Article October 30, 1943 Issue

One Freedom

SAMUEL GREENWOOD

The framers of the Atlantic Charter, as it has come to be known, struck a responsive note of hope in the peoples of the world, for few, if any, have escaped the denial of one or more of its four freedoms—freedom from want, freedom from fear, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion. But, however humanly essential these are to the peace of the world, they cannot bestow the greatest of all freedoms, namely, what the writer of the epistle to the Romans calls "the glorious liberty of the children of God."

The evil conditions which afflict mankind are but links of the same chain—the belief in a power in opposition to God. Until this chain is broken, its bondage in some form remains. The liberation of mortals from this bondage is not gained from governmental edicts or from treaties between nations; it is realized only as human consciousness is spiritually regenerated and goodness takes the place of evil.

An abundance of material things is not in itself a guarantee against want, nor is the possession of wealth a reliable defense against fear of loss. The greatest need of mankind is the freedom from sin; in other words, man's God-bestowed freedom to be good. Without this, all other legitimate freedoms have no stable foundation. Mortals have believed themselves free to sin if they so chose; and because of that perverted sense of liberty, sin and its effects continue in human experience; wars, poverty, unhappiness, and disasters continue, and the world suffers under this iniquitous regime, while its claims to power and reality are practically unchallenged except in Christian Science.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

Watch, Listen, and Follow