Editorial June 9, 1928 Issue

Right Rebellion

Ella W. Hoag

Few human qualities are considered more reprehensible than rebellion. So much is this the case that men have generally associated it entirely with stubbornness, revolt, contumacy. Those expressing it have largely been denominated as inordinate rebels, who needed to be kept in subjection legally, and whose influence was for the most part decidedly pernicious. Whenever rebellion has been exercised against right authority, there is no question but that it has been mistaken and evil. Under such circumstances it must inevitably be brought under proper control if right is to be allowed to prevail.

There is, however, a rebellion which is truly righteous. Mrs. Eddy emphasizes this when in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 391) she writes, "Instead of blind and calm submission to the incipient or advanced stages of disease, rise in rebellion against them." It is quite necessary, therefore, for us as Christian Scientists to understand and practice this sort of rebellion; but we are not always quick to apprehend either its exact nature or its correct use. Because rebellion has been so closely allied in human thought with disobedience to all that is highest in individual and community as well as in world government, we have been prone to believe its root must necessarily be in self-will and personal purpose or desire. We, therefore, in our endeavor to obey only the divine will have been inclined to scout the thought of rebellion, feeling its nature was too positively wrong for it ever to be safely associated with that which is righteous.

Until the revelation of Christian Science it was difficult to differentiate between right and wrong rebellion, because it was not understood how to base resistance to evil entirely in Principle. With a desire to overthrow the wrong and establish the right, even Christian Scientists have sometimes believed that they must accomplish this either through their own self-willed purpose to maintain right or through a weak submission to the wrong in the blind hope that in some unexplained way God Himself would finally cause right to prevail.

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June 9, 1928
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