Resources by Stein, Stephen J.

Stein explores the new scriptures that arose out of America and the three factors present in “the scripturalizing process…—canon, commentary and community” (182). Stein shows how the texts of Joseph Smith, Mary Baker Eddy, Ellen White and Philemon Stewart became holy scripture within their particular communities, as they each ventured beyond canon to interpret, clarify and expand upon the biblical text.

Stein defends not only the importance of allowing place for minority religions but also their ultimate value to society as a whole. He views them as contributing substantially to the vitality and creativity of the nation’s religious life. Christian Science is one of the ‘alternative religions’ he studies in the context of religious dissent in America.

Through an examination of the content and structure of Mary Baker Eddy’s autobiography Retrospection and Introspection, Stein, a scholar of American religion and not a Christian Scientist, observes striking parallels between the accounts of Jesus in the canonical gospels and the stages of Eddy’s life as she depicts them. Like Jesus’s gospels, Eddy centers on her teachings in her autobiography.