Article March 6, 1926 Issue

True Patriotism

JULIA SALOME KINNEY

Christian Scientists are a patriotic people. Because they love God, they love their country and their fellow-men. As they have a spiritual concept of God and man, so they have a spiritual concept of country. Their loyalty to their country is expressed by their love for and obedience to both the laws of their land and the laws of God—the fundamental laws of Being. Lest Christian Scientists should forget the respect due to religion or their countries' laws, Mrs. Eddy placed in the Manual of The Mother Church (p. 48) this ringing reminder: "A member of this Church shall not publish, nor cause to be published,an article that is uncharitable or impertinent towards religion, medicine, the courts, or the laws of our land."

The word "patriotism," being derived from the Latin word "pater," meaning "father," points to the spiritual fact that since all men have one Father, even God, so, in Truth, all men have one country, or consciousness of God's presence and power. As all countries have one sun or central source of light and heat, so, from the spiritual viewpoint, all nations have one Truth, one divine Principle, whence must come their peace and harmony. In view of this fact it were well to remember that one who would arrogate to his own country all the wisdom of the world is not a true patriot but a narrow nationalist. One who intentionally arouses the passions by stirring up strife on the basis of race, religion, or national boundaries, can have no clear concept of the meaning of the word "patriotism." Anything that blurs the sense of the brotherhood of man cannot benefit any nation, while aught that awakens human sense to perceive this brotherhood benefits all nations.

When Jesus was explaining the power of Truth to make them free, his listeners in their pride of race and ancestry asserted, "We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man." In replying Jesus said, "If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham." The inevitable conclusion from his words is that freedom and other ancestral rights are not, as they supposed, a matter of material birth, but of right thinking and acting. That liberty, justice, freedom are right ideas emanating from God, without limitation of time or national boundaries, is the fundamental truth underlying his assertion, "Before Abraham was, I am."

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