“A State of Unrest and Division: Christian Science in Oregon, 1890-1910”

Swensen, Rolf. “A State of Unrest and Division: Christian Science in Oregon, 1890–1910.” The Pacific Northwest Quarterly 97, no. 1 (2005/2006, Winter): 11–18.

Rolf Swenson, a social sciences bibliographer, describes the troubled early stages of the Christian Science movement in Portland under the leadership of two influential women, Blanche Hogue and Amorette Aldrich, and the First and Second Churches of Christ, Scientist, they established. Disputes arose between Hogue’s and Aldrich’s healing practices, the students they taught, and the churches they led. The source of contention appears to have been due to Hogue’s affiliation with and support from Augusta Stetson, the most prominent leader of the church in New York City. In 1898, Hogue, tired of Stetson’s strong-arm cross-country tactics, repudiated Stetson and then attempted unsuccessfully for many years to bring the two churches together. But the members of both churches were unwilling to end their long-running feud which lasted into the 1930s. Swenson presents the strife in Oregon as an example of the denominational concern about personalities in leadership. He also argues that Eddy’s switch from congregationalism to a centralized bureaucracy led by a Christian Science Board of Directors, “eventually squelched almost all individual initiative … as well as contributed to a denominational decline” (17).

ISSN: 0030-8803
Print ISSN: 2327-9753

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See also annotation: 

“An Age of Reform and Improvements: The Life of Col. E. Hofer (1885–1934)” by Rolf Swensen