Article May 5, 1986 Issue

What does it take to heal prejudice?

with contributions from Mojisola Anjorin, Eric de la Harpe, Emmanuel Ajayi, Nancy Jagel, Isaac A. O. Ojo, Paul Henry

Sometimes it seems that the very differences that enrich our world also provide the tinder for the fires of racial, religious, economic, and political prejudice. If these fires were quenched in each individual heart, one wonders if there would be anything left on which strife could feed, anything to undermine efforts toward world peace. But what does the healing of prejudice demand? That's what the Sentinel asked some Christian Scientists who've had experience dealing with prejudice. These six people were just a few of the twenty-five hundred college and university students and faculty attending a meeting held in Boston last summer by The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts. The topic of the meeting was "Individual spirituality and the future of mankind." Three of the individuals are faculty members and three are students. What follow are some highlights of their discussion.

Mojisola Anjorin (Nigeria): I have dealt with all kinds of prejudice, especially racial, by living with the passage in the Bible that says, "Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us?"^{Mal. 2:10.} I think about this and then really see a person as not from a different race, a different place, or a different creed, but as the spiritual idea of God.

Eric de la Harpe (South Africa): I would like to add to that by telling of an experience I just had while here in Boston. I had been in a discussion with some editors from The Christian Science Monitor; there were other South Africans talking to them as well. And the feeling was that it's a very different situation in South Africa as compared to America. But as I came out of the Bible Exhibit,^{"A Light Unto My Path" is a multimedia exhibit tracing the theme of spiritual light throughout the Bible. It is offered to the public by The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts .} I saw a whole lot of kids, black and white, playing in the fountain, and suddenly I realized, in a flash of inspiration, they were identical to kids playing in the fountains at home. I realized that we are all "children of light";^{I Thess. 5:5.} we all have one Father.