What does it take to heal prejudice?
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.
Emmanuel Ajayi (Nigeria): In my country, I feel, we think too much of our ethnic traits, and so we do not have unity. In Nigeria individual ethnic groups are known by certain traits. But I do not resemble any ethnic group; in a way I embrace all the ethnic qualities in Nigeria. Many beg me to tell them the tribe from which I come, and many are surprised when I tell them, because they know I do not act as one from that area and that I treat all as one. Behind this is the fact that as a Christian Scientist I see all mankind as one, and I think and act in my dealings with all with this view in mind. God really is my help in this declaration of truth.
Nancy Jagel (United States): That reminds me of an experience that we had as a family when we went to live in Japan. It was our first overseas experience; I had lived all my life as a member of the dominant culture. This was the first time we had been in the minority.
I'm five feet eight inches tall, and I could look out over practically the entire population of Japan, male and female included. I'd come home from a day in the city and say, "I'm too tall." I'd ride on the train, I'd see this beautiful shiny black hair, and I'd come home and say, "My hair is too curly." Pretty soon I began to think, "I'm ugly. I don't like myself."
We talked about this as a family and as Christian Scientists. We had to understand more clearly that the physical attributes we see around us don't define God's man; the qualities of God tell us we're beautiful. At first it was painful being looked at as something unacceptable. But we were able to work through that until we felt at peace about that "otherness" which is the basis of all prejudice. The healing destroyed the wall that goes up because you are different in religion or sex or age or social class or language. That "otherness" is destroyed by the Christ.
Dr. Isaac A. O. Ojo (Nigeria): You can belong to a group, and yet you can find yourself in a situation where you feel isolated. That is what occurred to me on my return to Nigeria after spending two years in Britain. I returned with what I thought of as bright ideas for my country, and I found that my ideas were not acceptable to my students and colleagues.
At this time I did not know about Christian Science. For about a year I had stayed away from any religious concept because I had not been satisfied with what I knew. I has to decide, would I continue accepting Jesus Christ as my Saviour without any basis for understanding why I was doing what I was doing? So I kept to myself. This was making me prejudiced against many Nigerians, and they became prejudiced against me.
I didn't know people around me loved me at all; I thought they all hated me—which is what I had faced in Britain as a black in the school where I went. There I had dismissed it, but in Nigeria I could not dismiss it.
Eventually I came across Christian Science. And it was at that moment that I was able to see myself not above anybody else but willing to give away some of my personal pride, which kept me away from other people.
I will tell you that it took more than one year before my students accepted my ideas. It was something that involved much mental agony, but I kept praying about it. I saw that St. Paul said, "There is no difference between the Jew and the Greek." Rom. 10:12 . I saw that prejudice stems from putting yourself above other people. And once we can remove that, we know we have a common denominator.
Emmanuel: On my campus there are people who preach that a certain number of people are children of God, while the rest are not.
Paul Henry (formerly of Northern Ireland): It was pointed out to me recently that in the Irish situation, the two extremes among those that are fighting share this view—that some are not the children of God.
Nancy: Is that all it is, or is it also an economic battle between the haves and the have-nots?
Paul: It has developed into much more of a political/economic scenario.
Emmanuel: But the way to heal these conflicting views is to see beyond the denominational level and to behold the real, perfect man of God's creating.
Paul: Yes, the great prejudice, surely, is that man is a sinner. And also—which is part of this—there is the prejudice that flows from making gods for oneself out of a philosophical system or an economic system.
Interviewer: So there's a need to challenge the basic view of what man is?
Paul: And what God is. A proper understanding of God would not lead to material worship or making gods other than the one God. And a proper knowledge of what man is would not lead to a belief that he is a sinner.
Interviewer: But what does it mean to see the perfect man, to look beyond the sinner, the conflict, the violence?
Emmanuel: It's a way of saying that we must cease to depend on the five physical senses, which deceive us as to the nature of man. We do not just deny evil. We detect and demolish it. It has no power. But it pretends to have power. We must detect it: we must see it in its deceitful form—and then we repent. We clean our thought of superstitious beliefs.
Eric: It is something we have to correct in our own thinking, each as an individual. We must see our fellow beings as God's perfect creation and love one another as we love ourselves—really see God's creation in all people. This cleaning of our own thinking will bless those around us. The more we can improve our understanding of our own spirituality, the more people we can bless, and in that way we can reach out.
