Editorial August 5, 1967 Issue

The Servant Church

Helen Wood Bauman

The purpose of the Church is to serve the people. In the measure that it has left this role of serving for an authoritarian and ritualistic concept of itself, it has lost the function for which Christ Jesus established it. It is a sign of Christian progress that belief in the importance of ceremonies is giving way to a deep desire to serve. But how best to serve humanity is a question.

Jesus' parable of the good Samaritan increasingly impresses its lesson on contemporary thought. Loving our neighbor enough to help him out of trouble, whether it be a question of feeding his hunger, aiding him gain his rights as a citizen, supplying him with decent housing, or developing economic freedom in his behalf, shows the influence that good ethics, taught by the Church, has on individuals and communities. Humane measures prove that Christly compassion in people's hearts is fulfilling the Master's lesson of the parable of the good Samaritan. By teaching love of God and neighbor, the Church enters community life and uplifts it.

There are varying degrees of humaneness, and the highest degree is to give people an understanding of God that equips them to overcome their sinful ways, their sicknesses, their poverty, and the entire mortal sense of life that seems to separate them from God. The main purpose of the Church of Christ, Scientist, is to serve mankind in just these ways.

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