Article January 17, 2011 Issue

Don’t just mute, refute!

By John Kohler

Lately, I’ve been thinking about the significance of something Mary Baker Eddy pointed out. Specifically, that we can’t just go around denying the human experience, or putting blinders on when it comes to facing evil.

In a reminiscence by John C. Lathrop, one of the early workers in the Christian Science movement, he wrote, referring to Mary Baker Eddy, “Someone sent her a set of three little brass monkeys—‘See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.’ That, said Mrs. Eddy in substance, is not Christian Science, it is heathen philosophy. Christian Scientists do not close their eyes to evil, but open them. They open their eyes, spiritual discernment, and awaken to the nature of evil or sin, to its false claims, methods, subtlety, etc., and then realize its nothingness, its utter powerlessness to control or to harm” (We Knew Mary Baker Eddy, p. 117).

Well, the other week I found myself playing modern-day monkeys 1, 2, and 3. I had the occasion to watch some TV a couple of nights in a row, which I hadn’t done in quite some time. The first night or two I was astonished at all the graphic violence, and predominance of death in the shows. All of this was laced with a barrage of disheartening pharmaceutical commercials. Granted this is not all that was on TV, but I did find myself doing a lot of surfing. I wound up mostly watching some talent shows, which had their own drama!