Gallagher highlights four American alternative Christianities able to maintain continuity and gain legitimacy by retaining elements of the dominant Christianity and texts of its day, while also engaging in a “creative exercise of interpretive ingenuity” that resulted in a novel message evoked from familiar symbolic capital.
View AnnotationResources by Gallagher, Eugene V.
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” 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“It’s All in the Mind: Christian Science and A Course in Miracles” in Reading and Writing Scripture in New Religious Movements
Gallagher examines Mary Baker Eddy’s and Helen Schucman’s (A Course in Miracles) interpretation of scripture and development of their own canons. Gallagher sees Eddy’s Science and Health as a Bible companion which has the power to heal the reader and requires deep study. Similarly, Gallagher sees Schucman’s ACIM as indispensable to understanding the Bible, providing a mystical interpretation of scripture.
View Annotation