“Mary Baker Eddy’s ‘Church of 1879’ Boisterous Prelude to The Mother Church”

Swensen, Rolf. “Mary Baker Eddy’s ‘Church of 1879’ Boisterous Prelude to The Mother Church.” Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 22, no. 1 (August 2018): 87–114.

Swensen examines the initial flock and organization of the Church Eddy founded and then disbanded ten years later. In 1879 Eddy founded her Church while still in tiny Lynn, then moved to the religious fermentation of Boston to further establish her Church in 1882, but initial progress was painfully slow. The early 1880s brought new members and stability, spurring Eddy to found the Massachusetts Metaphysical College and National Christian Science Association. But this “embattled precursor” of today’s Mother Church would be irredeemably challenged by a “volatile membership…, unreliable preaching by invited clergy and her own students, as well as confusion over [at least six] competing metaphysical groups” (88). Some women members balked at Eddy’s authoritarianism and dogmatism, leaving the Church for “more metaphysical freedom” (100). The Church became a “revolving door repeatedly utilized by exiting dissatisfied members” (99). Retreating to Concord in 1889, Eddy disbanded the Church which had proved “too democratic and a catalyst for rebellion” (Simmons, 1995, 65). In the three years following, Eddy’s remaining faithful continued to heal and form churches while she majorly revised Science and Health and planned for the future. In 1892 The Mother Church was organized to “protect the Christian Science movement from the heterodoxy and schism that had almost caused its dissolution…, and to provide channels for the perpetuation of her teaching…”.

ISSN: 1541-8480
Print ISSN: 1092-6690

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/nr.2018.22.1.87

For more, see:

2009 article re. the 1892 re-formation of The Mother Church by Michael Davis in Vol. 111, No. 19 of the Christian Science Sentinel titled “Church that Embodies the Healing Christ—Today.” (Subscribers may access this article on the Christian Science Sentinel here.)