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.
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A New Christian Identity: Christian Science Origins and Experience in American Culture (2021)
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.
View Annotation“Medicine and Healing: Christianity: New Christian Churches and Movements” in De Gruyter’s Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception (2020)
Within the context of how new Christian denominations relate healing systems with the Bible, Paulson cites different traditions that lie on the spectrum between continuationists who believe healing is still possible, such as the Christian Scientists, and the cessationists who see healing as ended with the apostles, and work with medicine for a cure. Christian Science spiritual healing mirrors Christ’s authority.
View Annotation“Interfaith Reflections on Sympathy in Religion and Literature” (2019)
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.”
View Annotation“Christian Science” in The Essential Guide to Religious Traditions and Spirituality for Health Care Providers (2019)
This chapter, written by the Church, provides information that will help health care providers understand the spiritual needs of Christian Scientists in a practical, clinical setting. Besides a background history of Mary Baker Eddy, the formation of the Church, and its foundational teachings, the chapter explains reliance on prayer for healing as an individual choice, and the adherence to law when it comes to infectious diseases.
View Annotation“Webcast: Evolutions of Christian Science in Scholarly Perspective” (2015)
This panel of scholars—J. Gordon Melton, Massimo Introvigne, and Shirley Paulson—explored the contemporary scholarly perspective on Christian Science. Melton pointed out that the maturity of the study of Christian Science should go beyond the issue of classification; Introvigne illustrated how scholarship in art deepens the meaning of religious study; and Paulson focused on the Christian origin of Christian Science.
View Annotation“Christian Science: The First Healing Church” (2015)
Dericquebourg distinguishes those religious expressions where ontological salvation is their primary goal and purpose, from ‘healing churches’ (where he places Christian Science) where ontological salvation is also important, but the healing of mind and body is the heart of their faith and the authentication of their theology. He lists characteristics in common with other healing religions as well as their points of tension.
View AnnotationPerfect Peril: Christian Science and Mind Control (2015)
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.
View Annotation“Church of Christ, Scientist: Adherent Essay” (2014)
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.
View Annotation“Metaphysical Healing and Health in the United States” (2014)
Hendrickson discusses the American history of metaphysical healing practices from Native Americans to the present and identifies characteristics of diverse types of healing. Mary Baker Eddy and Christian Science are discussed within the context of Quimbyism and New Thought, with the distinction made between the Christian basis of Eddy and the more materialistic, secular basis of the latter.
View AnnotationTwain and Eddy: The Conflicted Relationship of Mark Twain and Christian Science Founder Mary Baker Eddy (2014)
Although these contemporary authors never met, their mutual interest in sincere religion and the power of thought inevitably brought the two distinguished figures into a provocative relationship. The fact that he shifted his position on Christian Science several times indicates the conflict within his own worldview. It was no more insane than any other channel of human thought. Just more interesting.
View AnnotationChristian Science in East Germany: The Church that Came in from the Cold (2013)
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.
View Annotation“Ecumenical Christianity and Its Implications for Christian Science” (2012)
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.
View Annotation“Christian Science” in The Soul of Medicine: Spiritual Perspectives and Clinical Practice (2011)
Driessen’s chapter in a book about spiritual perspectives and clinical practices is devoted to the religious background, practice, and ethics of Christian Science treatment. Driessen, an officially recognized Christian Science practitioner, describes the theological foundation of the Christian Science worldview, the resources for healing, and the relationship of Christian Science ethics with the medical world.
View Annotation“Understanding the Religious Gulf between Mary Baker Eddy, Ursula N. Gestefeld, and Their Churches” (2011)
The commonly mischaracterized and consequently overlooked relationship between Eddy and her former student, Gestefeld, should be re-examined because of its rich theological and biographical potential. Voorhees’s closer look at their correspondence indicates a mutually respectful relationship before they parted ways on grounds of theological differences—Gestefeld’s theosophical eclecticism versus Eddy’s unorthodox Christian particularism, and not because of Eddy’s authoritarian reasons.
