History, often instructive, shows that dedicated people have destroyed “total” systems. The Indian National Congress, under Gandhi, exposed the moral bankruptcy of the British occupation and delivered independence. In the United States, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, formed in 1909, began using the courts to overturn institutionalized racism. Later, Thurgood Marshall, an African American lawyer and then Supreme Court Justice, and others, followed through on this and other strategies to success. In South Africa, the total system of apartheid was dismantled through the mostly political efforts of the African National Congress, which, almost dormant in the 1950s, became a hundreds-of-thousands-strong national and international organization in the ’90s and the first party to win power in democratic South Africa.
Though the “total” system that would be mortality itself might seem more entrenched and daunting than those other systems, God is guiding us individually and the Christian Science Church collectively to express the dedication and purity necessary to break that system. The Church Manual by Mary Baker Eddy says: “The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass., is designed to be built on the Rock, Christ; even the understanding and demonstration of divine Truth, Life, and Love, healing and saving the world from sin and death . . .” (p. 19).
Death is a mental system in the sense that it’s based on a series of thoughts that define life as embedded in, growing out from, and eventually dying as all-powerful matter. But the Bible teaches that we overcome death as we base our thoughts and lives on God, Spirit, and master sin (see Romans 6:23; I Corinthians 15:56). Thus death is more mental than biological—a spiritual deadness to be destroyed by holiness and selflessness.
