Mary Baker Eddy would transform her prophetic charisma into a set of bylaws (Manual of The Mother Church) which was meant to ensure institutional perpetuity, and act as a legal covenant for its members. Simmons highlights one British Church member, Annie Bill, who saw her own role as restoring charismatic leadership to the movement and creating an independent ‘Parent Church.’
View AnnotationResources by Simmons, John K.
The annotations by the author/editor you selected are listed below. Click the title to view the complete annotation. Some authors and editors have only one annotated resource. On each annotation page you have the ability to find related annotations based on certain criteria.“Christian Science and American Culture”
Simmons’s chapter on Christian Science in the context of America’s 20th-century religious culture begins with an acknowledgment of Mary Baker Eddy’s “insight into a primary religious impulse of her time”–a time of social upheaval and challenge to the biblically oriented self-understanding of America’s destiny.
View Annotation“Christian Science and New Thought in California: Seeking Health, Happiness and Prosperity in Paradise”
Christian Science and New Thought both conveyed a “metaphysical perfectionism” in sync with late 19th-century American can-do spirit and the golden glow of California culture with its promises of prosperity. Key women in Christian Science left the movement to become teachers and prime movers of New Thought in California. Other reasons for the decline in both movements today are discussed.
View Annotation“Christian Science” in Introduction to New and Alternative Religions in America
Simmons contextualizes Mary Baker Eddy amidst the late 19th-century era of revolutionary change showing how her forebears (Swedenborgianism, Mesmerism, Transcendentalism and Spiritualism) “prepared the psychic way” by making explicit to “the American spiritual imagination the connection among physical, psychological, and spiritual health” (94). He reviews Eddy’s theology, the influence of Quimby, and the evolution of Christian Science as an institution.
View Annotation“Church of Christ, Scientist: History, Beliefs, Practices”
This essay on Christian Science is one of many descriptive introductions of various religions and their relation to evangelical Christianity. Simmons notes that the ‘Christian’ element in Christian Science involves a radical reinterpretation of Jesus and his role in the New Testament. Mary Baker Eddy stressed the practical nature of her ‘science’ in human challenges, thus highlighting the focus on healing.
View Annotation“Eschatological Vacillation in Mary Baker Eddy’s Presentation of Christian Science”
According to Simmons, Eddy’s eschatology is understood in its original sense of an unveiling—sometimes conflicting unveiling: an earth-shattering disintegration of the ego. Both ‘catastrophic apocalypticism’ and ‘progressive apocalypticism’ (the journey of progressive unfoldment) can bring about authentic transformation, and revelation of all good, harmonious spiritual reality, or ‘ethical eschatology.’ Simmons seeks a balance on the journey from apocalyptic to paradise.
View Annotation“Neurotheology and Spiritual Transformation: Clues in the Work of Joel Goldsmith”
Based on a hypothesis from neuroscience—that the human brain is wired for spirituality—Simmons posits a universal process of spiritual transformation in three stages and claims that Mary Baker Eddy has experienced the third: experiencing mystical unity with God. But she retreated at times to a paradoxical duality when forming her theology and church organization.
View Annotation“The Eddy-Hopkins Paradigm: A ‘Metaphysical Look’ at Their Historic Relationship”
Simmons explores the reasons for the parting of ways between Mary Baker Eddy and one of her followers, Emma Curtis Hopkins. He speculates that the Hopkins-Eddy relationship embodied the second and third stages in the process of spiritual transformation where Hopkins moved through Christian Science and “graduated” to a higher spiritual level.
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