Steps toward healing the culture of violence

Have you ever heard an economist or politician say that he or she can always tell how healthy and prosperous a nation is by how it treats its women? That’s both a provocative question and an interesting assessment. But isn’t it true that the rights of all men and women, cherished, realized, and upheld equally in any nation, would make it a happy, healthy, inspiring place to live?

Recently, I found myself praying about the treatment of women. I’d just finished reading a newspaper article about some troubling findings by the humanitarian aid organization Save the Children. The report found that efforts to stem sexual abuse of young girls in Haiti, the Ivory Coast, and South Sudan by UN peacekeepers were falling short (Mike Pflanz, “Sex abuse by peacekeepers still a problem, says report,” The Christian Science Monitor, May 27, 2008).

The troubling nature of that report was compounded for me by the fact that women being raped, as a weapon of war, is on the rise. Incidents against women have been documented with alarming frequency in the ongoing Sudan-Darfur conflict, the Rwandan genocide, the civil wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia, as well as the present conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Similar findings have also been noted in recent conflicts in Kosovo, Peru, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Cyprus, and Haiti.

Christian Science has shown me that aggressive, negative reports like these, and the graphic pictures of inhumanity that come with them, attempt to derail faith in God’s care by challenging one’s understanding of God as ever present, infinite, and good. I know it’s not enough just to say reassuring words about God being everywhere. We need to feel the presence of God. That’s the only way to know that God’s kingdom is perfect and intact.

A few years ago my local church addressed head-on the issue of violence against women, specifically domestic violence. Our county had recorded a surge in domestic violence cases in which women were being brutalized and even murdered. Churches were asked to support the government in addressing this issue.

We began by praying together, and decided to read the chapter “Science of Being” in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures as a basis for our prayers. Our study of this chapter helped establish in our hearts the fact of God’s completeness and His control over all of creation. We never doubted for a moment that this situation could be healed.

Our congregation was inspired to invite domestic violence advocates and experts to a county-wide forum on healing domestic violence. Panelists and attendees are still talking about that event. A group of men—batterers who had been mandated by the courts to enroll in a specific program to address domestic violence—also attended. So did women who were victims and survivors of domestic violence. Many of the advocates and experts who participated told us that they had never considered the idea of healing domestic violence. Sure, they believed an individual could be healed of the effects of domestic violence; but heal the very culture of domestic violence? That was a new idea.

Science and Health notes that “. . . as a result of teaching Christian Science, ethics and temperance have received an impulse, health has been restored, and longevity increased.” And then Mary Baker Eddy asks, “If such are the present fruits, what will the harvest be, when this Science is more generally understood?”

Healing takes place when the spiritual fact of our inseparable, harmonious relationship with God becomes clear; when we understand that we are all now and always spiritual, the reflection of God. Praying in this way does not whitewash evil; rather it exposes the evil and causes it to be destroyed, because it does not come from God.

Participating in this forum affirmed for me that the spiritual qualities of God generally attributed to women—such as care for others, gentleness, grace, beauty, patience, and strength—can’t be maligned, mistreated, or misunderstood. These qualities were evident when one batterer asked the Christian Science lecturer who spoke at the forum that day to explain how unconditional love can abate anger. They were also expressed in the beautiful composite of participants exhibiting the love and grace that do not judge, ostracize, or make an example of anyone.

Now, whenever I see reports of violence, out goes my prayer, seeking evidence of God’s love and care. And as for those spiritual qualities we attribute to women? I see more and more that they are eternal, and innate in both women and men.

Freelance writer Kwadjo Boaitey lives with his family in Stone Mountain, Georgia.

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