Editorial January 20, 1992 Issue

Rising and resisting

Allison W. Phinney, Jr.

We headed into the East by car from Berlin. The gray chill of November and the few yellow leaves left on the birches seemed a visible reminder of a state of mind—more than forty years of incredible mental repression and enervation by communism.

It was dark by the time we reached Magdeburg. Nights seemed even darker in what was formerly East Germany, where there were fewer and weaker street lights. But when we opened the big doors of the old university classroom—the meeting place for the Christian Science Society—we came into a roomful of light, liveliness, and vigor. These were people who had not only lived under communist rule but had also triumphed in spite of constant dangers and threats to them as adherents of an illegal, banned Christian sect. Now they were coming out the other side, with the joy of knowing what spiritual demonstration can accomplish.

In Chemnitz, which had recently changed back its name from Karl-Marx-Stadt, the stories tumbled out as we talked. A schoolteacher told of having been asked by the state several years before to put on a Christmas program. She didn't know or like the new state songs, so she taught the children traditional carols and Christian hymns. Ninety percent of those attending the performance were Communist Party members. Afterward, when the children were having cookies, a gentleman who had no party button in his lapel thanked her for her courage. The enormous implications of what she had done dawned on her, and she was afraid for the first time. But when she went home and prayed, Christian Science dissolved the fear, she said.

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