The Elimination of Crime - Holding Crime in Check
- Diana Gomez
- 4 days ago
- 9 min read
A Christian Science booklet published in 1968 called Holding Crime in Check can be used as Christian Science treatments in holding crime in check. In healing you always start in your thought to start the healing. This booklet has five articles you can now find online at JSHonline.com. JSH online is Christian Science articles that people have written about how God has heal them and how to handle any and all sin, disease and death. Crime seams to be out of control but by using common sense divine law that Christ Jesus taught we can hold crime in check. In using JSHonline.com you will get a free article and after that you will need to subscribe. These article are written as if written today with what is happening in our country and world wide by Christian Scientists using divine law. When you are dealing with divine law, it is as much a truth back in Christ Jesus time as in 1968 and as it is today. Divine law is the law Christ Jesus was teaching us and how to use that divine law in our every day life to maintain law or order. Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health with Key to the Scripture by Mary Baker Eddy:
"During this final conflict, wicked minds will endeavor to find means by which to accomplish more evil; but
those who discern Christian Science will hold crime in check. They will aid in the ejection of error. They will maintain law and order, and cheerfully await the certainty of ultimate perfection." (S&H 96:31)
How to use these articles as a Christian Science Treatment is to read the article and apply truths in the articles you are reading to what you are hearing and seeing in the news today. You are spiritualizing your thought with Truth. These self imposed mortal beliefs must be met with truth, and seeing the man of God's creating not the Adam dream in Genesis 2. Handle all evil in thought. See what evil is trying to do and then see that it does not do it. As you spiritualize your thinking you will start to see changes take place. Going to God in prayer changes you and those around you.
Here's a sample of what you can find on JSH Online:
PHYLLIS E. DILLMAN
From the September 1968 issue of The Christian Science Journal
Today the evils of crime and licentiousness appear in the world in some of the most unbelievable and shocking forms. No longer can any individual afford to be ignorant of or callous to the worldwide crime problem, nor should he stand helplessly aside or recoil from duty while immorality brazenly threatens to infest all that is good and pure. The Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States not long ago stated that major crimes reported over a typical three month period had risen by 20 percent over those of a similar period in the previous year. Law enforcement agencies over many years have striven against crime and corruption; nevertheless, they view with alarm the still rising crime rate and frankly admit that they cannot do the job alone but need the wholehearted support of individual citizens in the form of enlightened attitudes and willingness to assume public responsibility.
All of us should be genuinely concerned, and we should do all we can to handle the crime and immorality of our times, both for our own protection and for the well being of the world at large. But first the people of the world need to learn that contrary to general belief it is possible not only to cope with, or curb, crime and corruption but possible to eliminate them.
J. Edgar Hoover, Chief of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, stated to the press at one time: "We must . . . realize that crime and corruption will continue to flourish as long as people believe [that] such operations cannot be eliminated and that we should therefore seek ways to live with them." Intuitively, however, mankind do hope for, and perhaps unconsciously struggle to obtain, a more ideal way of life, one ultimately free from all evil.
Christian Science comes with liberating force to open up new channels of thought and thus free mortals from the penalties, the bondage, of their self-imposed beliefs. This Science teaches that it is never necessary "to live with" evil; on the contrary, it is always possible to overcome evil and experience good. But as we work toward this goal, much is required of us.
First, we must be willing to let go of old, stereotyped views of a faraway God, who is both a good and an evil force, and accept undoubtingly the facts of God's true nature, His eternal goodness and allness, His ever presence and all-power. Secondly, we must become conscious of the true nature of man as God's beloved child, His image and likeness, in whom are no beastly elements, no inherent criminal tendencies, and no capacity for thinking, expressing, or being evil. Thirdly, we must practice our Christianity as Christ Jesus did. And this, of course, involves the daily exercise of selfless, brotherly love, the kind of love that is consciously aware of those around us, that is as deeply concerned for the welfare and happiness of others as for our own, and that condemns not but prays with all the heart for the redemption of all mankind from every evil.
If we fulfill these demands to the best of our ability, we shall be contributing to the eventual solution of the world's problems and daily see increasing evidence of God's hand operating in the affairs of men. We shall witness the coming of a more humane and blessed civilization and feel the protecting arm of infinite Love surrounding the innocent to the exclusion of all harm. And we shall see this same Love tame the beastly elements in human nature and reform the criminal and degenerate ones until they too find themselves—as did the Gadarene demoniac (see Luke 8:26-35) —clothed with Christly love, having a sound mind, and ready to be useful citizens of the world.
In endeavoring to overcome evil for ourselves and others, we must know, as Christ Jesus did, the nature of evil—what it is, what it is not, and how it operates. We must realize, as he did, that evil has no authority and consequently no legitimate place to be. We must not let it deceive us into believing that it is good, for only in this way can it find a home, a consciousness, in which to live. If evil can convince us that it is a person, a place, or a thing, it has deceived us.
It is generally admitted that evil is the opposite of good. What is right is just, faultless, true. Evil, therefore, is always unjust, immoral, illogical, and unreasonable, as well as unnatural, unauthorized, and unreal. Mrs. Eddy writes, "God, good, being ever present, it follows in divine logic that evil, the suppositional opposite of good, is never present." Science and Health, p. 72; She also states: "Evil is but the counterpoise of nothingness. The greatest wrong is but a supposititious opposite of the highest right."pp. 367, 368;
A mistake in mathematical calculations exists only because the mathematician does not fully understand the rules or has not correctly applied them; so evil seems to exist in the world today because humanity either is unaware that divine Principle unerringly governs all or mistakenly believes that evil is as real as good.
