A Spiritual Journey: Why I Became a Christian Scientist

Nenneman, Richard A. A Spiritual Journey: Why I Became a Christian Scientist. USA: Nebbadoon Press, 2008.

In his book dedicated to his grandchildren, Nenneman declares up front that his interest in Christian Science was due not to its healing message, but to Eddy’s deep spirituality and theological answers regarding the nature of God and Jesus’s mission. Nenneman dedicates a chapter each to three great thinkers who prepared his thought for Christian Science: Ralph Waldo Emerson, William James and Dietrich Bonhoeffer—all of whom stressed the importance of personal and independent religious experience over dogma or metaphysics alone. He also documents how certain prophetic thinkers wrestled with similar visions of reality that Mary Baker Eddy articulates in her writings—thinkers he identifies in the Hebrew Scriptures, the Christian New Testament, and in the flourishing exchange between Jews, Muslims and Christians in the Middle Ages. “By bringing myself up to date on what other religious thinkers have been doing, I thought it remarkable that we were arriving at much the same point” (134). Nenneman also speculates on his own Christian Science church experience, providing ideas for its rejuvenation; and its need to relate to the larger Christian covenant community—the body of Christ—by placing “both spirituality and health in a broader setting than merely individual well-being” (115).

ISBN-10: 1891331175
ISBN-13: 9781891331176