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Prayer for Christians

A Christian Science perspective: Following Jesus' instruction to 'love your enemies' has healing power today.

  • By the editors of the Christian Science Sentinel

Christian persecution may seem like a thing of the past, but the human reality is that Christians are under attack not just by jihadists in the Middle East but also by Islamist radicals such as Boko Haram in Nigeria, and nationalist Buddhists in Sri Lanka. Other countries, such as Kenya, North Korea, Sudan, Indonesia, and Egypt, are affected also. The Christian Science Monitor’s article by Christa Case Bryant documents very well the plight of these individuals and churches (“What the Middle East would be like without Christians,” Dec. 16, 2013).

One encouraging thought is what happened to the man Saul who, “breathing out threatenings and slaughter” against the early Christians, chose to head down the road to Damascus on his mission (see Acts 9:1-20). He had no idea that this journey would give him an indelible and inspiring role in Christian history.

On that road, Saul had a vision of Christ Jesus, not as an enemy, but as one whose mercy and goodness literally reformed his thoughts and within a short time made him the most ardent disciple of them all. We know him now as Paul. From the time he took up this ministry until his death in Rome, there was no task too large or too small if it involved preaching the gospel. He was beaten, imprisoned, attacked, in at least one shipwreck, yet he persevered in his conviction of Christ’s love.

Mary Baker Eddy had her own experiences of persecution from family and from those who rejected her ministry because she was a woman. Others hated her because they didn’t understand what Christian Science really is. Rather than become embittered, she wrote: “Be patient towards persecution. Injustice has not a tithe of the power of justice. Your enemies will advertise for you.... Persecution is the weakness of tyrants engendered by their fear, and love will cast it out” (“The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany,” p. 191).

In this, as in all things, she was following in the steps of Christ Jesus. He lived and proved the power of love, and told his disciples, “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:44, 45).

Hatred has no place in the heart of a Christian, even when it may seem justified. Rather, such incidents should motivate us to love more deeply the spiritual nature that each individual actually has as the idea, or reflection, of God. Insisting on the dominion of spiritual reality is insisting on the power of ever-present, omnipotent Love. This is the power that changed Paul’s life forever on the road to Damascus. This is the power that will change today’s persecutors also. 

Adapted from the Christian Science Sentinel.

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Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

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