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Voorhees offers new scholarship on a broad array of topics related to Christian Science identity focusing on reception history. With attention to fully resourced details and modern scholarship, Voorhees outlines the reception history of Christian Science in fields of religion, women studies, American history, politics, medicine, and metaphysics. She probes Mary Baker Eddy’s relationships with contemporary scholars, religion leaders, and students.

Swensen examines the initial flock and organization of the Church Mary Baker Eddy founded and then disbanded ten years later. The early 1880s brought new members and stability, spurring Eddy to organize. But this embattled precursor of today’s Mother Church would be irredeemably challenged by a volatile membership, unreliable preaching by invited clergy, and confusion over competing metaphysical groups.

The focus of this article is an explanation of Christian Science within the religious context of its American origin and development. Melton claims that Mesmerism, Spiritualism, Swedenborgianism, and Transcendentalism prepared the way for two important religious movements of the 19th- century: Christian Science and New Thought. The author also gives relative importance to the role of independent Christian Scientists.

Petersen has made a paraphrase revision of Mary Baker Eddy’s 19th-century textbook, Science and Health, with the purpose of elucidating divine Science for the 21st century. In her Preface she avows her great efforts to keep Eddy’s original meaning of divine Science intact, while using more current (and inclusive) language and illustrations, and quoting from modern Bible versions.

Horowitz assigns Christian Science a prominent place in the development of American affirmative-thinking (his term) philosophical systems. Although he acknowledges Mary Baker Eddy’s interest in Quimby (a 19th-century mesmerist) and her debt to him during a prolonged time of illness, Horowitz believes that Quimby was not the founder of Christian Science. Instead, Eddy herself created a brigade of spiritual freethinkers.

This report attempts to explain why Christian Science has failed to grow as its founder predicted. It claims that a faulty Church organization has been improperly governing since the death of Mary Baker Eddy, primarily because of the assumption of complete authority by the self-perpetuating Board of Directors, their interpretation of the Church Manual, and the presumed need for a church organization at all.

Sweet’s firsthand account of the lives and work of Bruce and his son John Klingbeil describes their organization, Spindrift, and their deep involvement with Christian Science. Spindrift’s scientific experiments with prayer for plants, attempted to prove that prayer works, but their struggles with public rejection and excommunication from the Church until their double suicide in 1993 plagued them until the end.

Michell examines the influences, and theological connections and differences, between the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy, Emma Curtis Hopkins, the 19th-century Woman’s movement, and the New Thought and New Age movements. Hopkins, unlike Eddy, would see Truth in all religions, not limited to Christianity, and focused more on a prosperity gospel.

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.

This well-researched biography of Emma Curtis Hopkins, little-known founder of the 19th-century New Thought movement, includes Hopkins’s early-stage affiliation with Mary Baker Eddy—her tutelage by Eddy and editorship of The Christian Science Journal for 13 months before being suddenly discharged. Harley draws on a range of scholarship to contextualize the complexity of this knotty developmental stage of Christian Science.

Grekel’s stated goal for her trilogy on Mary Baker Eddy is to learn her holy history. She opens the first biography with the Matthew and Luke Gospel accounts of Jesus’s birth, demonstrating parallels between Jesus and young Mary Baker. Thoreau plays the role of John the Baptist. Examples of comparisons with Jesus are intended as evidence of Eddy’s holiness.

Alan Young, a successful 20th century actor in television and movies, was invited to bring his skill to help the Mother Church. But he became disillusioned with his direct experience working with the Boards of Directors in the late 1960s and early 1970s and tells his personal story, because he thinks his story exemplifies what happened to other skilled professionals.

​​Keyston claims that no one since Christ Jesus has accomplished a fragment of what Mary Baker Eddy did. He identifies Eddy’s healing work with biblical references, indicating his belief in her fulfillment of biblical prophecy. Keyston draws a direct parallel between Jesus and Eddy, establishing her as the human appearing of the Scriptural prophecies concerning the Daughter of Zion.

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.

Because Emma Curtis Hopkins identified herself as an independent Christian Scientist, her successful establishment of her own religious following provides a valuable comparison with Eddy’s Christian Science.  Although Hopkins’s theological teaching was quite similar to Mary Baker Eddy’s, Hopkins emphasized some aspects of it—such as her larger implications of God’s identity as Mother—while still operating within ecclesiastical Christianity.

Weatherbe’s book focuses on Stetson’s relationship to Mary Baker Eddy, and Stetson’s accomplishments with her own healing practice and leadership in Christian Science. Stetson’s crowning achievement was the building and development of her Christian Science Church in New York. The biography includes a brief account of Stetson’s pre-Christian Science years and a large section of backup documents.

