Article September 4, 1995 Issue

Bosnia—whose battle is it?

Beulah M. Roegge

One day I realized I had stopped praying for Bosnia. I could pinpoint the time when I adopted the they'll-just-have-to-fight-it-out attitude. It was when I realized that neither side was innocent of atrocity. I think I felt a little relieved at my new isolationist standpoint, as this required less diligent attention.

Then, as so often happens to readers of Christian Science literature, one of Mary Baker Eddy's sentences alerted me to the error of my ways. "In the Science of Mind, you will soon ascertain that error cannot destroy error" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, pp. 495—496). Good must—and at every instance will—replace evil. For, according to Christian Science, good is the reality. Evil in its very essence and nature is unreal. Although seeming to be most obviously real, evil has no foundation in good, God, and must therefore yield its place in the world.

This may seem to be abstract optimism, but let's ask ourselves a few questions. Why do we seek peace? Isn't it that we actually believe that peace is a normal, natural state which war interrupts? Why would we seek the expression of love among humankind unless we actually believe that love is the reality? Why does humankind yearn for something better than a daily fare of violence, war, killings, hunger, deprivation? Isn't it that we intuitively know that good is the reality?

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