Christian diplomacy

Never before has there been such a need for a radically new approach in the search for peace. A priority for world statesmen? Certainly. But no less a priority for you and me!

A radically new approach in this search implies a higher and more lasting concept of peace—wherever it is to be found. The Preamble to the Constitution of UNESCO states, for example, "... since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed ...."

A higher and more lasting concept of peace includes a higher and more lasting morality. Mankind's deepest need is to experience peace as a spiritual reality. Only a greater moral urgency—a kind of refined moral "craving"—can make it possible to find the peace that comes from God.

Can you think of being caught up with a longing to find the peace that already belongs to each of us as God's man and then somehow to draw it out in human experience? That is the kind of "craving" Christianity brings to individual, no less than to international, relationships.

Such spiritually derived peace cannot be realized simply by its being talked about or written about. It must be rescued from rhetoric and drawn into everyday life. We must search out, detect, and elicit this peace right where it lies at the root of all true individuality.

I like to refer to such activity as Christian diplomacy. It is something we can all take part in. It is something that commands us to lift our thinking above walls that resist wholeness—walls such as race, subculture, denomination, class, gender, age, and all the etceteras of demographics.

Christian diplomacy involves the pursuit of peace at all levels: the peace often hidden between husband and wife, between parents and children, bosses and employees, customers and corporations, landlords and tenants, between neighbor and neighbor—not to mention nation and nation. And Christian diplomacy brings a radical about-face to the premises of conventional negotiation. This diplomacy is concerned solely with peace eliciting, not positional bargaining.

What a startling and refreshing difference between forcing our way of thinking on someone and looking for something worthy and beautiful already present in his true nature as man, God's likeness. There's healing power in glimpsing this nature, and then learning how to encourage its expression!

Wherever someone is touching God's peace deep in another and helping to draw it out, Christianity is beautifully alive. It is seen as a humanity of caring present within receptive human consciousness everywhere on this planet. Actually, such Christianity is already central to the moral awareness that flows from an understanding of man's spiritual identity as God's idea. This spiritual identity is the true nature of every individual and can be expressed by everyone.

Since spirituality is common to you and me as God's children, we do not have to know one another personally in order to demonstrate the universality of the Christ, in order to elicit the peace between us. And peace eliciting is true peacemaking. "Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God." ^{Matt. 5:9 .}

The way of the Christ can become the way of all negotiation. In our peace eliciting, then, how specifically can each of us become Christianly diplomatic?

Our Christian diplomacy never loses sight of the opportunity to elicit peace. Our mission, as Christ's ambassadors, begins with setting peace as our own spiritual goal. Let us research peace, utilizing the Concordances to the Bible and to the writings of Mrs. Eddy. Let us cherish peace as never before. Let us pray peace, radiate peace, live peace. Then let the peace that enters our lives be felt through the genuine love that enters our hearts and voices. For the sound of our sincerity is the sound of our caring wherever it touches others.

The point is that in proportion as we yield to God and are governed by Him, we breathe the beauty of God's peace in this, Christ's way. Then we will draw out the softer thoughts, the sweeter insights, the gentler humor in others.

Such is the peace of Christ that the more you discover its presence in man—in yourself—and express that spiritual presence in your praying for the world, the more you are helping me to discover it freshly in myself and to draw it out of others.

The peace of felt innocence, the peace of conscious worth, the peace of self-discipline, the peace of undiscriminating compassion, the peace of penetrating to the deeply significant—when such qualities or elements of peace are seminal in us, we are truly "making peace" and eliciting it. It is that spirit in us that says "yes" to eternal Life in the face of all that claims to be destructible or terminal. This is what underlies the most vital peace mission on earth at this time. In this manner, the way of Christ is becoming the way of negotiation.

In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy puts it exactly. "Spiritual living and blessedness are the only evidences, by which we can recognize true existence and feel the unspeakable peace which comes from an all-absorbing spiritual love." ^{Science and Health, p. 264 .}

Christian diplomacy is at one and the same time politically viable and socially intimate. Its art is fashioned of a selflessness that seeks to "save face"—not your own but your brother's! It all points to the loveliness of blameless living—a living that is touched by no sense of blaming or being blamed, a living whose "unspeakable peace" flows from an expansive affection that is both warmly impartial and insistently caring.

The following words from Hymn No. 126 in the Christian Science Hymnal catch the spirit of such living:

No isolated experience is being referred to here. The spirit of Christ can penetrate our whole moral, intellectual, and social life. What is more, the more selflessly universal our living and caring is, the more beautifully successful our individual missions.

Even in personal crisis.