Wright speaks against the Christian Science Board of Directors who tried to preserve the copyright control of Science and Health after the copyright expiration. By failing to terminate the five-member Christian Science Board of Directors (as she interprets the estoppel clauses from the Church Manual), the Board has stifled the freedom of Christian Scientists to be instructed by Science.

In the book’s part one, Brown argues that after Eddy’s death, the “Boston hierarchy [failed] to comply with the Church Manual’s divinely inspired estoppel clauses.” Part two  is a response to the “need to evaluate … the position of Mary Baker Eddy and her great lifework in both Biblical prophecy and world history.” This part also includes histories of the “emerging remnants” excommunicated from the Church.

Welz, Carl J. The Caring Church: Call for a Humane Christianity. Santa Rosa, CA: Meadow Brook Company, 1985. Welz, a former Christian Science teacher and editor of Church periodicals, asks why his Church has not experienced much progress or many healings in the past fifty years. He finds the answer in his own journey from an intellectual abstract approach to Mary Baker Eddy’s writings to a realigned focus on the humanity and good deeds found.

This book collects the writings and addresses of de Lange, a Christian Science practitioner and teacher active in the movement from 1911 to 1955 when he was removed from office. The collection is mainly inspirational, but also includes his “State of the Christian Science Movement” where he excoriates the Christian Science Board of Directors as too powerful, hierarchical and interfering in local branch church self-government.

Wright, a former Christian Science practitioner, compiled notes from her weekly seminars over a period of twenty years. Like other independent Christian Scientists who love Christian Science, she conceives it differently from the sanctioned teachings of the Church. Wright challenged contemporary Christian Scientists to reevaluate Christian Science based on her higher understanding of Mary Baker Eddy in biblical prophecy.

Beals writes, “This book is a factual account of my experiences with the Kerry Letters from 1975 through 1977 when I was in Boston helping his one-man crusade to revive the Christian Science Church.” Kerry’s primary concerns were the state of the Church finances, its authoritarian style of government, and immorality (usually identified as homosexuality).

Smith and Wilson, the authors of the ‘Paul Revere’ publications, circulated their materials in the second quarter of the 20th century. Contrary to harsh opposition from those not of the faith who sought to destroy the Church, Paul Revere’s strong critique sought to save the Church from its own undoing. Smith and Wilson were dropped from Church membership in 1950.

Laird outlines her shifting relationship to Christian Science, beginning with her mother’s healing, through to her role as an authorized teacher of Christian Science, to leaving the Church and ‘re-exploring’ the Science of Christian Science. This journey led her beyond the Bible and Christian theology to take the path of Science alone.

Moore had been a registered Christian Science healing practitioner for many years, but she strove to place herself on a ‘bridge’—or a kind of peaceful integration with matter and mind, a position inconsistent with Mary Baker Eddy’s teachings. Her personal wrestling culminates in this book, which resulted in her excommunication from The Mother Church and her local branch church.

Merritt, a former member, laments that although Christian Science came as a challenge to orthodoxy, it soon spawned its own orthodoxy. He questions the tightly guarded institutionalizing of the Church, and came to oppose the extremist attitude prevalent in the 1960s against medical support in times of crisis, the over-spiritualization of sexual relations, and other extremist views. 

The book is a study guide on the author’s understanding of Christian Science, organized by sections based on the synonyms of God identified by Mary Baker Eddy, and her interpretation of the city foursquare in Revelation and illuminated by Eddy. Brooks, compiler of these essays, served as secretary to John W. Doorly after his excommunication from the Church.

Braden’s book includes a recap of accusations of Mary Baker Eddy’s plagiarism in her writings, the struggles and abuses of power through and after the ‘Great Litigation,’ and the identification of what he finds are inconsistencies in Science and Health and class teaching.

Eustace continued writing and teaching after his excommunication from The Mother Church in 1922 following the ‘Great Litigation’–the legal dispute between the Christian Science Publishing Society and Board of Directors. This multi-volume book includes his perspective as a former trustee on the ‘Great Litigation,’ as well as 510 pages of his class teaching and other essays.

​​Despite the fact that in 1945 Doorly was forced to leave the Christian Science church organization—because his interpretation of the teachings of Christian Science differed from that of the authorities of the church at that time—he continued to teach and practice Christian Science based on his understanding of Mary Baker Eddy’s identification of seven synonymous terms for God.

Claiming Mary Baker Eddy would have disapproved of anything in the way of a monopoly on spiritual enlightenment, Corey fully published his authorized two-week class teaching, precisely as he did it while under the public certification of the Christian Science Board of Directors. But the act of its public disclosure in writing also constituted his resignation from membership in The Mother Church and his local branch church. 

After leaving the Christian Science Church in the late 1940s, Goldsmith continued his flourishing healing and teaching practice. The Early Years is a compilation of weekly ‘Letters’ to his patients worldwide while still active as a healing practitioner in the Church. The book covers such topics as: God, Reality, Nature of Error, The Law, Prayer, Spiritual Healing, Business, Malpractice, Faith, etc.

