Annotations Related to Jesus Christ

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.

Paulson’s essay is one of 22 in this ecumenical collection. She draws on the beatitudes of Matthew 5 to illustrate biblical guidance to loving others (even our enemies) and dismantling both victimhood thinking and criminal behavior that contribute to mass incarceration. Paulson’s analysis of each beatitude is based on the teachings of Christian Science and uses quotes from Mary Baker Eddy. 

…the “Apocalypse,” and a “Glossary” of biblical terms. Eddy appointed the Bible and Science and Health the dual pastor of her Church, which “publicly yoked the Bible to Science and…

The metaphysical nature of the religious belief and practice of Christian Science triggered theological, ecclesial, legal, medical, scientific, and moral controversies. Mary Baker Eddy also dealt with stress and trauma throughout her life. The metaphysical aspect of Christian Science does not detract from its practicality in human experience, as the metaphysically induced healing is evidence of the full salvation to come.

Paulson provides a defense of Christian Science as Christian, citing two main points: 1) from earliest times there have been many Christianities of which Christian Science is one expression; 2) Eddy’s Christianity was born out of her difficult life experiences and search of scripture. She became “a Christian reformer, seeking to revitalize the Bible’s practical, transformative power.”

In this brief paper, Rider compares theological interpretations of biblical texts between Christian Science and Christian orthodoxy, arguing for a radical difference. The texts he selected include creation stories in Genesis, the Lord’s Prayer, the miracles of Jesus, and his crucifixion and resurrection.

Kramer’s well-researched critique on Christian Science makes her arguments easier to understand than most critics. She grasps the fundamental teachings and history of the religion well, but she left it for doctrinal reasons. Most of Perfect Peril describes her emotional and intellectual struggles with doctrinal issues. Following a crisis of faith, she concluded that Christian Science is a dangerous mind control. 

This essay by an adherent of Christian Science accompanies the main article on Christian Science. Paulson describes her childhood experience and how her religious practice was her primary source of comfort and healing. She recognizes distinctions between Christian Science and orthodox Christianity and explains why she thinks the typical orthodox view of Christian Science’s similarity with Gnosticism is misleading. 

This essay on Christian Science is one of many descriptive introductions of various religions and their relation to evangelical Christianity. Simmons notes that the ‘Christian’ element in Christian Science involves a radical reinterpretation of Jesus and his role in the New Testament. Mary Baker Eddy stressed the practical nature of her ‘science’ in human challenges, thus highlighting the focus on healing. 

Gallagher highlights four American alternative Christianities able to maintain continuity and gain legitimacy by retaining elements of the dominant Christianity and texts of its day, while also engaging in a “creative exercise of interpretive ingenuity” that resulted in a novel message evoked from familiar symbolic capital.

As Christian Science gained popularity in the 1880s, Reformed Jews who had recently migrated to the U.S. were attracted to it. Although Mary Baker Eddy would fall into the historic Christian pattern of deprecating Judaism as legalistic, she was in agreement with Judaism’s monotheism, and with the tenet that Jesus was not God but the Christ or Messiah available to all.

Although written for young readers, “A World More Bright” contains details for those interested in the personal side of Mary Baker Eddy’s life story. For those more familiar with other biographies on Eddy, this book offers new facts that may be useful for filling in gaps of historical interest. Typical biographical controversies are mentioned but not critiqued by the authors.

This brief encyclopedic entry, written at the request of The Mary Baker Eddy Library, offers in three pages a succinct outline of Mary Baker Eddy’s life and a clear and accurate portrayal of her importance as a student of the Bible and religious thinker. “Her unique method of biblical interpretation will be of interest to biblical scholars… independently of the religion she founded and the healing-system she established.”

Cobb’s paper focuses on the study of religious practice and its value for Christian literary scholars of conscious reflection. He selects Christian Science as an example of how significant differences from secular norms are revealed when religious practices shape readers’ perceptions. Christian Science teaches a direct imitation of Christ that stresses Christ’s emphasis on watching over one’s thinking.

Nenneman’s interest in Christian Science was due not to its healing message, but to Mary Baker Eddy’s deep spirituality and theological answers regarding the nature of God and Jesus’s mission. He profiles the great thinkers who wrestled with similar visions of reality as Eddy: Ralph Waldo Emerson, William James, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, prophets in the Hebrew Scriptures and Christian New Testament, and those found in the flourishing exchange between Jews, Muslims and Christians in the Middle Ages. 

Johnson’s book expounds on the ‘science of prayer’—based on her own journey of discovery and framed by her Christian Science faith. Each of the seven chapters explores one of Mary Baker Eddy’s seven synonymous terms for God. Each synonym represents a scientific law effectively defeating any challenge that confronts the reader and bringing healing.

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.

Treacy-Cole outlines Eddy’s rocky and sometimes tragic life story through childhood, marriages, motherhood, illnesses and financial struggles—leading up to years of deep Bible study, her discovery of Christian Science, the writing of her textbook, Science and Health, and organization of her Church. Treacy-Cole finds early Christian patriarchy as precedent for 19th-century male clergy and press dismissal of Mary Baker Eddy.

Umansky studies the history of Jewish Science—a movement that arose to counter the estimated tens of thousands of Jews (a majority women) attracted to Christian Science in the late 19th and early 20th century. These Jews had been attracted to Christian Science’s promise of health and healing. Umansky also examines the Christian Science theology that resonated with Jewish beliefs.

This book is Mary Baker Eddy’s response to the vicious accusations by Frederick Peabody, a lawyer who represented a client in litigation against Eddy. Eddy’s advisors recommended she not publish her book because of the possibility of further public agitation. But it was published by the Christian Science Publishing Society for the first time in 2002. 

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.

Within the context of the interaction of cultural, intellectual, and religious influences, Prentiss positions Christian Science as a response to orthodox theologies, the lingering effects of the Civil War, horrific medical practices, and the suffrage movement. Christian Science theology appeared to subscribe to Platonic dualism, but its view of matter as a product of a false consciousness distinguishes it from dualism.

Michell examines in detail the remarkable similarities where the unorthodox theologies of Julian of Norwich (14th century) and Eddy (19th century) converge. Both women struggled with serious illness and near-death experiences which became the basis for profound revelation and healing.  Eddy understood God as mother, and Julian’s vision of Jesus as mother reflected on the kindness and gentleness of God.

Jenkins argues that the cult problem of today is the product of cultural and political work and that Christian Science, with associated mind-cure movements, has been the primary target of cult critics. He joins the attacks by asserting (falsely): “Most pernicious, Christian Science denied the Virgin Birth, the miracles of Christ, the Atonement, and the Resurrection.” (60)  

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.