Editorial December 6, 1975 Issue

Needed: Right Support for Government

Geoffrey J. Barratt

Authority and responsibility are integral to organized human society. But they can sometimes be the target of great and conflicting pressures, arenas of disagreement and competitiveness. What spiritual realities might the scientific Christian entertain if he himself is in authority—as the outcome of just or democratic processes—or if he is seeking to fulfill his obligation to rightly support such positions?

Nothing is more supportive of those in positions of trust—ranging through national presidents or prime ministers, chancellors or presidents of universities, members of church boards, trade union executives, and so on—than our recognition of divine Mind as the governor of all its ideas, the controller of all that really exists. Such a realization slices through the material appearance that each of us is one of millions of mortals, coping with a somewhat chancy experience under the government and direction of other mortals. It brings out the need to identify ourselves and others as Mind's ideas. Spiritually scientific perceptions help lighten the weight on those with governmental and administrative tasks to carry out. And if we happen to be the individuals in power, we can find, through Science, the way to ease burdens of unrelievedly personal responsibility.

We live in days when social, political, economic changes are sometimes shaking governments and institutions. Christian Science can hasten the day when men come to realize that they are not erratically governed mortals but in fact have a spiritual identity which is always in the care of unerring Principle. We can help bring this time closer by maintaining an underlyingly supportive spiritual attitude which transcends political viewpoints and personal opinions—regardless of how humanly valid these may be or how desirable it may seem that these be expressed and acted upon.

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