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Experiencing less of the evil that is racism

If we’re feeling that hatred is an unstoppable force, it’s worth considering the idea that everyone is inherently capable of feeling and expressing God’s powerful, healing love.

  • By Adlai Carstarphen

Christian Science Perspective audio edition
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In many circumstances throughout my life as a person with a darker shade of skin color, I have tried to recognize the spiritual qualities active in everyone, whether I look like them or not. When I do this, I feel comfortable enough to act or respond with genuine sincerity.

In thinking about recent events, I have realized that many “isms,” including racism, stem from what the Bible calls the “carnal mind.” This “mind” is the counterfeit of the one divine Mind, God, that created us all. An aspect of this carnal mind is the notion that God’s creation can be unloved or unloving.

But it’s not true. Of course, much of what we’ve seen on the news tells us something markedly different. But that doesn’t invalidate the spiritual reality of God’s goodness and everyone’s innate ability to express that goodness. And to experience real healing, we have to move toward seeing more spiritually.

How do you treat someone or think about someone when you know them to be a creation of God?

Would you fear them? Want to punish them? Wouldn’t you be more ready to forgive them, and be ready to help, or just think more kindly about them?

I’ve learned that as I strive to know others as God made them, they begin to act more like God’s creation and start to know me correctly, too. This spiritual knowing results from the operation of the Christ, God’s restorative power, and it brings situations more in line with what is divinely true.

Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer of Christian Science, writes in “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures”: “In Science man is the offspring of Spirit. The beautiful, good, and pure constitute his ancestry. His origin is not, like that of mortals, in brute instinct, nor does he pass through material conditions prior to reaching intelligence. Spirit is his primitive and ultimate source of being; God is his Father, and Life is the law of his being” (p. 63).

As we actively practice knowing others as Spirit’s offspring, capable of feeling and expressing God’s pure love, we’ll start experiencing more of the beautiful and good, and less of the evil that is racism.

Adapted from the June 3, 2020, Christian Science Daily Lift podcast.

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