What about hate?
Hate, as an abstract concept, has no force. It needs a medium, a personality, to have expression. This abstract concept, once finding a vulnerable or plastic personality, uses that specific personal mind and body to perform hateful acts.
Hate, characterized in the Bible as the devil, cynically tried to convince Christ Jesus to give up his godly commission to heal and teach. Hate even tried to enter the mind (consciousness) of Jesus to use it, to usurp and bend it to its (the devil's) own will. But the holy and spiritually minded Jesus said, "Get thee behind me, Satan" (Luke 4:8). The terrorist/devil was detected and dismissed.
Mary Baker Eddy, who authored "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," and whose ideas about healing and teaching Christianity were attacked, wrote of her own means of defense against the attacks of others, "Resist evil - error of every sort - and it will flee from you" (pg. 406).
Had the suicide terrorist retained his own individual identity and capacity, abstract hate would not have found a place in his thought. The terror would not have had an embodied place from which to induce an act of terrorism so completely foreign to an awake and defended thought.
A priority in defense against hate, then, would be to so shore up one's own individuality and identity as an idea of God that hatred in any form could not invade this armed and defended consciousness.
A further defense is to know the goodness and allness of God sufficiently to understand that hatred has no place - or even beginning.
A burning resentment, of any form, is a form of hatred. This self-motivated misconception cannot tolerate good or love. Hatred's native nature is to strike out and destroy. And the drive to destroy seems so real that this base element of evil consciousness destroys itself along with its victim, in its blind zeal to erase good.
A strong and constructive turn in dealing with hate is in this brief reference to Jesus in the book of Hebrews: "Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows" (1:9).
Jesus hated iniquity. He knew, with such healing authority, that God had finished His creation and saw it to be good. Christ Jesus knew that the Mind of man was God, and that it was therefore pure and blessing and harmless. This kept Jesus unharmed in the face of the crucifixion and entombment. He rose again. He forgave the iniquitous. At the very cross he said, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34).
There is a defending and curative foundation here in biblical Christianity. It defends us against the thrusts of hate and ultimately eliminates and heals hatred. The love of righteousness would prevent wandering animality and hate from subverting a vulnerable consciousness - and then using it to harm more victims. The love of goodness keeps human thought from ever becoming a tool of hate. These profoundly useful words from Mrs. Eddy, the founder of this newspaper, bring a healing conclusion to the opening question, "What about hate?": "Good thoughts are an impervious armor; clad therewith you are completely shielded from the attacks of error of every sort. And not only yourselves are safe, but all whom your thoughts rest upon are thereby benefited.
"The self-seeking pride of the evil thinker injures him when he would harm others. Goodness involuntarily resists evil. The evil thinker is the proud talker and doer. The right thinker abides under the shadow of the
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Almighty. His thoughts can only reflect peace, good will towards men, health, and holiness" ("The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany," pg. 210).
...thou wilt light my candle: the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness. For by thee I have run through a troop; and by my God have I leaped over a wall. As for God, his way is perfect: the word of the Lord is tried: he is a buckler to all those that trust in him.
