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This article investigates the relationship between religious architecture and real estate development in the United States. Using Christian Science churches from the 1920s and the 2020s as case studies, it argues that when churches engage in real estate development, they often use an aesthetic and business strategy termed “material disestablishment” to downplay their religious qualities and engage more effectively with potential business partners and tenants.

Anti-apartheid activist and future president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, visited The Christian Science Monitor as part of his 1990 world fundraising tour. On his visit, he told reporters of the Monitor’s impact on him while he was in prison. “It [the Monitor] continues to give me hope and confidence for the world’s future.”

Mary Baker Eddy’s support for the emancipation of slaves in the confederate states is shown through her correspondence with Union Army generals Benjamin Butler and John Fremont in their efforts and support of the emancipation of slaves. Along with regular correspondence, Eddy took initiative and drafted a petition in support of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Mary Baker Patterson [Eddy] responded to newspaper accounts of the courage and wisdom of the Union Army General, Benjamin F. Butler. As commander of the fort where three enslaved men sought refuge, Butler’s defense became a foundation for legal freedom for slaves. Eddy’s letter to Butler sheds light on her anti-slavery convictions and willingness to advocate for them. 

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.

Hussey examines how Christian Science guided and sustained Nancy Astor as the first woman to sit in the British House of Commons in 1919. Her political career of 26 years focused on temperance and support of women and children. Astor found healing by reading Mary Baker Eddy’s textbook, and with her husband, founded Ninth Church of Christ, Scientist, London.

This report examines the history of Black Americans’ interactions with the Chrisian Science church beginning with the 1919 formation of the Committee on General Welfare, and then focusing on the racial unrest of the 1960s. This coverage included the demands made by Black community activists during the church’s 1969 Annual Meeting and the Board of Directors’ written response.

Siewers, of the Russian Orthodox faith and briefly, a National Correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor, observes there are no longer any prominent, mostly Republican, Christian Scientists in the U.S. Congress or White House, or visible in the arts and entertainment industry. He argues that the disappearance and decline of Christian Science is a precautionary tale for more traditional Christian communities.

…Parliament in the UK in the early 20th century, and how their Christian Science faith sustained and guided them. These three women, Nancy Astor (the very first woman in Parliament),…

Sandford gives a definitive account of the history of Christian Science in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) based on his experience as a U.S diplomat and extensive research in official GDR archives. He covers the country’s initial hostility toward Christian Science as a foreign institution, to a post-war relaxation of restrictions, to recognition and re-establishment of rights just before the Berlin Wall fell.

Dorothy von Moltke’s letters to her parents contain significant insight into Christian Science in Germany from 1902 until her death in 1935, with a focus on troubles within Germany after WWI. Dorothy and her husband, Count Helmuth, served on the 1912 committee translating Science and Health into German, and Helmuth was the church’s designated liaison with the German government during early phases of Nazi control.

Scalise explores the widespread public debate surrounding metaphysical healing in the late nineteenth-century, especially through the study of rhetorical theories and practices of Mary Baker Eddy and Emma Curtis Hopkins. They were both part of the conciliatory project of liberal Christianity during the period, challenging the assumption that the rhetorical practices exhibited in the liberal and Christian traditions are inherently contradictory.

Waldschmidt-Nelson meticulously presents, in German, the history and status of Christian Science in Germany from its beginnings to the present. It is based on a documented examination of historical records, published and unpublished writings ranging from panegyrical to dismissive, interviews and correspondence with representatives of the Christian Science church, the medical profession and the Christian clergy (both Protestant and Roman Catholic), and conversations with private individuals.

Seeing no social change favoring women’s rights, suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton switched her energies to addressing the underlying issue of women’s subordination rooted in the Bible. Like Mary Baker Eddy’s opus, Science and Health, Stanton’s Women’s Bible was intended as a vehicle for emancipation. Kern includes Eddy among the many women bearing (indirect) influence on Stanton’s story.

With free access to the private papers of Richard Strout, The Christian Science Monitor reporter who covered the McCarthy subcommittee hearings of 1950-54, the author Lawrence Strout, a distant relative of Richard Strout, seeks to get inside the Monitor’s internal debates and decision-making at a time of blacklists, ‘red-baiting’ and the equating of liberalism with socialism and communism.

Alice Clark, a British suffragist and historian of women, was influenced by her later affiliation with Christian Science.  In Christian Science, Clark found a synthesis of her Quaker belief in the ‘Light within’ with a gender identity that rejected dominance in a male-governed world of the power of reason and the corresponding value of the feminine for impacting world affairs.

Lindley’s review of Knee’s Christian Science in the Age of Mary Baker Eddy affirmed the need for such a book that attempted to “locate Christian Science in the context of contemporary political, social, and intellectual currents. But Lindley critiques Knee’s tendency to oversimplify, overgeneralize, and rely on his own creative and obtuse analogies rather than develop fewer and more well-reasoned theses.

Gartrell-Mills’s Part II continues her study of Christian Science in 20th century Britain, examining the initial negative reaction of the public, medical establishment, and Anglican Church. But then she finds ways in which Christian Science eventually contributed to more favorable medical attitudes toward spiritual considerations, and the Anglican Church’s opening up to spiritual forms of healing. 

Lindley finds Mary Baker Eddy’s ideas of feminism ambiguous, whether seen within the context of 19th-century American views of womanhood or compared to contemporary feminist theology. For example, regarding gender equality, Eddy elevated the interpretation of women in the Bible and embraced the radical demand for equality of men and women. But she did not identify with the women’s movement.

This is a 1977 talk focused on Nazi reactions to Christian Science influence in Germany. Even though many Christian Scientists originally swarmed to join the Nazi Party, changing Nazi rules put the faith in jeopardy. By 1936 and through 1941, the church’s activities and periodicals were banned and church members were prohibited from joining the Nazi Party.

The individuals interviewed for this book were active Christian Scientists whose life stories represent significant success in their widely diverse careers of the twentieth century, and they span the globe. Researchers will appreciate the detailed descriptions of the impact Christian Science made on these individuals during the building years of their careers. These sketches focus on the way Christian Science established their attitudes and worldviews.

Messer, a mid-20th century women’s suffrage activist, sociologist, and Christian Scientist provides valuable insights into both the American self-understanding of political situations and the applicability of Christian Science in the world. Unlike most writing on Christian Science in her day, Messer applies Mary Baker Eddy’s metaphysics to the broader political and social elements, anticipating the ultimate model for global completeness.