Christian Science is a set of beliefs and practices which are associated with members of theChurch of Christ, Scientist. Adherents are commonly known as Christian Scientists or students of Christian Science, and the church is sometimes informally known as the Christian Science church. It was founded in 1879 inNew England byMary Baker Eddy, who wrote the 1875 bookScience and Health with Key to the Scriptures, which outlined the theology of Christian Science. The book was originally calledScience and Health; the subtitlewith a Key to the Scriptures was added in 1883 and later amended towith Key to the Scriptures.[5]
The book became Christian Science's central text, along with theBible, and by 2001 had sold over nine million copies.[6]
Eddy and 26 followers were granted a charter by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1879 to found the "Church of Christ (Scientist)"; the church would be reorganized under the name "Church of Christ, Scientist" in 1892.[7]The Mother Church,The First Church of Christ, Scientist, was built in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1894.[8] Known as the "thinker's religion", Christian Science became the fastest growing religion in the United States, with nearly 270,000 members by 1936 — a figurewhich had declined to just over 100,000 by 1990[9] and reportedly to under 50,000 by 2009.[3] The church is known for its newspaper,The Christian Science Monitor, which won sevenPulitzer Prizes between 1950 and 2002, and forits public Reading Rooms around the world.[n 2]
Christian Science's religious tenets differ considerably from many otherChristian denominations, including key concepts such as theTrinity, the divinity ofJesus,atonement, theresurrection, and theEucharist.[11][12] Eddy, for her part, described Christian Science as a return to "primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing".[13] Adherents subscribe to a radical form of philosophicalidealism, believing that reality is purely spiritual and the material world an illusion.[14] This includes the view that disease is a mental error rather than physical disorder, and that the sick should be treated not by medicine but by a form of prayer that seeks to correct the beliefs responsible for the illusion of ill health.[15][16]
The church does not require that Christian Scientists avoid medical care—many adherents usedentists,optometrists,obstetricians, physicians for broken bones, andvaccination when required by law—but maintains that Christian Science prayer is most effective when not combined with medicine.[17][18] The reliance on prayer and avoidance of medical treatment has been blamed for the deaths of adherents and their children. Between the 1880s and 1990s, several parents and others were prosecuted for, and in a few cases convicted of,manslaughter orneglect.[19][20][21]
The termmetaphysical referred to the movement's philosophicalidealism, a belief in the primacy of the mental world.[n 4] Adherents believed that material phenomena were the result of mental states, a view expressed as "life is consciousness" and "God is mind." The supreme cause was referred to asDivine Mind, Truth, God, Love, Life, Spirit, Principle or Father–Mother, reflecting elements ofPlato,Hinduism,Berkeley,Hegel,Swedenborg, andtranscendentalism.[30][31]
The metaphysical groups became known as the mind-cure movement because of their strong focus on healing.[32][n 5] Medical practice was in its infancy, and patients regularly fared better without it. This provided fertile soil for the mind-cure groups, who argued that sickness was an absence of "right thinking" or failure to connect to Divine Mind.[35] The movement traced its roots in the United States toPhineas Parkhurst Quimby (1802–1866), a New England clockmaker turned mental healer. His advertising flyer, "To the Sick" included this explanation of his clairvoyant methodology: "he gives no medicines and makes no outward applications, but simply sits down by the patients, tells them their feelings and what they think is their disease. If the patients admit that he tells them their feelings, &c., then his explanation is the cure; and, if he succeeds in correcting their error, he changes the fluids of the system and establishes the truth, or health. The Truth is the Cure. This mode of practise applies to all cases. If no explanation is given, no charge is made, for no effect is produced."[36][n 6]Mary Baker Eddy had been a patient of his (1862–1865),leading to debate about how much of Christian Science was based on his ideas.[38]
New Thought and Christian Science differed in that Eddy saw her views as a unique and finalrevelation.[39][n 7] Eddy's idea ofmalicious animal magnetism (that people can be harmed by the bad thoughts of others) marked another distinction, introducing an element of fear that was absent from the New Thought literature.[41][42] Most significantly, she dismissed the material world as an illusion, rather than as merely subordinate to Mind, leading her to reject the use of medicine, ormateria medica, and making Christian Science the most controversial of the metaphysical groups. Reality for Eddy was purely spiritual.[43][n 8]
Christian Science leaders place their religion within mainstream Christian teaching, according toJ. Gordon Melton, and reject any identification with the New Thought movement.[n 9] Eddy was strongly influenced by herCongregationalist upbringing.[46] According to the church's tenets, adherents accept "the inspired Word of the Bible as [their] sufficient guide to eternal Life ... acknowledge and adore one supreme and infinite God ... [and] acknowledge His Son, one Christ; the Holy Ghost or divine Comforter; and man in God's image and likeness."[47] When founding the Church of Christ, Scientist, in April 1879, Eddy wrote that she wanted to "reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing".[13] Later she suggested that Christian Science was a kind ofsecond coming and thatScience and Health was aninspired text.[n 10][50] In 1895, in theManual of the Mother Church, she ordained the Bible andScience and Health as "Pastor over the Mother Church".[51]
