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Annotation Resource

Certain Trumpets; the Call of Leaders

Certain Trumpets; the Call of Leaders

Wills, Garry. Certain Trumpets; the Call of Leaders. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994.

Wills examines a range of past leaders—each paired with an “antitype” or “one who exemplified the same characteristics by contrast” (20). He defines leadership as “reciprocally engaging two wills, one leading … the other following … [involving] always a struggle, often a feud” (11). Wills sees Mary Baker Eddy’s story as mirroring 19th-century America—turning from the past’s “punitive Calvinism” to opportunism, “healthy-mindedness” and spirituality “untainted by the materialism of the times” (175). Eddy also escaped the confinement of women as sickly and fragile to become a public, authoritative figure. Wills examines Eddy’s tutorship under Phineas P. Quimby (her antitype). Unlike Quimby’s technique of personal suggestion, Eddy turns to scripture for healing, reading it allegorically and seeking its spiritual essence. In spite of relying mainly on polemical sources for his information, Wills admits the genius of Eddy as a church leader. Whereas Quimby had patients, Eddy had followers supported “not only with a theology, but with an ecclesiology—establishing a structure of authority, shared rituals, a communal identity” (181). “She was Mother Eddy. He [Quimby] could never have been Father Quimby” (185).

ISBN-10: 067165702X
ISBN-13: 9780671657024

See also annotations:

A Story Untold: A History of the Quimby-Eddy Debate by Keith McNeil

Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Discovery by Robert Peel

Fits, Trances, and Visions: Experiencing Religion and Explaining Experience from Wesley to James by Ann Taves

“The Case of Edward J. Arens and the Distortion of the History of New Thought” by Gordon J. Melton

“Christian Science and the Puritan Tradition” by Thomas C. Johnsen

Encyclopedic Handbook of Cults in America, by Gordon J. Melton

Wills, Garry

Related Annotations:

Annotations related by category:
  • Availability: Library or Purchase
  • Controversy: Quimby-Eddy Debate
  • Official Christian Science Publication: No
  • People: Eddy, Mary Baker
  • People: Quimby, Phineas
  • Publication Date: 1981-2000
  • Resource Types: Book
  • Subjects: Arts
  • Subjects: Philosophy
  • Subjects: Social and Cultural Studies
  • Subjects: Theology
Annotations related by keyword:
  • Calvinism and Puritanism
  • Critical Analysis
  • Spirituality
More by authors or editor(s):
  • Wills, Garry

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