PERSPECTIVE ON THE NEWS August 11, 1980 Issue

The answer to racial strife

Racial strife is a dangerous and malevolent battle tactic of godlessness. Seeking to destroy the native unity between individuals and rip apart the fabric of society, it would attack the very roots of spiritual being. We can find immense encouragement in the fact that such an attempt must prove abortive and that through prayer the facts of spiritual being can emerge more forcefully on the human scene.

The underlying thought in racism—progenitor of racial violence—is that man is material and that some individuals are inherently inferior to others. This attitude falsely exalts matter and mortality to positions of actuality, causality, and power. In doing so, it denies the allness of God and His manifestation. In a devalued concept of creation such as this, it follows that human lives have unleashed on them the forces of hatred, selfishness, fear, and prejudice, triggering the reaction of violence.

Racial oppression and reactive violence—these are the elements of a crisis whose solution urgently demands concerted effort on everyone's part. While rectifying legislation may ultimately find its way onto statute books around the world, the primary need is for a spiritual solution. All must come to see their true identity as children of the one Father—neither dominating nor oppressed. That will increasingly take place as God is recognized as the only cause, the only power over man and the universe.

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