Announcer: Everyone wants to be free. And yet in many ways the challenge to human freedom has never been greater. Many men and women still seek freedom from political tyranny, social prejudice, poverty. Others feel in bondage to conformity, regimentation, or personal weaknesses. They want to know what makes men free.

Questioner: I imagine many of us still have a lot to learn about the meaning of freedom. Even nations that win political independence are constantly striving to protect the freedom that they've won. A civil rights worker probably feels that the right kind of laws would make men free. Would you agree with that solution?

Speaker: I'd agree that the right kind of laws will help protect men's freedom, but they are not the source of men's freedom. I think we all agree that there is something inherent in men to want to be tree. The trouble, you see, is that mankind are looking for the source of freedom in the wrong places.

Questioner: What do you mean by the wrong places?

Speaker: Well, the answer to what makes men free doesn't come from men or laws or material inventions or governments. The answer is to be found in the living truth that comes from God. Freedom literally comes to the individual from his understanding of God and his own relationship to Him as God's image and likeness.

If a person thinks that due to circumstances of his birth or race or other circumstances he has limited opportunity, ability, and status, he's not free. But these are all misconceptions which a right understanding of God destroys, showing men the way to true freedom.

Questioner: How would that work?

Speaker: The Bible says (II Cor.3:17), "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.'" Well, where is "the Spirit of the Lord"? It's everywhere, isn't it?

Questioner: If this "Spirit of the Lord," which gives us freedom, is everywhere, why isn't it seen as reflected by every man?

Speaker: Because not everyone is conscious of it. You see, liberty is really a natural part of God's creation. Consequently, it is native to man, and man only needs to know this. We all start from where we are, and if we find ourselves in a state or condition of oppression, we can remedy that situation. Questioner: You mean, we can rise above it?

Speaker: Yes. Freedom has many, many faces. I know people who've been freed from the liquor habit and the smoking habit ; and I, myself, have been freed from the bondage of a so-called incurable disease and am able to walk and move around in a lively fashion again.

In his ministry, Christ Jesus revealed the liberating power of the Christ, the eternal Truth, or the understanding of God and man's relationship to Him. His teachings healed the sick, freed the sinner from bondage, and gave all men— not only the individuals in his own time but for all time—a deeper insight into man's God-given freedom.

Jesus said (John 8:31, 32), "If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

Now, the truth that Jesus was speaking of is divine Truth, the understanding of God and of man as God's image and likeness. And Jesus' teachings and healings showed that although men might see themselves as socially and physically oppressed and handicapped, they could learn to recognize their true nature through the understanding of this divine Truth.

Questioner: When you refer to man's "true nature," you're speaking in a spiritual sense; this doesn't have anything to do with our human existence.

Speaker: It certainly does. I'm speaking in a spiritual sense all right, but the spiritual sense determines the human scene. And that's the important point. As we understand these spiritual facts and change our thinking from the belief that we are limited mortals to the understanding of our dignity, honor, and grace as the image and likeness of God, then the human situation changes. It improves. We find people acting differently toward us.

Questioner: But I can think of many people who perhaps don't look upon themselves as being the image and likeness of God but who have an inherent desire to be free.

Speaker: I think you're right, but they don't quite know how. They think that establishing a legal basis for freedom is going to do it, but this just isn't enough. They need to know that God is divine Love, that He is unfailing good with no element of evil, and that He imparts only good to His creation. They need to see themselves as included in this creation. They need to learn that God is divine Mind and that the laws of God are supremely intelligent, governing man in freedom and harmony.

The basic obstacle to freedom is the belief that freedom has human origin and that it can be limited and lettered by material oppression. In ''Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy writes (p. 227): "Discerning the rights of man, we cannot fail to foresee the doom of all oppression. Slavery is not the legitimate state of man. God made man free."

Every individual's freedom includes the understanding that he has divine rights as the spiritual likeness of God and that he is motivated and governed and protected by God by Spirit. This understanding enables the individual to overcome his embittered feelings and to realize his eternal birthright of freedom as the expression of God.

Questioner: How does this actually take place?

Speaker: I was talking to an individual recently who told me of an experience that illustrates this.

She first took up the study of Christian Science when she was a young woman, and at that time she went to work in a men's clothing manufacturing company where she was the only Negro employee.

Very soon after she arrived, it became obvious to her that the other girls didn't like her and didn't want her there. They did everything they could to get her to leave by making it uncomfortable and disagreeable for her.

Her study of Christian Science had given her some idea of her relationship to God. And she had gained from the Bible the understanding, as the Bible says that "God is no respecter of persons" (Acts 10:34). Site held onto this, and she began to see, she told me, that we're all one with Him, that no one is inferior. She said that during this experience she often referred to the passage from Science and Health that I mentioned earlier, where Mrs. Eddy writes: "Discerning the rights of man, we cannot fail to foresee the doom of all oppression."

As time went on, she began not to let the things that the others did upset her and she stopped being resentful. She gained a sense of peace and poise, self-assurance and confidence.

As her thought about herself and others changed, the actions of her fellow workers changed. She told me she stayed there for twenty years, and a large part of that time she was the supervisor of the department.

The Christ-power that gave Jesus dominion over all forms of oppression is present today to lift individual consciousness above all material limitations and to point out to every one of us the way to express freedom in our human experience.