Article September 22, 1997 Issue

Bridging the gender divide

Jon Benson

How would you react to the prospect of meeting an alien? With excitement? Apprehension? Well, take a look at your family, your workplace, your church. See anyone of a different sex? Talk to that individual. Interact. Congratulations, you've just had an alien encounter!

At least so says much of current relationship theory. Most approaches to human relations leave God, our real Parent, out of the picture, and build on the false premise imposed on mankind generally: that we are genetically imprinted sexual, material, mortal personalities. But we aren't. The Bible announces the spiritual facts that "whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever" (Eccl. 3:14) and that the mortal and material have to yield to the truth of our immortality and spirituality (see I Cor. 15:48–54). Echoing Scriptural admonitions not to judge after outward appearances, not to lean on a material understanding of things, Mary Baker Eddy pointedly observes, "If the premise of mortal existence is wrong, any conclusion drawn therefrom is not absolutely right" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 288).

From the array of articles on gender relations in the magazines at supermarket checkouts to the extensive shelf space given to the subject in bookstores, we can see vast amounts of time and money being spent in a societal search for the Grail of a good personal relationship. What if instead we invested similar resources in our individual and collective relationship to good itself?

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