View AnnotationFingerprints of God: The Search for the Science of Spirituality (2009)
Having grown up as a practicing Christian Scientist, Hagerty left the organized religion when she discovered she was more comfortable with medical help. But her experience raised unnerving questions about God, reality, and what she really believed. She concludes that Christian Scientists are more deliberate about pursuing the spiritual law. Its practice places a person in the path of spiritual power.
View Annotation“Christian Scientists” in Extraordinary Groups: An Examination of Unconventional Lifestyles (2008)
Christian Science is one of the eight religious communities examined because of their illustration of major sociological principles. Mary Baker Eddy is noted for having operated “outside the norms of what sociologists call expected gender role behavior.” The authors ask whether Eddy would rightly be considered charismatic and whether Christian Science would rightly be considered a ‘cult’ or ‘sect.’
View AnnotationChristian Science Military Ministry 1917–2004 (2008)
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.
View AnnotationFaith in the Great Physician: Suffering and Divine Healing in American Culture, 1860–1900 (2007)
The Divine Healing Movement of the late 19th century attempted to reform evangelicalism by including healing. Curtis makes relevant comparisons with Christian Science, one of its better-known contemporaries, to highlight the rich history of Divine Healing. Their healing examples are quite similar. The relationship between faith healing evangelicals and Christian Science worsened, though, as they both matured and gained more followers.
View Annotation“Christian Science” in Introduction to New and Alternative Religions in America (2006)
Simmons contextualizes Mary Baker Eddy amidst the late 19th-century era of revolutionary change showing how her forebears (Swedenborgianism, Mesmerism, Transcendentalism and Spiritualism) “prepared the psychic way” by making explicit to “the American spiritual imagination the connection among physical, psychological, and spiritual health” (94). He reviews Eddy’s theology, the influence of Quimby, and the evolution of Christian Science as an institution.
View Annotation“Loving Mac, Beth, and John: Grace in the Plays and Films of Horton Foote” (2006)
Wood, who has written extensively on playwright, screenwriter and Christian Scientist Horton Foote, analyzes the influence of religion in his writings. Wood observes that religion in Foote’s plays and films is never the operative center of characters’ behavior, but that certain deeply felt religious notions are at work, especially a grace-inspired love that generates courage and responsibility.
View AnnotationBlessings: Adventures of a Madcap Christian Scientist (2005)
This 2005 self-published memoir offers readers unfamiliar with the daily life and mindset of a Christian Scientist a firsthand account. The book is not heavily laden with religious teachings, but the author makes clear her routine application of basic Christian Science teachings to the challenges in her life, including her healthcare choices.
View AnnotationHealing in the History of Christianity (2005)
Medical practices have waxed and waned as part of Christian healing practices from antiquity. Porterfield devotes two pages to Mary Baker Eddy’s contributions as an heir to Wesley. Eddy’s engagement with mesmerism led her to relinquish many aspects of evangelical theology. In her break with the materialist elements of mesmerism, Eddy followed Quimby, but went beyond him with her biblical interpretation.
View AnnotationNew Religious Movements: A Documentary Reader (2005)
The book establishes an important framework for understanding the content selected for the faith groups within the New Religious Movements (NRM) study. The primary documents representing Christian Science include writings from Mary Baker Eddy and some testimonials. The description of Christian Science covers its metaphysical origins; its theological foundation; its practice of healing; and comparisons with mainstream Christian doctrine.
View AnnotationBorn Again Bodies: Flesh and Spirit in American Christianity (2004)
Griffith investigates the roots of Christian dieting and fitness and their present-day embodiments. One chapter explores 19th-century mind-cure movements, including Phineas P. Quimby, Christian Science and New Thought, with their connection between mind and matter. She sees in Mary Baker Eddy a contradiction between her radical stance on body as delusion and her rich living circumstances.
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