Article June 1, 2020 Issue

What sets the captive free?

Ingrid Peschke

Originally published in The Christian Science Monitor’s Christian Science Perspective column February 27, 2020.

That question “What sets the captive free?” kept coming to me as I watched the recent documentary College Behind Bars. It’s an inspiring look at a group of incarcerated men and women earning liberal arts degrees through one of the most rigorous and effective prison education programs in the United States. The students cultivate confidence and eloquence, some expressing deep regret for the crimes they’ve committed. One commented that when he reads and studies, he no longer notices his cell’s bars—he’s free.

That idea really resonated with me, since imprisonment can also take the form of mental or physical problems that seem to trap us. I’ve found that there is a deeper level of learning that can not only help us “not notice” limitations but actually bring freedom from them. I’m talking about spiritual education, including studying the Bible and practicing what Christ Jesus taught.

Jesus articulated his purpose best, quoting Isaiah: “to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed” (Luke 4:18, English Standard Version). In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, a follower of Jesus and the Discoverer of Christian Science, urges readers to “classify sickness and error as our Master did, when he spoke of the sick, ‘whom Satan hath bound,’ and find a sovereign antidote for error in the life-giving power of Truth acting on human belief, a power which opens the prison doors to such as are bound, and sets the captive free physically and morally” (p. 495).

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