Editorial July 22, 1985 Issue

The way of freedom: knowing the truth (But is something else needed?)

WILLIAM E. MOODY

It's a familiar Bible passage to Christians. It has been quoted many times in this publication, heard often in the conversation of Christian Scientists, inscribed on the walls of churches. These are Christ Jesus' words from the New Testament: "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."^{John 8:32.} There is no question that this is a powerful statement with profound meaning for each of us.

People the world over need urgently to be set free. Political oppression, religious intolerance, hunger, loneliness, disease, lack, sin—these can be slave drivers. And even when people have adequate rights of access in their society, the necessities and comforts of human life, and normal health, they may still yearn for freedom. Perhaps the need is to be liberated from the feeling that one's life is only the purposeless idling of an existence that seems to be going nowhere.

Yet to find lasting freedom from the evils and limitations of human experience, is it enough that a human mentality merely knows the truth in theory? Some readers may be feeling, "I've been knowing the truth, but I'm still not free." Perhaps what Jesus was teaching shows that something else needed as well.

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