Despite Mary Baker Eddy’s prohibition against the use of formulas for Christian Science treatment, Kramer establishes a five-step pattern of treatment based on Eddy’s Scientific Statement of Being. He claims that healers needed these fixed rules at that time (1948) because the presentation of Christian Science and its exact science must improve with the advancing age.

Doorly, a long-time Christian Science practitioner, teacher and lecturer, resigned from the Church in 1929, but continued with an extensive series of talks and books.This published Statement proclaimed his loyalty to Eddy, and explained his two concerns: the increasing tendency to substitute belief and religious sentiment for exact spiritual understanding and demonstration; and a lax sense as to the ‘essentially democratic’ government of The Mother Church.

Ross’s collection of lectures and his essays on the act of lecturing as a member of the Christian Science Board of Lectureship offer present-day researchers some insight regarding the evolution of Christian Science lecturing. His comments range from self-improvement to critique on the management of lecturers. With a tone of self-appointed authority, he explains what a good lecture should embody.

This book is an interpretation of Mary Baker Eddy’s illustrated poem, Christ and Christmas, a symbolic expression of the evolution of Eddy’s Church, and especially Orgain’s argument against the legal finding of the ‘Great Litigation’ of 1921. Each verse of Christ and Christmas is developed into a full chapter of exegesis on the biblical account of Jacob and his wives.

Orgain is known to have authored this ‘anonymous’ book, a comparison of editions of Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health. Orgain’s goal was to show that each step for the Christian Science movement was the fulfillment of Jesus’s prophecy of the church he promised to build. Orgain thought Jesus’s church must necessarily await demonstration in the lives of Christian Scientists.

This compilation of both authentic and questionable statements recalled by students close to Mary Baker Eddy remains controversial, as acknowledged by the compiler, R.F. Oakes. Better known as the “blue book,” it consists of notes recorded in Eddy’s home. These students made collected copies of writings attributed to Eddy and her students available to those they considered ‘advanced’ students.

Prior to the publication of this book, Dittemore served in official capacities of the Christian Science Church. He was voted out of office in 1919, and he describes the motives behind his bitter campaign against the Church based on his (later proved to be false) belief in Mary Baker Eddy’s plagiarism. His accusations originated in an internal Church squabble.

​​Stetson’s scrap-book type collection is a rich resource for primary documents related to the intense relationship of devotion and ultimate excommunication between Stetson and her teacher, Mary Baker Eddy. The first chapter is a review of Stetson’s ordeal with the Church. Pictures of the two women illustrate the contrast between Stetson’s preference for ‘the crown’ and Eddy’s preference for ‘the cross.’

…interpretation of Eddy’s Church Manual estoppel clause (that certain decisions could only occur with the approval of Eddy, the Pastor Emeritus.) Bill argues that a Leader of the Church was…

This little-known history of the growth and reception of Christian Science in a pivotal year, 1885, is told through a fictional literary framework. The value of this account is that most history recorded of that period is derived from Mary Baker Eddy or her closest supporters, but this is a rare account of public perceptions of controversies and efforts to find the truth.

Stetson’s 405-page book is compiled by the New York City Christian Science Institute, with Stetson as its Principal, and serves as her defense against her excommunication from The Mother Church and her New York Church. The book includes the seven accusations from the Christian Science Board of Directors and the New York Church Committee’s efforts to vindicate Stetson. 

Kratzer’s article, “Dominion Within,” won praise from Mary Baker Eddy, but he was later excommunicated from the Christian Science Church. His articles (both before and after severance from the church) were similar to contemporary blog posts, consisting of his thoughts on the practical application of Christian Science toward the issues of his day.

…for leadership in Eddy’s movement. It includes the program of her ordination and installation as “Pastor of the Church of Christ, Scientist” in New York City and the sermons she…

Rawson claims that this book is obviously not a lecture upon, nor does it pretend to be an elucidation of, Christian Science, but is primarily an exposure of the innumerable fallacies of human theories past and present, made evident through the study of Christian Science. He represents himself as a student of scientific knowledge of natural science and practical metaphysics.

Gestefeld had been an adoring student of Mary Baker Eddy’s until she felt ready to extend her own ideas beyond her teacher. She thought of herself as evidence of the natural progression of what Christian Science should be. But she opposed Eddy’s strict boundaries, and the trajectory of Gestefeld’s writing moved toward eclectic views, contrary to Eddy’s particularism.

This book is Walter’s autobiographical account of the first five years after his dramatic healing through Christian Science treatment and his subsequent successful healing practice based on his reading of Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health. Walter left the church soon afterward due to his conviction that this healing method should be treated more like a Science than a religious practice.