Resources by Schoepflin, Rennie B.

Schoepflin’s review acknowledges the relevance of Rogers’s study of America’s religious exemption from vaccination in light of the then-current 2015 measles outbreak in the United States—even though Rogers primarily uses case studies of Christian Science practice from 30–35 years prior to his study to argue his case that children are harmed by exemption laws. 

Schoepflin includes short sections on the Seventh-day Adventists, Mormons and Christian Scientists, seeing them as movements which used science as a “tool for apologetics.” He shows how Mary Baker Eddy combined the tools of science (reason and empiricism—in the evidence of bodily healing) with “the spiritual and immaterial dimensions of Christianity” (311).

Schoepflin’s thesis is that in Christian Science, “healing the sick is a consequence of Christian Science practice and not its prime object.” He traces the history of the understanding among Mary Baker Eddy’s followers of what a healing practice is about–initially as a profitable vocation, to the need for gradual spiritual growth (more about religious practice than health care), and the opening up to the need for physical aid.

Schoepflin’s book contains a detailed analysis of the late 19th-century legislative and legal confrontations between Christian Scientists and the medical community, demonstrating the shifting relationship between medical practitioners, Christian Science practitioners, and the public. From medical licensing, the meaning of medical practice, and the rights of Americans to therapeutic choice, the public debate turned to matters of contagious disease, public safety and children’s rights.

Schoepflin’s study addresses the difficult and contentious relationship between the evolution of medical practice and the healing practices in Christian Science. His analysis is based on the thoughts and work of actual Christian Science practitioners and the experiences of their patients during a period (1890s–1920s) when the movement struggled against the efforts of organized American medicine to curtail its activities.

In a time when science and medicine were intent on removing religion from their midst, both Eddy and White actively integrated physical and spiritual concerns in their theology and practice. Although Eddy named her religion Christian Science, logically claiming that its principles could be demonstrated with mathematical certainty, White’s claim to authority was validated by her public visions with signs following.

Schoepflin lays out the rich historical context wherein Mary Baker Eddy struggled to distinguish and preserve her movement—an amalgam of science, medicine, traditional Christianity, Spiritualism, mesmerism, homeopathy, water cure, mind cure, New Thought, and Swedenborgianism. He sketches out early Christian Science, the training of Christian Science practitioners, Eddy’s formation of church publications and polity, and her administrative savvy.