Newspaper Comment on Nazi Edict Against Christian Science

"To live and let live, without clamor for distinction or recognition; to wait on divine Love; to write truth first on the tablet of one's own heart,—this is the sanity and perfection of living, and my human ideal." The words are from a Message to The Mother Church by Mary Baker Eddy.

Can anyone, reading them, fail to understand why the church which Mrs. Eddy founded has been banned from the Reich by the personal order of Adolf Hitler?

There may have been contributing reasons. ... But back of it all there lies the age-old conflict—the conflict between those who are gentle and humble, in the image of the Nazarene, and those who seek to dominate and rule. ...

It is not only in Germany that this war is going on, this war between the gentle, kindly, God-fearing people and their would-be masters. The battle of Germany has received the most attention, as is natural, because the German Reichsführer has shown himself the ablest and the most dangerous of all the new Caesars.

But does anyone imagine that Stalin, in his preinvasion arrogance, would have been friendlier than Hitler to the Christian Science church—or any other? Does anyone suppose that a nonconforming Pastor Niemöller would lead a healthy life in Japan? Does anyone believe for a moment that Mussolini, in his heart, relishes the devotion of his people to their church and their God?

Of course not. Every ambitious dictator everywhere on earth, every tyrant who conceives that he has a duty to rule, recoils instinctively from the rustling of freedom.

For the small people who worship God according to their conscience, who read and listen and reason, who "live and let live, without clamor for distinction or recognition," they will never submit to perpetual slavery. They are the implacable enemies of the dictators, the eternal warriors in the war which never ends.—Omaha (Nebraska) World-Herald.

Hitler has just banned Christian Science in Germany. Its devotees were perhaps too broad in spirit, too cultured and tolerant to fit in the Führer's New Odor, as a brother columnist has so aptly called it. The Christian Scientists may congratulate themselves upon this ban—which no doubt extends to their fine newspaper, The Christian Science Monitor. Banned by the Nazis, they are in the world's most select and heroic company.—Montreal Standard.

Knowing Herr Hitler's twisted mentality, it is easy to understand his case against Christian Science. This gentle faith makes a vivid appeal to the imagination of its followers, whether from the special force of eternal truth which its disciples claim for it or because it is a new, arresting, and militant assertion of man's relationship to God and God's universe, and into it goes the crusading fervor associated with all young and challenging dogmas. Therefore, where this particular faith conflicts, as all religious faiths must, with a conception of all-wise and all-powerful nationalism, we might expect the sparks of controversy to be particularly incandescent. ... But it is important to remember that the clash between all religions and the totalitarian philosophy is fundamental and inevitable. ...

There is no offense in Christian Science except wherein its call away from worldliness interferes with the very realistic policies of a dictator. But that is the call of all faiths. And the Christian ideal of forbearance, forgiveness, and humility which is the golden foundation of all western religions—except State religions—has been the object in "Mein Kampf" of its fantastic author's bitterest scorn. ...

Hitler has destroyed Judaism in Germany and renounced such articles of religious faith as Jew and Christian have in common. Outspoken shepherds of Catholic and Protestant folks have been meted out the punishment Parson Niemöller suffers. Now Der Führer moves against Christian Scientists just as when he has the leisure and what he regards as sufficient provocation he will move against all churches, destroying them, even as he has found it convenient to destroy nations, one by one.—Waterbury (Connecticut) Republican.

The announcement by The Christian Science Monitor that the Nazis have descended on the Christian Science churches in Berlin, closed all of them in Germany, seized the property, and compelled the leaders to sign a decree dissolving the organization, is another grim bit of evidence for Anglophobes and Naziphiles to explain away.

This latest development has a double significance. First, it indicates that the Nazis are as antagonistic to the small sects as to the large. ... The sin, in their eyes, is that even such a relatively small group as the Christian Scientists should not have a primary, overriding loyalty to the state—which is to say to the embodiment of the state, Herr Hitler. This phase of the war is directed against Christianity, regardless of the various forms which its expression may take.

This peremptory suppression of a minority denomination of worthy, respected, law-abiding, God-fearing people is also evidence that the persecution of religion still continues.—Boston Herald.

This week in Germany an official order went out that the Christian Science religion and its practice were forbidden henceforth. The order was issued for "the protection of the people." That is going to be the fate of all churches if Hitler wins, for his order can brook no interference from the church. ...

The Christian Science faith is based on the general principle of Mind over matter—that a clean Christian conscience can triumph over all ills, mental, moral, and physical. Its adherents use the Bible in a scientific manner, reading it together with the interpretations of Mary Baker Eddy. It is a faith which calls for the highest type of intellect. Believers are taught to do their own thinking, not only on religious matters but all earthly matters as well.

It is obvious why such a faith is contrary to the Hitler scheme of things. In a totalitarian state, the Führer must be all-powerful and to be that he must have a subservient people, vassals in mind as well as in body. Faithful adherents to the Christian Science faith could never fall into this pattern. Therefore, the religion must go as must all other worth-while things in Germany.

But if the Nazis think that by decreeding such things out of existence, they vanish in thin air, they will one day find out how sadly mistaken they have been. Behind closed blinds when the air raid sirens blow, men and women will take out of some secret niche their Science and Health and their Holy Bible. They will find comfort in reading the Tenets of their faith. The more they are warned to drop them, the more they will hold to them as their one last hope for a better life to come.

Then, the day will come, sooner than many of them dare to hope, when Germany will be free again, and men and women can raise up their heads without fear.—Anderson (Indiana) Herald.

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