Questioner: Clerical workers and executives alike in today's fast changing, computerized business world face many a challenge, but perhaps one of the most disturbing is what's called office politics. Over the years in personnel administration and in consulting work, I have seen a number of situations where office politics was a problem. I think that we are all familiar with the type of politics that, for instance, takes the form of false accusations. There are a number of different approaches to the problem. One is communication so that all the facts come out into the open.

Speaker: This, however, involves mere adjustments in the human relationship situation. Here's where the wonderful insights of the Bible can help us. Take the false accusations you mentioned. Startling as it may sound, we read about them in both the Old Testament and the New. The ninth commandment, for example, tells us not to bear false witness. And Christ Jesus' teachings tell us to bear true witness.

As we learn to understand better what is involved in bearing true witness or not bearing false witness, we have a solid basis for acting up to our fullest God-given capacities so as to meet the challenge the other fellow presents as he tries to get ahead regardless of how he does it. It lets us make a fuller, more complete contribution to the job.

As we begin to reflect and express Godlike qualities—thought-fulness, attentiveness, consideration, inspiration, cooperation with our fellowmen, instead of working against them—this is the way we contribute to the healing of the situation.

Questioner: Is bearing true witness something passive, or is it something that one does, something that's active? For example, when you find someone who is deliberately trying every trick in the book to get your job, to belittle your ability, to make your section look bad, what do you do? Do you take direct action of some sort?

Speaker: Yes, you most assuredly do, by actively obeying the ninth commandment (Ex. 20:16), "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour," and by actively following the example of Jesus in bearing true witness to the man God created in His likeness, in the likeness of divine Love. Jesus taught (Matt. 22:39): "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself"—not hate him or battle him tooth and nail or rehash old grievances.

Questioner: This sounds fine, but really what has it got to do with the fellow who seems to go out of his way to make things unpleasant, difficult, or just downright impossible?

Speaker: I think it has everything to do both with the individual and the situation. When we're aware of who we are as children of God and who our fellow worker also is as the child of God, we're helped to act up to our fullest God-given capacities. We begin to express Godlike qualities—decisiveness, fairness, right judgment, and so on. And this brings more of the power of God, divine Love, into our jobs, which corrects the wrongs and the inequalities and deeply heals pride, jealousy, envy, and so on. As we're more aware of God as divine Love, we see that man, His likeness, can't ever be separated from his God-given purpose to more fully express Love divine.

As Mary Baker Eddy writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (p. 571), "At all times and under all circumstances, overcome evil with good." And she continues, "Clad in the panoply of Love, human hatred cannot reach you."

Consequently, as we make the effort to see our fellowmen rightly and lovingly, we find all the power of divine Love, God, supporting and helping us.

Questioner: But in business you do meet some pretty tough and overly ambitious characters who always seem to resent deeply certain individuals who get in their way as they climb to the top.

Speaker: Yes, but we're talking about the true selfhood of all of us, including the very individual you describe. We have to recognize that in true selfhood we and everyone find all the love, purpose, intelligence, and wisdom we need to achieve any legitimate goal. But I'm not talking here of the scheming mortal, the aggressive individual, the throat cutter who tries to get ahead just for the sake of getting ahead.

I am talking about the man God made. To believe anything about him other than the fact that he expresses the qualities of God is to break the ninth commandment, to bear false witness against our neighbor. Reasoning in this way, we get results, Christian results that bless all concerned. Now, the results I speak of were clearly evidenced in the experience of an electronics engineer who at one time was caught right in the middle of the cross fire of office politics on a large scale.

A consulting firm, working with his company on a government project, accused him of making1 errors in his work that involved the future expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars. Well, as you can imagine, tension, bitterness, and criticism on all sides built up. The strain became so unbearable that the engineer became physically ill. An abnormal stomach condition developed, and there was a periodic loss of voice and a choking sensation. He prayed about the situation but couldn't find release himself, so he finally called a Christian Science practitioner to help him.

The practitioner assured him of God's presence and God's love for him. They continued to pray along these lines, and it came to the man to resolve to turn away! from what seemed to be a hope-less situation to look to God, good.. In effect, he maintained a true sense of man, refusing to see people as fearful, critical mortals.

Well, he began to see his own true selfhood as the expression of divine Mind, including without limitation all the intelligence and wisdom he needed for each assignment.

He became less on the defensive, less argumentative; he was not so prone to be offended by the words and actions of others. The results of his actively bearing true witness were immediate. Cooperation and thoughtfulness among the men at work developed. As a culmination of all of this, his original conclusions with respect to the project were found to be essentially correct, and the accusations against him groundless. Also, through this prayerful work, the physical difficulties disappeared.

He was extremely grateful for the way everything turned out, but especially for the increased spiritual understanding of God and of man's relationship to Him that he gained at this time and that has sustained and helped him throughout the years that have followed.

From this illustration I believe we can conclude that one way to meet the challenge of office politics, the factional scheming within a group at work, is to bear true witness toward our fellow worker —become more aware of who he really is and who we really are. We might say that actively bearing true witness is the Christian way to meet our human relationship problems in the office or wherever we find them.

[The above is an abbreviated, postproduction text of the program released for broadcast the week of February 7-13 in the radio series, "The Bible Speaks to You." Heard internationally over more than 1,000 stations, the weekly programs are prepared and produced by the Christian Science Committee on Publication, 107 Falmouth Street, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A. 02115.]