“Book review of ‘Rolling Away the Stone’ by Stephen Gottschalk”

Bednarowski, Mary Farrell. “Book review of ‘Rolling Away the Stone’ by Stephen Gottschalk.” Church History 76, no. 1 (2007): 211-13.

Bednarowski admires Gottschalk as a Christian Science scholar who had worked to move the denomination into wider arenas of religious and cultural dialogue. In her review of Rolling Away the Stone, Bednarowski describes Gottschalk’s biographical study of Mary Baker Eddy as “a provocative blend of intellectual history, theological analysis, cultural interpretation, and religious conviction” (213). She outlines the book’s structure which is based on the last two decades of Eddy’s life. These are years full of controversy, in which Eddy is compelled to articulate more definitively for herself and her students the distinctive way that Christian Science should combat various forms of materialism: medical, philosophical, and ecclesiastical. Bednarowski maintains that Gottschalk has consistently identified Eddy as “a Christian thinker and that Christian Science is indeed Christian, but it is neither Catholic nor Protestant” (212). Furthermore, Bednarowski observes that although Gottschalk is not reluctant to acknowledge some of Eddy’s frailties, he believes she “has something powerful to say to a world that he experiences as becoming ever more bleakly cynical about what lies ahead for the planet and for humankind” (212).

ISSN: 1755-2613
Print ISSN: 0009-6407

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See also annotation:

Rolling Away the Stone: Mary Baker Eddy’s Challenge to Materialism by Stephen Gottschalk