Nancy: Remember, we embrace the world in our consciousness. And that's the only way that prayer can have an effect. It isn't that there are all these problems out there in all of these different countries, and we're little people sitting in a chair, trying to pray about them and thinking, "What good does that do?" Until we take our world and spiritualize it in our consciousness, and lift it to the heaven of Soul in our consciousness, the world is going to continue to seem to be a mess.
Interviewer: Could someone give an example of how one prays in a situation that may not involve one's own prejudice?
Isaac: I have a recent experience I could share. I happened to see a final-year student zooming past me. So I called her, and she could hardly raise her head up, and when she did so, she was only able to cry. She told me she had failed in one subject and that meant she would have to wait one year before she could retake the exam. All her effort to make the lecturer see her point of view had failed.
But I said, "Whatever belongs to you can never be taken away from you, and you cannot be subject to any loss, because there is no loss in God's kingdom."
She said, "I knew that lecturer was going to fail me. I knew right from the word 'go.' He has failed me three times. I am going to forget about this university. You work hard but you never get results."
So I told her, "You cannot be denied what is rightly yours. In God's world we have ample opportunity; it is all the time unfolding." I knew there was nothing that could debar her from expressing her joy, but I could see that the prejudice she had against this lecturer had to be healed.
The following morning I hurried to my office. There she was by my door, kneeling. In Nigeria, we have many ways of expressing respect, but it is very unusual, except with a daughter, that a girl would kneel down to you.
I said, "What is this?" She said, "I can only say that I know God lives." I said, "How do you know that?"
She said that she had sought out the lecturer who she thought never wanted anything good for her. And this morning he had told her he was bringing her case to the department to plead that she should be given a resit [that is, the opportunity to sit for the exam again during this term] even though she had been given an F.
To me this was a healing of prejudice. In fact, she said it; she said that she never knew the man could be a fine man.
Eric: On my campus, there was a crisis with the separate black student housing. Black students were getting very upset, because housing was inadequate. They decided to have a meeting with the administration. They had put out pamphlets beforehand, saying that if the meeting did not go as they wanted—which was what they expected—they would march on the administration building.
The whole university was interested in the issue, and people were taking sides. A lot of people were for the black students, saying that they had a right to live in decent housing just like white students. Then there were those that were prejudiced against them because of their color.
We got together in our Christian Science college organization—all two of us—and we decided that we had to do something. Our meeting was at the same time as the other meeting. We realized that we must love the people on both sides and know that God had the solution. That was all we thought we could do—just love both sides and be expectant of a result from God. We were sure others were praying too.
The next we heard was that the students were all marching on Admin. There was a long procession of people marching, with police in helicopters flying up ahead and armed police on the street. They marched up to Admin, and the leader of the group walked inside and gave a letter to whoever was inside, saying, "Thank you very much for the solution to our problems."
Interviewer: Were they good solutions?
Eric: Yes—not final solutions, but it was a beginning.
Mojisola: Really, we should become as little children. When I was growing up in England in the sixties, I didn't have this feeling of prejudice at all. My parents, too, didn't. My contemporaries say, "Oh, you were lucky," which is in itself a prejudiced statement. But I don't even have the faintest memory of prejudice. That's why becoming as a little child in thought is very important.
Emmanuel: That reminds me of one of Mrs. Eddy's teachings: "Beloved children, the world has need of you,—and more as children than as men and women: it needs your innocence, unselfishness, faithful affection, uncontaminated lives. You need also to watch, and pray that you preserve these virtues unstained, and lose them not through contact with the world. What grander ambition is there than to maintain in yourselves what Jesus loved, and to know that your example, more than words, makes morals for mankind!" Miscellaneous Writings, p. 110 .
Isaac: I only hope that after this we all go home and communicate with other people. This is the first time I have met one of them [Isaac nods toward Eric, a white South African]. I say "one of them," but he is not one of them; he is one of us. This is a very good opportunity, because I could never have known he could be so warm. In fact, I could never have thought I would sit near him.
Nancy: I love the image we spoke of earlier. In my mind's eye, I can see those black and white children playing in the fountain. It's a graphic example of what the future can hold.
