Ecumenical and Interfaith Resources

In this book of personal essays, people representing a variety of faiths respond to questions about the Covid pandemic and its impact on their spiritual practice. Susan Searle writes from a Christian Scientist viewpoint, and explains that she accepted vaccination in order to continue her public ministry. 

Shirley Paulson responds to questions about the Covid pandemic and its impact on the practice of her faith, Christian Science. She discusses how the pandemic experience highlighted the need for greater maturity in spiritual healing practices, such as more concern for public issues and greater spiritual clarity, strength, and authority.

Christian Scientists from Chicago would convince a skeptical Mary Baker Eddy to participate in the 1893 World’s Parliament of Religions with its message of unity among all religions. Although the address was enthusiastically received, its overall negative impact was the association of Christian Science with theosophy and Vedanta, and the crystalizing of opposition from the more traditional Christian Churches.

Peidle finds common ground between Christian Science and Vedanta (represented by Swami Vivekananda), by examining a speech written by Mary Baker Eddy for the 1893 Parliament of World Religions, as well as her other writings, and Vivekananda’s correspondence. Vivekananda first learned about Christian Science at the Parliament. His later ill health prompted an interest in the nature of healing and reality.

O’Brien’s interfaith reflections illustrate how sympathy can help bring heaven to earth—as evidenced in four women: Mary Baker Eddy, Emily Dickinson, Sarada Devi (wife and mission partner to Ramakrishna) and Simone Weil. O’Brien finds a basis for this sympathy in the common conviction found in many religions of “the experience of oneness between the supreme Spirit and everyday empirical reality.”

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. 

Writing in the context of ecumenical concerns, Paulson sees it as vital that science and religion work together to bring about climate justice and she sees the moral and theological perspective of Christian Science as a valuable contribution, with its “understanding of science in the context of salvation.”

Stahl’s study of the intertwined relationship between religion and the military opens a unique but revealing window on the role of religion in society. The distinctive role of Christian Science is sprinkled throughout the book. Hempstead Lyons, a Christian Science practitioner, sought to offer services, but the military’s failure to distinguish Christian Science from other groups resulted in excluding him.

Moses’s 1916 book intended to foster a Jewish spiritual renaissance and to prove that Judaism long held what appears so attractive to the early 20th-century Jewish converts to Christian Science: divine healing, affirmative prayer, and a religion of love and law. He catalogs Jewish scripture illustrating healing and divine love, and contrasts Christian Science tenets with Jewish faith.

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. 

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.

In an ecumenical context, Paulson illustrates common ground between the healing mission and Christian salvation of Christian Science which results in a transformed soul and body. But the lack of fellowship between Christian Scientists and other Christians could be due to lack of respect for women’s leadership on the one hand and arrogance on the other, resulting in isolation.

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.

Written by representatives from a wide variety of Christian communions, the essays in this book seek Christian unity in mission. Unity is how diverse churches can agree to a common purpose. Mission is how the church’s purpose is transformational in both personal and social dimensions. The Christian Science chapter is: “Christian Science Christians’ Healing Practice: A Contribution to Christian Pilgrimage.”

This article was an address for The Mother Church in Boston, July 9, 2012. Although Kinnamon’s prior exposure to Christian Science was based on stereotypes, he welcomed an opportunity to bring the Christian Science Church into ecumenical relationship. He explained that ecumenism is based on relationships of trust and witnessing the grace of God in one another—not striving for homogeneity.

Schuette, a former U.S. Army chaplain representing the Christian Science Church, cites records of the Christian Science chaplaincy during WWI and WWII. But his focus is on the post-WWII years where he presents insights into the service of Christian Science chaplains as well as the context and issues faced by chaplains of all faiths.

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.

Baxter cites a century of mostly unwarranted publicity against the Christian Science Church, but feels some objections raised by the press clearly need examining. In particular, she addresses the Church’s singular focus on healing and promotes a healthy self-examination that should break the silence around failures. Sensible church policy and intelligent engagement with the public would help the Church to progress.

This book’s study on the history of Christian theology in America includes Mary Baker Eddy’s contributions. Eddy’s theological treatise, Science and Health, distanced itself from literal interpretations of the Bible, interpreting central Christian elements in terms of mental experience. Porterfield finds Eddy’s theology coherent and more fairly understood as a remarkably creative if unschooled form of American Protestant thought. 

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.

This sourcebook was compiled by the Christian Science Publishing Society as a response to many unanswered questions in public thought regarding Christian Science beliefs and practices in the late 1980s. It includes primary and secondary sources, as well as scholarly analytical work and personal statements of faith.

This Roman Catholic perspective on Christian Science respects its longevity and the simple quiet dignity of its churches, publications, and members. Although Mary Baker Eddy’s non-standard definitions of church, Jesus, and the Christ differ from orthodoxy, these Catholic authors consider Eddy’s views on celibacy and marriage favorably, and claims of healing as not fanatical, escapism, or insanity.

The “Ecumenical Papers” pamphlet, published in 1969, was prepared for special occasions with representatives of several Protestant churches, including the Christian Science Church. Examples of topics included: ‘The Church’s Redemptive Mission,’ The Resurrection of Jesus,’ ‘Who is God?’ and ‘Sin and Grace.” Theological topics had shifted since Eddy’s day, but basic theological concepts were still valuable for discussion.

If Bellwald had had access to archival resources on Christian Science, he might have made a more accurate comparison between Christian Science and Roman Catholicism of the early twentieth century. His organizational approach to his study is well conceived, but he combines the resources of blatant polemics, Milmine and Peabody, with his own Catholic perspectives to denounce Christian Science.