The Bible Speaks to You May 4, 1963 Issue

[The above is substantially the text of the program released for broadcast the weekend of April 26—28 in the radio series, "The Bible Speaks to You," heard internationally over more than 800 stations. This is one of the weekly programs produced by the Christian Science Committee on Publication, 107 Falmouth Street, Boston 15. Massachusetts.]

RADIO PROGRAM No. 56 - Atonement and the Lonely Crowd

[This is the fifth of a special group of programs on the subject, "The Values We Cherish," in which some basic elements of the Christian religion are being discussed.]

HOST: The more populated our planet becomes, the more rapid our means of communication and travel, the more alone many people seem to feel. This has been called the age of the lonely crowd. People try to overcome the feeling of inner loneliness through entertainment, striving for higher status, or losing themselves in group activities of one kind or other. But the problem persists, and leaders of many faiths are looking for ways to get at the root of it. One view of this problem is given in the book, "The Grandeur and Misery of Man," where its author, David E. Roberts, writes: "Surely one of the greatest shocks in personal development comes at that moment when a man has discovered himself sufficiently to realize that he is incurably alone. One day he finds that his family is strangely rent asunder by the impassable gull that yawns between youth and age.... Or the world in which the pattern of his future life seemed so securely fixed is shattered by the realization that not all the strong, sober people he knows put together can guarantee him a job or his liberties, or his prospects for happiness, or safeguards against misery, injustice, and war." The author observes that "the problem is spiritual, not quantitative." [Oxford University Press, Inc., New York. Copyright, 1955.]

What is your comment on this picture of loneliness?

SPEAKER: The feeling of being lost in the crowd, the feeling of being hopelessly alone, is a symptom of something deeper—the need to know better man's relationship to God. And so I would say this: An understanding of atonement, that is, an understanding of man's unity with God as Jesus revealed it through his crucifixion and resurrection, can overcome this feeling of inner solitude we've been talking about.

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RADIO PROGRAM No. 56 - Atonement and the Lonely Crowd

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