Article April 2, 1990 Issue

The radicalism that endures

THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

For us today, the word radical has largely lost its edge. Certainly, the external elements, or the "style," of the radicalism of one epoch can become passe in the next. In contemporary society nothing seems to shock us for long.

Yet the real meaning of radical goes deeper than iconoclastic extremism. Radical means going to the root, getting down to essentials. People who get down to essentials and stay with them—no matter what the changes in social and cultural fashions—are and remain radical. The total dedication to nonviolent social change of Martin Luther King, Jr., and of Mohandas Gandhi; the selfless devotion to the advancement of human rights of Eleanor Roosevelt —these are examples of the radicalism that endures.

Why does such radicalism endure? Because it is rooted in something that endures. Because it expresses the only thing that is permanently radical, the living power of God, who is Love itself.

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