Article May 10, 1982 Issue

Depriving criminality of a victim

SUSAN GAY TERRELL

Probably all of us have been reminded at one time or another that it takes two to quarrel. Similarly, two are usually needed for the commission of a crime: a perpetrator and a victim.

Certainly we should have the utmost tenderness and compassion for victims of crime. But in seeking a spiritual solution to this problem and in defending ourselves, we need to look beyond the concept that man can be the helpless object of another's actions. The teachings of Christian Science dispel the belief that man is ever the helpless victim of any sort of malady—whether it calls itself disease, political or economic conditions, or crime. One of the hymns in the Christian Science Hymnal exhorts, "O side with God, and win!"^{Hymnal, No.296.}

How do we do this? Through an enlightened understanding of creation as divine, spiritual, and a constant disciplining of thought, whereby we refuse to be tricked into believing what the illusory physical senses report. We can continually return to the first chapter of Genesis, which declares: "God created the heaven and the earth" and "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good."^{Gen. 1:1, 31.}

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