As some of those American Civil War pastoral scenes remind us, a battle can be fought in deceptively calm fields under sunny skies.

Sometimes we'd prefer not to be told of such things— particularly if it's not a glamorous kind of conflict, with rousing, clear-cut victories. People tire easily of long-drawn-out efforts. Attention turns to another television channel with a less demanding story.

Many of us may have felt that way about those court cases in connection with Christian Scientist parents. Yet for nearly a decade now, court cases, public censure, and more recently even the threat of imprisonment, have been a daily way of life for a few Christian Scientists.

Not even all Christian Scientists have been fully aware of this battle. Those directly involved have usually shouldered most of the challenge of human costs. Only families and friends, lawyers, some Christian Science practitioners called on for support, those who are Committees on Publication, and occasionally the Christian Scientist population of a state such as Michigan, Ohio, California, or Florida have been involved with long-term consistency.

It is true that the potential for good in this period of history —the close of this century and the beginning of the next—is great. Beyond the incredibly escalating technological progress and the hope of peace among world powers, there is, more significantly, some reawakening vision of what man can be. This is far different from "new age" euphoria. Since the mid-twentieth century a crucial change in thought has been quietly taking place. The desire to reassert a spiritual dimension for man has brought mankind to something of a crossroads. But the actual turning of the corner which is so important to the future of mankind—and makes possible that future—does not come without a price.

No lesson is more sharply pointed out in the writings of the woman who discovered and founded Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy. Battle was not a word "prudently" deleted from her vocabulary. She writes, "The rare bequests of Christian Science are costly, and they have won fields of battle from which the dainty borrower would have fled." ^{Retrospection and Introspection, p. 30.}

Much more is going on than just a small denomination's standing up to legal and bureaucratic pressures to conform. The struggle for the right to practice Christian healing without the threat of criminal prosecution is central in a much wider picture. The whole of society is being forced to confront now the greatest of questions about the nature of man. It is clear these issues are no longer the sole province of philosophers and theologians. They intrude practical differences in scores of everyday decisions.

Do we think man is a complex material mechanism whose well-being can be "taken care of" by more and more technological knowledge of a biomedical process? Then, we make our laws accordingly—regarding genetic experimentation, surrogate motherhood, euthanasia. Or do we think man is spiritual and that yearnings for justice and freedom—and our spiritual intuitions, prayers, and perceptions—are something more than the impractical poetry of life? Then, we write our laws in another way, and society goes in a different direction.

A basic struggle between materialism and spiritual values is going on in human consciousness. Commenting on Christ Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection, Mrs. Eddy writes, "The determination to hold Spirit in the grasp of matter is the persecutor of Truth and Love." ^{Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 28.} This kind of determination is not confined to the first century of Christian experience. It is, for those with eyes to see, thematic through human history. And right now this battle wages hotly at mankind's crossroads. Those who care, those who cannot possibly want to be neutral, need to be willing to hear of it.

Is it right, however, for Christians to think in terms of battle? The Bible indicates it is. St. Paul, in a letter to the Corinthians, reminds us, for example, "The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds." ^{II Cor. 10:4.} And this statement was long ago taken as the motto of one of the Christian Science publications, the Journal.

To know of the battle going on in these times for the future direction of mankind explains and clarifies. It doesn't necessarily make one feel embattled, and it brings more safety, peace, and healing.

"The battle is not yours, but God's," ^{II Chron. 20:15.} says the Bible. With a Christianly scientific understanding of events, we find we are released from both fear and a burdened sense of personal responsibility. But we are spiritually impelled to act with courage. We break with the conventionality that would muffle or deflect any serious spiritual intuition. The real dignity and stature of even the most humble spiritual efforts are restored. In this larger perspective, we awaken from mental oppression. We realize why we may have found it difficult to focus, to pray, or to work spiritually. And as we understand that God Himself is the source and Principle of the spiritual goodness and justice we so much value, we feel fresh assurance of their great power. The result is invigorating, awakening. It is the very thing that brings growth, vitalization, and expansion.

It can only be freeing to see that spiritual warfare in its essence is not between people or groups or institutions but between the divine impulsion of Truth and the aggressive illusions of what St. Paul termed the carnal mind. For one thing, realizing this removes doubt about the outcome of such conflict. It also makes personal hostility impossible. To be on the side of God's purpose for man is to be brother and sister to mankind. It is to know with full conviction and joy our own spiritual purpose for being and the irresistible fulfillment of such purpose that is coming for all humanity.

Allison W. Phinney, Jr.

Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I, even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out. ... I will feed them in a good pasture, and upon the high mountains of Israel shall their fold be: there shall they lie in a good fold, and in a fat pasture shall they feed upon the mountains of Israel.

Ezekiel 34:11, 14