Article September 25, 1989 Issue

FROM THE DIRECTORS

"Thou hast no enemies"

The Christian Science Board Of Directors

In addition to the important issues raised in a recent editorial in The Christian Science Monitor called "Speaking for Children," ^{ Monitor, August 17, 1989 .} there are other points worth noting.

Court battles need not become arenas for people who have reason to love and respect each other to find themselves being cast as enemies. The genuine Christian Scientist has no enemies. The press is not his enemy, nor is the medical faculty, nor are affiliates of other religious denominations.

A common enemy for all is religious intolerance, ignorance, and even indifference to the practical value of prayer. A very real right at stake for people everywhere is freedom of choice. Our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, puts it in these words: "No crown nor sceptre nor rulers rampant can quench the vital heritage of freedom—man's right to adopt a religion, to employ a physician, to live or to die according to the dictates of his own rational conscience and enlightened understanding." ^{ The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 128.}