“Science and Health” and the “Church Manual” Jesus: Pentecost: Mary Baker Eddy: Today

Brown, W. Gordon. “Science and Health” and the “Church Manual.” Jesus: Pentecost: Mary Baker Eddy: Today. England: Gordon and Estelle Brown, 1988.

This book includes two separate parts arguing that after Mary Baker Eddy’s passing, her church officers “returned it to the grasp of outgrown legal power” (Science and Health and Church Manual, 1). In the first part, he argues that the “Boston hierarchy [failed] to comply with the Church Manual’s divinely inspired estoppel clauses” (Science and Health and Church Manual, 12). Those clauses refer to Eddy’s instructions prohibiting actions without her signature, interpreted by Brown as evidence that those actions were to “stop” after her passing. The major content of the first part is Brown’s spiritual interpretation of the Church Manual By-Laws, including his identification of church officers as representations of each of Eddy’s synonymous terms for God. His interpretation implies an enduring ideal transcending human lives and organizations. The second part is a response to the “need to evaluate … the position of Mary Baker Eddy and her great lifework in both Biblical prophecy and world history” (Jesus: Pentecost, 1). This part also includes a brief history of the “emerging remnants” (including Kimball, Young, Eustace, Orgain, Ross, Laird, Carpenters, de Lange, and Doorly)—those who “paid the penalty for offending officialdom by being excommunicated from the Boston church” (Jesus: Pentecost, 26). Editorial amendment: Kimball and Young were controversial, but never excommunicated.

ISBN-10:‎ 0904320057
ISBN-13:‎ 978-0904320053

See also annotation:

Mrs. Eddy’s Expressed Intention: Legal Opinions by Clifford Smith and Walter H. Wilson

This reference is written by an ‘independent’ Christian Scientist and is included in the bibliography because of its historical value. For further explanation, click here.