“A ‘Green Oak in a Thirsty Land:’ The Christian Science Board of Directors Routinizes Charisma, 1910-1925”

Swensen, Rolf. “A ‘Green Oak in a Thirsty Land’: The Christian Science Board of Directors Routinizes Charisma, 1910-1925.” Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, 24, no. 2 (Nov. 2020): 32-58.

Swensen documents how, in the fifteen years after the passing of Mary Baker Eddy, the Christian Science Board of Directors consolidated and centralized their authority. Their aim was to bring order and unity to a rapidly growing movement and deal with a host of crises. Swensen details the “Great Litigation” power struggle between the Directors and the Trustees of the Christian Science Publishing Society. The impact was that loyalty to the Directors “was elevated to a point where it became the outstanding symbol of unity” (46). He also examines how the Directors’ centralized authority extended over local branch churches, for a “private in the ranks cannot fully know the plans for the movements of a great army” (38). Further centralization came when distribution of the Church periodicals and the Christian Science Monitor, rather than individuals, were designated the missionary arm of the movement. The result of these and other changes was the “routinization of [Eddy’s] charisma” (33). Mirroring a corporate business model, organization, administration, and standardization were merged with obedience and loyalty. However, as early as 1916, a church officer expressed “fear of an impending rigidity, due to routine and the falling into the inevitable rut” (40).

ISSN: 1541-8480
Print ISSN: 1092-6690

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/nr.2020.24.2.32

See also annotations: 

“Charisma and Covenant: The Christian Science Movement in its Initial Postcharismatic Phase” by John K. Simmons

Christian Science and Organized Religion by Hugh A. Studdert-Kennedy

Proceedings in Equity 1919-1921 by The Christian Science Publishing Society

“Report to the Members of The Mother Church” by The Committee on General Welfare