Can you imagine someone approaching you and urging you to make the pulpit or podium of your church the platform for his own kind of revolution? This was virtually my experience when I was serving as First Reader in a branch Church of Christ, Scientist.

One day I received a visit from a religious activist who insisted that I read certain cultist tracts to the congregation as part of the announcements at the services. I explained that such a request was not compatible with the bylaws of the church. In the ensuing weeks he became more and more insistent through visits, telephone calls, and letters. And at one point, to force my compliance, there were threats against my family.

From the outset I looked for what I might respect in my persecutor who, if nothing else, certainly cared for what he wanted to "share"! As his demands became stronger and more threatening, I prayed more earnestly as we are taught in Christian Science. I found that I could place a higher value on the prospect of harmony within this uninvited relationship than upon the actual issue that claimed to divide it.

In Christianly scientific prayer, separation is made in consciousness between the false traits that seem to characterize an individual and the thoughts or qualities of God that are actually that individual's true nature as the expression of God. Prayer affirms man's spiritual identity as the expression of the good that is God and it rebukes as false belief all that is less than pure and godly. Such prayer both heals and protects; it is the strongest agent for peace.

In my praying I was led to dwell specifically upon wisdom, especially as characterized in these words in Proverbs: "When wisdom entereth into thine heart ...; discretion shall preserve thee." ^{Prov. 2:10, 11 .} I found myself turning to the "Scientific Translation of Mortal Mind" as set out on pages 115 and 116 of the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy. This translation signifies that the false beliefs of the First Degree, typifying the carnal mind, are eliminated from human consciousness as we consciously cherish and express the moral and spiritual qualities listed in the Second and Third Degrees. The peace-instilling qualities of the Third Degree in this translation identify the nature of spiritual man. Notice that they begin with "wisdom."

I saw that along with the other six qualities in this list, wisdom is being demonstrated humanly as we express the Second Degree moral qualities. The eight moral qualities shown here start with "humanity." As I studied and prayed I glimpsed for the first time a certain correspondence between God-given wisdom and humanity. Not only the loveliest but also the wisest thing you and I can do is to express humanity to our fellow being. It follows, then, that wisdom, as part of our God-given, spiritual nature, impels humanity as part of our moral human experience.

Wisdom impelling humanity! A wholly new impetus was revealed in my thought.

With the crisis before me, I began to let the one divine intelligence governing my thinking detect and honor the one divine intelligence governing all—including that man who appeared to be my antagonist. I felt the tact and restraint that I was striving to express in my caring reach out for these same qualities in the man. I sensed especially the integrity and love for the truth that I held dear touch the same innate integrity and yearning for veracity in this stranger. Above all, I let the purity and innocence with which God had shaped my spiritual identity embrace and elicit these identical qualities that were actually present in the heart of my activist friend.

One evening the young militant visited me quite unexpectedly. He stood there in my office and then suddenly extended his hand in a gesture of peace. His earlier demands were not mentioned, and after a brief friendly exchange, we smiled at each other and parted ways.

Truly, the way of the Christ is the way of all negotiation. It is the substance of our peace eliciting. And this is what leads us to employ tactics like silence in the face of criticism, the grace of courtesy when least expected (even with family and close friends), deflection of error through thoughtful changing of the subject, or the healing agency of humor. Respect for an opponent—seeing the real man—has dominion over the wrong that the individual may express. Where appeasement dilutes and weakens, respect enhances and strengthens.

Making Christian peace—lasting peace—is negotiating disputes without getting upset and without getting deceived. It is also recognizing in friend or stranger the inherent Christly desire to share constructively. We make this peace not by bravado, human will, or human psychology. Not by appeasement, seduction, or—obviously—coercion. But by expressing our ability to listen prayerfully and to demonstrate the attention, sincerity, spiritual discernment, and wisdom that characterize the genuine Christian relationship. True God-impelled diplomacy enables people to come face to face and not blindly pass one another by. Christian diplomacy fosters Christian dialogue. And for the Christian diplomat, it's the moral victories that count.

Such moral victories enable us to meet and part in beautiful ways. In her poem "Love," Mrs. Eddy writes,

You might say that Christian diplomacy, when scientifically practiced, enables us to invert the m of me and turn it into we!

"True Christianity is to be honored wherever found...," ^{Science and Health, p. 359 .} writes Mrs. Eddy. Wherever found—in families, offices, churches; in ghettos, in government buildings, in the airways of the world. Genuine Christianity is urgently universal, is hourly demanding. Through Christian Science we perceive that Christian diplomacy is the grace with which we evoke God's peace. In the person across the table, in the man across the street, in the true character of people everywhere.