The Science of Society: The Identity of Each as Godlike Embracing All

Messer, Mary Burt. The Science of Society: The Identity of Each as Godlike Embracing All. New York: Philosophical Library, 1959.

Messer offers a mid-20th-century voice as women’s suffrage activist and sociologist at the Universities of Wisconsin and California Berkeley. Along with her later experience as a Christian Science practitioner, she provides valuable insights into both the American self-understanding of political situations at the time, and the applicability of Christian Science a half-century after Mary Baker Eddy’s guidance. As such, hers is a relatively lonely voice, as most literature on Christian Science was published in house. Some of Messer’s views on political relevance, feminism and democracy from a Christian Science perspective appear in the Christian Science Sentinel (15 Nov 1930) and The Christian Science Journal (Dec 1940). But unlike most writing on Christian Science in her day which was concerned with individual spiritual growth and healing works, part of the uniqueness of Messer’s message was her interpretation of Eddy’s metaphysics as applied to that day’s broader political and social elements. She argues that the spiritual and perfect idea of God and God’s kingdom was to be demonstrated on earth as certainly in the collective sense as in individual cases. From the perspective of over half a century later, her idealism appears to reflect the American self-confidence in its superiority over communism, and progress overcoming patriarchal attitudes toward women. Christian Science was to provide the ‘Scientific’ and ultimate model for global completeness.

ISBN-10: 1258181606
ISBN-13 (Softcover):978-1258181604
ISBN-13 (Hardcover): 978-1258073480