FROM THE editors October 25, 2004 Issue

A time for courage

The beheadings of hostages over the past months, at the hands of various Iraqi insurgents, have been horrifying. But alarm must not be allowed to sway the world's resolve to find a just solution to the many problems facing that region of the world. In some quarters, people have taken the ruthless and lawless behavior of these groups as a reason for hopelessness. But a more constructive approach begins with the realization that rooting out such behavior can be part of freeing Iraqis to find their own path to stable government.

Most of us can't go to Iraq to help the process along. But there are a number of things each of us can do. To stop such barbaric acts, we need a resurgence of moral courage at every level, in every government, in every household. As Mary Baker Eddy put it in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: "Moral courage is requisite to meet the wrong and to proclaim the right. ...Reason is the most active human faculty. Let that inform the sentiments and awaken the man's dormant sense of moral obligation..." (p. 327).

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