Neither divine Mind nor its creation, man, is criminal. In answering the question, "What is Mind?" Mrs. Eddy states: "Mind is God. The exterminator of error is the great truth that God, good, is the only Mind, and that the supposititious opposite of infinite Mind—called devil or evil—is not Mind, is not Truth, but error, without intelligence or reality. There can be but one Mind, because there is but one God; and if mortals claimed no other Mind and accepted no other, sin would be unknown." p. 469;
Individually we need to support the work of law enforcement and welfare agencies in human ways that are practical and wise, but we can do much more. We can send forth into the atmosphere of the world the kind of thinking that uplifts, heals, cleanses, purifies, and regenerates. Contradicting evil's lies, we can know that in reality the eternal forces of good are ever at work and that nothing else is; that good is man's only compulsion, his only motivation, his only desire; that man's character, be cause it is divinely created and directed, is flawless, undriven, unspoiled, unassailable, and undergoing no upheaval; and that in reality man does not have to struggle to be good; he is good.
Such prayers are needed to counteract opposing mental forces, which constantly seek to identify men with evil in one form or another and, like ugly weeds in a garden, would, if not resisted and so destroyed, choke the divine possibilities of a sin-free society. Such prayers reach out into the world and extend a helping hand to those searching for a better way of life, and such prayers inspire society to take practical and effective human footsteps toward the elimination of the circumstances that breed crime.
If a person seems to live in a sordid and corrupting environment and is desirous of self-improvement, the impersonal knowing of the truth by his fellowmen coupled with his own efforts, can bring about a change in his circumstances that will free him from fear and contamination. Just as the water lily, gently resting on the water's surface, shows no traces of the dark mud from which it has emerged, so a person need show no traces of his former environment.
The times demand a change in our attitudes. Never can we afford to condemn our fellowmen or feel repugnance or disgust for them. We must learn to love them with a pure heart, no matter who or what they may seem to be humanly. Such love needs to be poured forth abundantly with tender compassion for each of God's children if we are ever going to witness the softening of hardened human natures, the reformation of the degenerate and depraved, and the taming of vicious mortal elements. If such Christly love were daily put into practice by as many of us as know how, a veritable Utopia could be established here on earth.
We must remember that our brother man is not the criminal, the adulterer, the sadist, the murderer. The guilty one is the one evil that preys upon the weak and lonely, the neglected and underprivileged, the unwanted and abandoned, who need our love. Mortal mind, or suppositional evil intelligence, is the defiant one, the contemptuous, the meretricious, the malevolent, not our brother man; and our attacks of condemnation should be vehemently directed against this would-be force. Daily we must know that this seeming mind is not mind but only a collection of mistaken mortal beliefs that lose their control over men once they are deprived of a place, or consciousness, in which to operate.
Christ Jesus, although he was a man of utmost purity and uprightness, was a friend of publicans and sinners. He loved these despised and rejected people with a great, healing compassion. When questioned by the self-righteous Pharisees concerning his presence with sinners, Jesus replied, "They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick,"Matt. 9:12; implying that those who are sinful need the same tender, loving care and healing as do those who are physically ill. He was often in the company of the outcasts of his day—the publicans, the Samaritans, the lepers. The chief collector of taxes was a small man who had to climb a sycamore tree in order to be able to see Jesus over the heads of the throng; but Jesus, as he passed by, did not fail to notice him. Looking up, he said, "Zacchaeus, make haste, and come down; for to day I must abide at thy house." Luke 19:5; And with what joy the man responded to this gentle yet reforming touch of the Christspirit!
The world's problems need attention, and the place to begin is at home—in one's own heart and consciousness. The gross immoralities, national and international crimes, divisions of families and nations, global wars, the unrest, homelessness, and desolation of its peoples are but magnifications of the evil beliefs held in individual human consciousness. Each unforgiving attitude, each jealousy, every hard line of bitterness, each hasty reaction and unhealed hatred, sends forth its own sinister atmosphere into the world. Contrariwise, tender devotion, Christly calmness in time of turmoil, gracious forgiveness and humble yielding, compassionate regard and selfless love, pour forth upon the world's troubled waters the gentle spirit of healing—expressing that Spirit which bids the mounting waves be still.
What can we do to lift ourselves and others above the crime wave that would threaten to engulf mankind? We can care enough to love, for the salvation of us all depends on this love. We can unmanacle ourselves and others from the cold indifference and neglect that breed crime. At the same time we must be extremely wise concerning the sly ways of evil and fearlessly handle such evil with utmost confidence in God's ability and willingness to act for our good under the most difficult circumstances.
We must open our eyes wide to see and recognize the good and the love that is already being expressed by mankind around us and toward us, and we must rejoice over this good and this love to the eventual exclusion of anything else but good in our consciousnesses and therefore in our lives.
Can such Christian endeavors on the part of us all fail to bring about a better world in which to live, one ultimately free of all evil? The answer is, they cannot. Hear these words of Peter: "Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently: being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever." I Pet. 1:22, 23.
Comments