Editorial September 18, 1948 Issue

THERE IS NO CONDEMNATION!

John Randall Dunn

Happifying are our English words "upbuilding" and "blessing"; but what may be said about their opposites? The verb "condemn" springs from the same Latin root as the verb "damn." And what unlovely qualities of thought do these connote! In its original implications the root word was associated with damages, fines, and penalties. So it follows that today one says that a prisoner is condemned for a crime; a building is condemned as being unfit for use or service. But what of the self-condemnation that is all too often an unwelcome visitor with the average individual?

What merits condemnation—man or sin? Christ Jesus on one occasion might denounce with ringing words the hypocritical scribes and Pharisees; but on another with evident compassion he would absolve a sin-victimized woman. That the Master's condemnation was ever for sin, and not for those who were sin's tool, is demonstrated in his great utterance on the cross (Luke 23:34), "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." However, as long as a mortal makes a bosom companion of sin, just so long does that mortal suffer sin's penalties and come under sin's condemnation.

This is made plain in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." On page 339, Mary Baker Eddy "A sinner can receive no encouragement from the fact that Science demonstrates the unreality of evil, for the sinner would make a reality of sin,—would make that real which is unreal, and thus heap, up 'wrath against the day of wrath.' He is joining in a conspiracy against himself,—against his own awakening to the awful unreality by which he has been deceived." Then she adds pertinently, "Only those, who repent of sin and forsake the unreal, can fully understand the unreality of evil."

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