Christian Science and the Catholic Faith: Including a Brief Account of New Thought and Other Modern Mental Healing Movements

Bellwald, A. M. Christian Science and the Catholic Faith: Including a Brief Account of New Thought and Other Modern Mental Healing Movements. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1922

If Bellwald had had access to archival resources on Christian Science in 1922, he might have made a more accurate comparison between Christian Science and Roman Catholicism of the early twentieth century. His organizational approach to his study is well conceived, from contextualizing the practice of mental healing (which he calls ‘mind-cures’) from antiquity to the modern era, to the origins of Christian Science and its theological premises.  He combines the resources of blatant polemics, Milmine and Peabody, with his own Catholic perspectives to denounce Christian Science. Explaining the phenomena of healing, he admits the evidence of Christian Science healing, but he rejects Mary Baker Eddy’s claim that miracles violate the laws of nature. Instead, Bellwald argues, Christian Science minimizes Christ’s miracles by “bringing them down to the level of their own cures” (211). Although Bellwald’s selection of topics are well-suited to his comparative study, (a history of mental healing, metaphysics, theology, prayer, and sin), his representation of Christian Science lacks the mature perspective he expresses of his own Catholic training. He cites Thomas Aquinas and Benedict XIV as authoritative Catholic voices, but ambiguously fuses New Thought and Christian Science, using both Horatio Dresser and Eddy as sources on ‘mind-cure.’

ISBN: 978-0526068296

See also annotations:

“Mary Baker Eddy’s Christian Science” by Pam Robbins and Whitson Robley

Mary Baker Eddy: Christian Healer (Amplified Version) by Yvonne Caché von Fettweis and Robert Townsend Warneck