed us, or else fly to some manmade record as authority.

In the study of practical Christianity all such temporary proofs of Truth are swept aside as chaff. We entertain nothing in our statements of Truth that does not stand the most searching analysis, nothing that cannot be practically demonstrated.

Starting Point
In order to carry on an intelligent, rational line of argument it is necessary to find a mutual starting point which is universally accepted as true. There may be many pivotal points chosen from an intellectual standpoint that would doubtless

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be accepted as reasonably true. Upon close analysis they will usually be found resting upon another and anterior so-called truth.

For instance, we might agree that ponderable objects always fall toward the earth. Yet, the question quickly arises, "What causes them to fall?" The ready answer is, "Gravity, of course." "But what is gravity?"

Thus, we are led back and back until lost in First Cause, or God.

In agreement upon a statement as the basis of an argument of universal nature, we must be careful to get one that has no anterior.

There can be but one basis of being, and consequently but one basis of being's movements and forms. When we have fully agreed that everything of which we are cognizant can be traced in its last analysis to God, and no further, we have a basis upon which to rest a doctrine that cannot be successfully opposed, if its deductions are logical and can be demonstrated.

This is exactly what is claimed for this science of Christ.

It is not only a system of philosophy which cannot be disputed by the rational mind, but it also demonstrates in the world of phenomena that its conclusions are true.

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Primal Cause
Having decided upon God, or Primal Cause, as the basis of our system, the next step is to decide upon the nature of this Primal Cause.

It is safe to assert that in all the world not a single person of intelligence can be found who would say that God is anything but good. It requires no exhaustive reasoning to arrive at this conclusion, for it is the ready response of the intuitive faculty of all mankind, which it is always safe to count as correct.

Having agreed that God, or the Primal Cause of all things, is the only safe basis on which to predicate an argument that deals with life in all its sinuous windings, and that the nature of that First Cause must necessarily be only Good, we can by logical deduction evolve a doctrine that must of necessity be universal in its application.

It is sometimes thought by certain people that man should not attempt to find out the nature of God because He is so far above and beyond the comprehension of the finite that such attempts are sacrilegious folly.

Yet when carefully analyzed it is found that the one aim and end of man's existence is to find God. The source of life is the great mystery which has commanded the closest attention and study of men in all ages, and as that source must be the Infinite, it is thus ever inviting man to comprehend it.

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The Bible says, "No man has ever seen God," and our physical scientists all agree that primordial life, or First Cause, is invisible or spiritual, exhibiting itself as an intelligent force.

Hence, as corollary to the statement that God, or First Cause, is good, we assert that He is also Spirit.

Value to Man
Having established a basis grounded in irrefutable truth, from which deductions may be drawn in an infinite number of directions, the next very natural question that presents itself is, "What good can come to man from a study of God?"

The facts are that the only good that has come to this world has been through the study of God, notwithstanding that the preponderance of that study has been of a nature to preclude the discovery of God or His mode of manifestation.

People have been taught that God is a personal being who rules the universe much after the manner of an arbitrary monarch.

This erroneous and contracted teaching has led to a belittlement of God in the concepts of men and they have imaged a man-god, and have also formed a "graven image" of God, who is Spirit.

The true concept of God is that He is the Intelligent Principle of the universe, and, like all principles, totally impartial in His expressions.

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This is the concept of God which has come to us in this awakening age. It is not new.

The wise old sages of the Orient tell us that their ancestors thousands of years ago, in secret temples dedicated to the study of God, or the Primal Cause of all, found that in certain stages of high understanding, the result of systematic training, they came into such harmonious relations with this primal principle, or First Cause, that they were endowed with causing power themselves.

They did not seek God for the sake of the power over things which might thereby accrue to them, but that they might have wisdom and understanding of the good.

They found that by thinking right thoughts and living unselfishly, they awakened new faculties within themselves.

They sought the good, or God, and in harmony with that law by which like attracts like, the good, or God, sought them.

They found that when they came into right relations with the good, they had apparently supernatural powers.

They discovered what Jesus Christ called "the kingdom of God within," and all things were thereby added unto them.

They caused, so tradition and certain records say, rain or sunshine, heat or cold, and produced at will all the fruits and flowers of the field.

These records state that they could also fly through the air, having acquired an understanding of that which lies back of gravity.

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They, in short, controlled all the so-called forces of nature by word or thought, and proved conclusively that we become like that which we study.

They studied cause and became masters of the world of effects. CONTINUED...FOR MORE STUDY VISIT:
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