Annotations of Dissertations and Theses

Booth seeks correlations between the field of Organizational Development, quantum physics, and Christian Science, with the intent of determining how the principles and practices of Christian Science, in sync with quantum physics, might align with, and be a resource for, business challenges. The thesis is based on interviews with fifteen Christian Scientists about their experience relating their theology to their business practices.

Mina Loy’s Christian Science faith with its views of the body, along with 19th-century spiritualism informed her poetry. She conceptualized in her poetry a non-binary kind of embodiment—away from body/soul or life/death—to life as beyond the body. Loy saw death and the physical as illusory and thereby able to break with biological determinism and personality.  

The structure of this dissertation is a critical theological conversation between Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health and the 2nd-century Christian text, the Secret Revelation of John. It uses methodology from Practical Theology to highlight epistemological contrasts and similarities between the two texts and between their worldviews and orthodox worldviews. A common theological foundation lies beneath healing practices for both texts.

Implementing feminist rhetorical criticism, Tencza examines Mary Baker Eddy’s strategic use of rhetoric to create meaning in her writings, reinforced by the integrity of her character. Tencza sees Eddy working within three frameworks: an ethic of care [mother-like pathos], extreme utilization of ethos [her character integrity], and logos [ability to make meaning]—all of which coalesce into her rhetoric of confidence.

The Society of Jewish Science was a response to the mass conversion of Jews, particularly women, to Christian Science. Its purpose was to revive a growing secular Judaism with elements Lichtenstein feared had been lost: healing, personal prayer, and belief in the Divine Spirit within. Unlike Christian Science, the Society did not reject medicine or deny the reality of matter.

…her textbook as co-pastor in 1894. Finally, she profiles those who studied Eddy’s textbook and practiced “the principle or science behind the healing in the Christian Scriptures” (14).   Access…

Steckler, Rebecca. “‘God is my First Aid Kit’: The Negotiation of Health Care Choices Among Christian Scientists.” MA Thesis, University of Texas at San Antonio, 2013. Steckler’s interest in the challenges associated with health care choices for Christian Scientists stems from her own upbringing in Christian Science and her casual conversations among peers who, like her, left the religious practice of their families. She understands and remains interested in the conflict between their families’ religion.

​​Hines’s study on the relationship between illness, disability, and sin in the healing theologies of three American-born religions, including Christian Science, highlights the 19th-century context from which they came. Reacting against the prevalent Calvinist notion of illness and disability offering salvific powers, Christian Science argues that sickness is not God-made. But sick people can feel blamed for their infirmities.

Simon assesses autobiographies of some early Americans, including Mary Baker Eddy, using affect theory to assess primal sources of original thought that only later become expressible in language and reason. She focuses on Eddy’s Genesis-derived definition of deity that reverses the subordination of women, and her other statements about gender as culturally constructed.

Through interviews with twelve Christian Scientists, and accessing the writings of social theorists such as Michel Foucault, Nelson argues that Christian Scientists systematically “reinterpret and rewrite biomedical discourse to reclaim interpretive rights over their bodies and create spiritual connection to other bodies and to God.” She also examines the conflict in identity when a Christian Science adherent chooses biomedical treatment.

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.

Armer demonstrates how Mary Baker Eddy’s contribution to the field of Adult Education merits a title, the Mother of Adult Education. Eddy’s contributions were made to a field not even distinguishable at her death. Her educational legacy consists of her mandate of total disregard of sex distinctions in students and teachers, lifelong learning, vocational application, service learning, and independent self-directed study.

Johnson contextualizes theologians Ruether and Eddy within feminist history showing how each “changed the boundaries of the Church’s theological thinking on the rights of women,” freeing them up to be seen and heard. Johnson finds feminist principles at work in Eddy’s writings on marriage laws, use of language, theology (especially her Father-Mother God), and church structure empowering women in roles as local leaders and healers.

​​Dunlap’s dissertation is a rhetorical analysis focused on Mary Baker Eddy’s 19th-century life and writings. She examines Eddy’s opponents’ reactions to her intrusion into 19th-century science, theology, and medicine. She also explores the resonance between Eddy’s language about spiritual reality and the metaphysical language of contemporary quantum physics—what brings the seen and the unseen into relation with each other.

Piepmeier studies five women, including Mary Baker Eddy, as examples in 19th-century America of the ‘outing’ of women’s bodies in the public sphere in ways not easily categorized. They had to address the powerful ideologies of domesticity and sentimentality to distinguish their own ideologies. Eddy’s textbook was a rewriting of major discourses, representing a significant rethinking of women’s roles and rights.

Robertson writes a comprehensive historical survey of music in the Christian Science faith. She explains the invaluable role music played as a spiritual foundation for Mary Baker Eddy’s founding of her Church. Robertson positions Eddy’s Church in the context of New England theological thought and praxis, demonstrating how it incorporated already existing music before creating its own new tradition.

Schoepflin’s study addresses the difficult and contentious relationship between the evolution of medical practice and the healing practices in Christian Science. His analysis is based on the thoughts and work of actual Christian Science practitioners and the experiences of their patients during a period (1890s–1920s) when the movement struggled against the efforts of organized American medicine to curtail its activities.

Cunningham’s specialty lies with 19th-century American religious history focusing on women, institutions, money and power—perfect preparation for her PhD dissertation research on the fraught relationship of two charismatic women who rose from poverty to power and wealth: Augusta Stetson, a founding member and leader of the first Christian Science church in New York City, and Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Christian Science movement.

Johnsen claims that it was not mind cure, or Phineas P. Quimby (evaluated in detail) that influenced Mary Baker Eddy; rather it was the profoundly shifting Puritan tradition which infused the 19th-century “New England mind” and was the religious milieu out of which Christian Science emerged. Johnsen demonstrates how Eddy, with her Congregational background in tow, “carried forward certain essential dimensions of [Jonathan] Edwardsian thought and piety.”

Hansen examines the formative period of the Christian Science movement and discovers not only restorations of health but also healing as a religious act. From this, Hansen distinguishes Christian Science from the women metaphysical healers of the same period who eventually formed the New Thought movement. Eddy’s declaration, “This is woman’s hour” conveys the female contribution to Christian Science.

Swensen describes Hofer’s career as a “lifelong journalist and political maverick” which included his own newspaper and magazine, the Capital Journal and The Lariat, membership in the Oregon legislature and Salem city council, and an unsuccessful candidacy for governor. His unceasing fight was for individualism and decentralized government. In his Appendix, Swensen takes up Hofer’s Christian Science affiliation with its emphasis on the individual’s role in salvation.

Chapel details how Mary Baker Eddy successfully employed ‘argumentative synthesis’–the ability to “unite ideas which appear to be in opposition into a coherent whole.” Reflecting a larger debate in the late 19th-century, Eddy reconciled opposing views such as: science and Christianity, the masculine and feminine, and the Calvinist view of sinning humanity–Eddy’s mortal man–and the more liberal view of humanity as essentially good.

Johnson’s 1963 dissertation studies the Christian Science Church’s communications from mid-1958 to mid-1960, tracing the Church’s self-understanding in relation to the world at that time. His findings are an analysis of the effectiveness of the Church’s office of the Committee on Publication. It includes a far-reaching overview of the motives, strategic approaches, and areas of concern.