'To Bless All Mankind' May 7, 2018 Issue

A strong basis for national reconciliation

Lyle Young

A version of this article appeared in The Christian Science Monitor, November 1, 2017.

First Nation, Métis, and Inuit people in Canada are experiencing a spiritual and cultural resurgence, contributing more and more to the visual arts, theater, music, film, and politics. At the same time the whole country is moving beyond injustices toward these groups to effect national reconciliation between them and other Canadians. Some steps taken include the appointment of an indigenous, and by all accounts brilliant, woman as the federal minister of justice; the city of Winnipeg’s ongoing dialogue of reconciliation, including its Indigenous Accord; and the establishment of a National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

Although the Bible has been misused to justify oppression, in fact, one can find in its pages freedom, healing, and a foundation for brotherhood. By seeing how the words of the Bible point to a dynamic, present spiritual reality, Mary Baker Eddy showed that there is an eternal basis that unites us all in a higher sense of our identity as God’s children. The Bible teaches how seeing this can lead to reconciliation—to a recognition of wrongs done and to just action today.

For instance, Paul, the writer whose letters compose much of the New Testament, so prided himself on his faithfulness to the religion of his forebears that he persecuted those with different views. However, he evolved to preaching a broader understanding of what it means to be a child of Abraham, the patriarch of the children of Israel (see Galatians 3, for example). His writings assert that membership in God’s family and the blessings that flow from that inclusion aren’t based on ethnicity or external observance but on God’s grace, inclusive of all. He learned that it is the divine will that everyone be embraced in the universal family of one infinite Parent.

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