Annotations Related to Worship

This article features the records and testimony of Christian Scientists held in the Japanese Stanley Internment Camp of captured Hong Kong civilians during World War II. It covers their primary concern of getting enough food, and their resourcefulness in holding their own services in spite of the lack of access to hymnals and current issues of the Christian Science Quarterly.

This article stems from Lessiter’s talk “Architecture and Design of Six, Purpose-Built, Early, Christian Science Churches in London.” Lessiter asks what images were being presented to the public and what these images say about the people worshipping inside. She examines the churches’ churchly character as well as practical aspects such as the foyer, acoustics, foundation stones, Bible quotes on walls, and the lack of depictions of Eddy’s life.

This is a survey of notable Christian Science church architectural styles in America and Europe, and the architects who designed them. Although most of the churches built between 1897 and 1925 emulated a classical style, conveying a rational spirituality, other churches broke from this mold to reflect the more democratic and local traditions of the individual congregations.

Curtis examines the ‘divine healing’ or ‘faith cure’ movement of the late 19th century which offered a liberalized theology that fundamentally uncoupled the long-standing and deeply gendered link between bodily suffering and spiritual holiness. Faith homes provided worship services, spiritual practices and alternative biblical models that facilitated healing. Examples were water-cure sanitoriums and Christian Science dispensaries, (later converted to Reading Rooms).

​​Kilde, specializing on the intersection of religion and architecture, describes the original 1895 Christian Science Mother Church edifice, built under Mary Baker Eddy’s close supervision, as very feminine with its stained-glass windows depicting many female biblical figures. Kilde contrasts this with the masculine cavernous Renaissance-style classicism of the Mother Church Extension built in 1906 with its ambience of public majesty.

Hodgson highlights Hay’s significant contributions to the Christian Science movement during the early 20th century, recognizing their basis on the spiritual animus that motivated her. An authorized practitioner and teacher, Hay founded churches in London and Cape Town (S.A.) and was a poet and musician. Long-time Christian Scientists know her best as the author of many of their most beloved hymns.

Hodgson’s half-biography, half-musical documentation of the life and work of Lyman Brackett highlights his important role in the development of hymnody for the Christian Science Church. Brackett ultimately became the overall designer, music editor, and original composer of 99 hymns in the first Christian Science hymnal.

Ivey’s chapter on Christian Science architecture is positioned within the context of the book’s overall goal to explore “the interplay of religion, commercial culture, and urbanization in North American cities since the 1880s.” Ivey focuses on spiritual principles expressed in the Christian Science movement’s architectural expression.

The monumental bank-style church buildings associated with Christian Science are the subject of Ivey’s architectural study. Ivey notes a self-conscious attitude about this church building movement seeking to be perceived as prominent, legitimate and profitable to the worshiper. His treatment of Eddy and Christian Science teachings is balanced, but he questions whether the church buildings appropriately represented Eddy’s church and teachings.

Jasen claims that when Christian Science was introduced in Canada, it provoked controversy of wide significance on subjects like the mind/body connection, faith and healing, and the hegemony of the medical profession. Because it effected marvelous cures, it couldn’t be dismissed. But it challenged the authority of physicians and clerics, making them consider issues that seldom intruded upon their separate spheres.

…humanity in the image of God and that sin, disease, and death do not originate in God. The Church pastor is the Bible and Mary Baker Eddy’s textbook, Science and…

Ivey documents the growing secularization and diminishing Protestant authority and influence of late 19th-century cities. In the midst of this cultural and architectural transition, the new, rapidly growing Christian Science denomination was establishing itself in Chicago and integrating its “theological sensibilities” and metaphysical theology into the “rational” authority reflected in the city’s more secular Greek classical architecture of government buildings.

Becker compares the striking similarities as well as the differences between the unorthodox history, writings, theology, and codified methods of healing of the founders of two religious movements: Miki Nakayama of Japan’s Tenrikyo, and Mary Baker Eddy of America’s Christian Science.

The editor, Ernest Frerichs, brings together scholars writing about all things biblical in America. In the last chapter, Peel documents the key role of the Bible in Mary Baker Eddy’s life story and the Christian Science tradition, evident especially in Eddy’s textbook Science and Health.  Peel documents Eddy’s 35 years of multiple revisions, resulting from Eddy’s own maturing experience.

Armstrong combines two stories, the building of the Original Mother Church (1894), and the much larger Extension of The Mother Church adjacent to the original (1906). Also included are numerous photos and color plates of the windows in the Original and a brief update on the addition of the portico, administration building, and large reflecting pool constructed in 1975.

Nearly fifty years ago, Stokes, the spokesperson for The First Church of Christ, Scientist, answered questions about Christian Science that are still heard today. Contemporary Christian Scientists would recognize a shift in language and social engagement since the 1970s, such as “What is your attitude toward Black people, women, vaccination?” But the basic theological underpinning of the Church’s self-understanding remains valid.

This self-published book by an AIA architect includes 67 Christian Science branch churches in the United States and Canada, and the Chapel at Principia College (a college for Christian Scientists). Alphabetical indexes include the church locations, 11 architectural styles and 44 architects (including 16 churches by the author).

Smith, a prominent Christian Scientist who held many senior positions in the church, brought together this collection of articles originally published in The Christian Science Journal as a series titled “Historical and Biographical Papers.” The articles are divided into three parts: biography, organization and history; including Mary Baker Eddy’s childhood and beginnings of her career as author, healer, teacher, and organizer.

This flagship for Christian Science by Mary Baker Eddy is used as the denominational textbook and was intended by its author to “bear consolation to the sorrowing and healing to the sick” (xii). The book’s theological premise—that Christ Jesus taught and demonstrated the spiritual facts of being—precedes the metaphysical interpretation of scripture that grounds its healing system.