“Christian Science at the World’s Parliament of Religions”

Mary Baker Eddy Library, The. “Christian Science at the World’s Parliament of Religions.” Released 27 May 2022. 

The first World’s Parliament of Religions, with its message of unity among all religions, took place in 1893 in Chicago. Although Mary Baker Eddy was skeptical of the event, a group of her students convinced her that this was an opportunity to share the tenets of their faith on a world stage. With the help of Calvin Frye and Septimus Hanna, Eddy carefully constructed a message of the most comprehensive and germane quotations found in her writings. The address, “Unity and Christian Science,” was enthusiastically received. But when Hanna approved, without permission, for it to be published in the press, mistakenly as his own work, Eddy initially declined, but later allowed an abridged version of the address to be included in the World’s Fair book. Overall, the timing for this Parliament was not auspicious for it was a “watershed moment … just one year after the reorganization of her fledgling church as The Mother Church.” For this growing church, the net effect of the address was mostly negative, for the Parliament not only associated Christian Science with theosophy and “such non-Christian exotica” as the Vedanta, and Baha’i, but it also crystalized opposition from the more traditional Christian churches against Christian Science.

View this resource on The Mary Baker Eddy Library website.

See also annotations:

“Swami Vivekananda and Christian Science” by Joseph Peidle

Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Authority by Robert Peel