Resources by Gottschalk, Stephen

Gottschalk objects to religious historians designating Christian Science as harmonialism. He argues that the emphasis on the Bible and Christ in Mary Baker Eddy’s writings precludes the focus on ‘using’ methods for the primary purpose of comfort, health and wealth, control and power, that are exercised in the service of gaining and keeping harmony in one’s own life.

Gottschalk’s overview of Christian Science sees it as not philosophically derived but based on the works and salvation of Jesus, a new interpretation of the gospel, and the “operation of divine power comprehended as spiritual law.” Gottschalk compares Christian Science and traditional Christian views, as well as distinguishes it from idealism, pantheism, mind cure, and New Thought.

Gottschalk identifies Christian Science as “a religious movement emphasizing Christian healing as proof of the supremacy of spiritual over physical power.” He documents Christian Science emerging during a period of social and religious crisis, exemplified by the struggle over science (Darwinism) and faith (biblical critical scholarship). Although abandoning her Calvinist upbringing, Eddy clung to a strongly theistic, biblical solution to ‘the problem of being.’

Gottschalk, a Christian Scientist and scholar, wrote to the larger Christian community to explain the constitutional crisis of his Church. He sees an unhealthy monopoly of power and authority in the hands of its Christian Science Board of Directors, claiming their leadership was “well outside [Church] Manual specifications”–specifically pointing out the Church’s 1980s media expansion and the Bliss Knapp controversy.

Contextualizing his own comments within the historic period in which he wrote (mid-1980s), Gottschalk argued that the public perception of Christian Science was based on misleading views from both medical and fundamentalist literature. Serious theological exchanges with mainstream Christians had declined precipitously by that time, resulting in an oversimplification and incorrect categorization (idealism, ‘harmonialism,’ and ‘gnosticism’) of Christian Science theology.

Gottschalk’s 1980s update on Christian Science admits to seeing controversy on three fronts: intensified opposition from conservative Christians, the arrested development of open exchange between Christian Scientists and mainline Protestants, and a lack of honest confrontation necessary to address the controversies and dissonance within the Church.

Gottschalk notes that newer scholarship (of the 1980s) had begun to reassess Mary Baker Eddy’s work and character. For example, even though Eddy never abandoned her ingrained belief in God’s sovereignty or the equally strong conviction of God’s goodness, she was to advance in Christian Science a radical interpretation of the gospel through a new concept of God’s relation to humanity.

Gottschalk explains for the general public the internal Church controversy over the publication of Knapp’s book “The Destiny of The Mother Church.” According to Gottschalk, a respected scholar and consultant for The Church of Christ, Scientist, the book makes blasphemous claims contrary to Mary Baker Eddy’s teachings. It identifies Eddy as counterpart to and equivalent of Jesus Christ.

Gottschalk, an intellectual historian, left his post at the Christian Science Committee on Publication in 1990, uncomfortable with the leadership of the Church. Still considered a leading Christian Science scholar despite his criticism, he conducted extensive archival research for this book. Gottshcalk focuses on the last two decades of Eddy’s life and her effort to protect and perpetuate her religious teaching.

​​The 1987 death of a young child under spiritual treatment prompted Gottschalk’s clarification of how Christian Science parents approach care for their children. He makes the case that they stand by their commitment to their children’s health as well as their First Amendment right to practice their religious beliefs, because their experience with spiritual healing has proved reliable.

Gottschalk was a Christian Scientist whose 1973 book was a more frank presentation than previous accounts of Mary Baker Eddy’s life by an insider. For instance, although he claims that Christian Science is the only true Christian religion, he criticizes Christian Scientists for certain attitudes and behaviors that reveal a shallow understanding of Eddy and the rigor of Christian Science practice.

In Gottschalk’s interpretation of Mary Baker Eddy’s work, he claims that the question of evil can only be answered at the existential level of the demonstration of the sovereignty of God. He challenges both classical theodicy and process theology and argues that the status of evil as unchallengeable fact must again be brought into question.