Editorial November 4, 1933 Issue

Annulling Atheistic Attacks

W. Stuart Booth

From the time of its founding Christianity has met with disdain and denial, opprobrium and opposition, on the part of materially minded men. Although Christ Jesus came proclaiming that the kingdom of heaven is at hand, and furnished proofs of that statement—proofs of God's power and presence—by healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and even raising the dead, he was combated and finally crucified between two thieves. Jesus met and mastered the hostility and hatred of his enemies with love; on the cross his healing prayer was, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."

During the early centuries of the Christian era frenzied fanaticism fanned the flames of persecution, and many a Christian believer met a martyr's fate. Writing of present-day experience in this connection, Mrs. Eddy says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 224): "The modern lash is less material than the Roman scourge, but it is equally as cutting. Cold disdain, stubborn resistance, opposition from church, state laws, and the press, are still the harbingers of truth's full-orbed appearing."

Today, in many quarters, the world is presented with something more—the spectacle of strenuous opposition to all forms of religious teaching. Surely this step beyond non-acceptance of and passive resistance to spiritual teachings and religious worship constitutes a challenge which Christian Scientists should not ignore. This organized attack of atheism demands our attention not merely because there are fellow worshipers and workers who need our prayerful support and protection, but even more because this push of atheism indicates a state of world thought which can be appraised and antidoted by Christian Science alone.

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