Sometime around 700 B.C. the prophet Isaiah said, “And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (Isaiah 2:4).
Fast-forward to the early 20th century and Isaiah’s words, if read as a literal prophecy, still weren’t realized. But something remarkable had happened. The Science behind the healing power demonstrated by Christ Jesus had been discovered by Mary Baker Eddy in 1866. By the early 20th century this transformative power so native to the early practice of Christianity was being proved anew by countless individuals.
Yet Mrs. Eddy saw that the power that enabled Jesus to reform the sinner; heal those who were blind, deaf, or diseased; and walk unharmed through violent mobs intent on killing him, must also be applied to world problems, including war.
Indeed, Mrs. Eddy deeply considered that broader prayer. In the May 1908 issue of The Christian Science Journal she wrote, “For many years I have prayed daily that there be no more war, no more barbarous slaughtering of our fellow-beings; prayed that all the peoples on earth and the islands of the sea have one God, one Mind; love God supremely, and love their neighbor as themselves” (“The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany,” p. 286).
Like so many, I’ve yearned to see the cessation of war, and Mrs. Eddy’s example of years of daily prayer toward that end is an inspiration to persist in praying “that there be no more war,” and trust that outcome is an attainable possibility.
The way she prayed has also touched me, in a couple of ways. First, it expresses a deep desire for the spiritual ideal to be more fully realized. If all had one Mind and wholeheartedly loved God and all their neighbors, war would be obsolete. Still today, we can pray for humanity’s openness to this higher mode of thinking and acting.
Second, I considered Mrs. Eddy’s words in light of how she described Jesus’ prayers, which she understood to be “deep and conscientious protests of Truth, – of man’s likeness to God and of man’s unity with Truth and Love” (“Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” p. 12).
Notably, this protests for what is spiritual and true – not against what’s material and wrong. But the effect of the former is freedom from the latter. This insistence isn’t willpower or positive thinking. Rather, it looks out from the higher standpoint of what’s real, that is, from the Christly view that God created all and made it very good, as the Bible says in Genesis 1:31. This spiritual perception points to the unreality of discord.
Once prayer delivers the tangible benefits of healing to us individually, it’s natural to bring the same deep, conscientious protest for Truth to bear on news of others who are struggling, including those in war zones. Whatever opposing evidence may be presented, we can mentally protest that all do “have one God, one Mind; love God supremely, and love their neighbor as themselves.” And we can ponder these ideas until we become conscious of the validity of our prayerful protestations, even where human experience seems fraught.
This would be illogical if the limits of our identity were simply what we can see, hear, and weigh up analytically. If they were, Jesus couldn’t have healed others as he did – through his spiritual sense of their true, good, and pure identity. All his healings proved God’s control to be what’s actually operative everywhere, even where body and mind seem in turmoil. As we recognize Life and Mind as spiritual and perfect – actually, as God – the bodily sense of dis-ease gives way to a godly peace, restoring harmony to faculties and functions.
We can’t ignore the injustices and sorrows of war. Yet we do need to turn from graphic details and strident opinions (especially our own!) to stand for the deeper reality of God’s spiritual universe. There, no material history exists to resist the divine unfoldment of good, no rage can hide the inspired solutions always at hand.
This is prayer that can touch and bless those in ongoing or potential war zones. Even where there are strongly held differences, we can hold to the truth of our permanent, universal unity in the one Mind – where no nation has ever learned war. Such persistent, prayerful protest for Truth will continue to draw us closer to and ultimately attain the achievement of “no more war.”
Adapted from an editorial published in the April 2024 issue of The Christian Science Journal.
