“’This is the Way, Walk Ye in It:’ Rebuilding the Christian Science Movement”

Rolf Swensen, “’This is the Way, Walk Ye in It:’ Rebuilding the Christian Science Movement,” Cultural and Religious Studies, January 2014, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 45-58. 

Swensen claims that to attract adherents, the Christian Science Church has gone through phases of public service and promotion versus sole reliance on one-to-one healing practices. Healing works generated extraordinary growth in the early stages of the movement, and the ensuing decades brought constant reminders that healing is the basis of the church’s legitimacy. Yet, some members have continued to claim that church involvement in social works represents a spiritually and biblically legitimate sense of purpose. Swensen maintains that the church bylaws tend to discourage connecting with community, even to the point of distrusting outsiders, making broad appeals self-defeating. Swensen’s article looks back on a history of church promotion efforts and community engagement. He includes the 1960s building of an expansive church center in Boston as an example of focus on outward images that might speak to newcomers. He also highlights the church’s 1980s investment in television to vault itself into public consciousness. These efforts were costly and produced division within. At the core of Swensen’s argument is how the Church Bylaws are interpreted. Those oriented toward their communities have always been turned down in favor of continued insistence on healing works alone.

Note: This article is included in Swensen’s book: “And O’er Earth’s Troubled, Angry Sea”: The History of Christian Science in the United States, Routledge, May 21, 2025.

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ISSN: 2328-2177

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17265/2328-2177/2014.01.006

See also annotations:

The Ram in aThicket: Rebirth and Reform in the Practice of Christian Science by George Wadleigh 

Open the Doors of the Temple: The Survival of Christian Science in the Twenty-first Century by Nancy Niblack Baxter