Christian Science theology differs in several respects from that of traditional Christianity. Eddy'sScience and Health reinterprets key Christian concepts, including theTrinity, divinity ofJesus,atonement, andresurrection; beginning with the 1883 edition, she added "with a Key to the Scriptures" to the title and included a glossary that redefined the Christian vocabulary.[n 9] At the core of Eddy's theology is the view that the spiritual world is the only reality and is entirely good, and that the material world, with its evil, sickness and death, is an illusion. Eddy saw humanity as an "idea of Mind" that is "perfect, eternal, unlimited, and reflects the divine", according toBryan Wilson; what she called "mortal man" is simply humanity's distorted view of itself.[54] Despite her view of the non-existence of evil, an important element of Christian Science theology is that evil thought, in the form ofmalicious animal magnetism, can cause harm, even if the harm is only apparent.[55]
Eddy viewed God notas a person but as "All-in-all". Although she often described God in the language of personhood—she used the term "Father–Mother God" (as didAnn Lee, the founder ofShakerism), and, in the third edition ofScience and Health, she referred to God as "she"—God is mostly represented in Christian Science by the synonyms "Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love".[56][n 11] The Holy Ghost is Christian Science, and heaven and hell are states of mind.[n 12] There is nosupplication inChristian Science prayer. The process involves the Scientist engaging in a silent argument to affirm to herself the unreality of matter, somethingChristian Science practitioners will do for a fee, includingin absentia, to address ill health or other problems.[59] Wilson writes that Christian Science healing is "not curative ... on its own premises, but rather preventative of ill health, accident and misfortune, since it claims to lead to a state of consciousness where these things do not exist. What heals is the realization that there is nothing really to heal."[60] It is a closed system of thought, viewed as infallible if performed correctly; healing confirms the power of Truth, but its absence derives from the failure, specifically the bad thoughts, of individuals.[61]
Eddy accepted as true thecreation narrative in theBook of Genesis up to chapter 2, verse 6—that God created man in his image and likeness—but she rejected the rest "as the story of the false and the material", according to Wilson.[62] Her theology isnontrinitarian: she viewed the Trinity as suggestive ofpolytheism.[n 13] She saw Jesus as a Christian Scientist, a "Way-shower" between humanity and God,[64] and she distinguished between Jesus the man and the concept of Christ, the latter a synonym for Truth and Jesus the first person fully to manifest it.[65] Thecrucifixion was not a divine sacrifice for the sins of humanity, the atonement (the forgiveness of sin through Jesus's suffering) "not the bribing of God by offerings", writes Wilson, but an "at-one-ment" with God.[66] Her views on life after death were vague and, according to Wilson, "there is no doctrine of the soul" in Christian Science: "[A]fter death, the individual continues his probationary state until he has worked out his own salvation by proving the truths of Christian Science."[15] Eddy did not believe that the dead and living could communicate.[67]
To the more conservative of the Protestant clergy, Eddy's view ofScience and Health as divinely inspired was a challenge to the Bible's authority.[68] "Eddyism" was viewed as a cult; one of the first uses of the modern sense of the word was in A. H. Barrington'sAnti-Christian Cults (1898), a book aboutSpiritualism,Theosophy and Christian Science.[69] In a few cases Christian Scientists were expelled from Christian congregations, but ministers also worried that their parishioners were choosing to leave. In May 1885 the LondonTimes' Boston correspondent wrote about the "Boston mind-cure craze": "Scores of the most valued Church members are joining the Christian Scientist branch of the metaphysical organization, and it has thus far been impossible to check the defection."[70] In 1907Mark Twain described the appeal of the new religion to its adherents:
[Mrs. Eddy] has delivered to them a religion which has revolutionized their lives, banished the glooms that shadowed them, and filled them and flooded them with sunshine and gladness and peace; a religion which has no hell; a religion whose heaven is not put off to another time, with a break and a gulf between, but begins here and now, and melts into eternity as fancies of the waking day melt into the dreams of sleep.
They believe it is a Christianity that is in the New Testament; that it has always been there, that in the drift of ages it was lost through disuse and neglect, and that this benefactor has found it and given it back to men, turning the night of life into day, its terrors into myths, its lamentations into songs of emancipation and rejoicing.
There we have Mrs. Eddy as her followers see her. ... They sincerely believe that Mrs. Eddy's character is pure and perfect and beautiful, and her history without stain or blot or blemish. But that does not settle it.[71]
Mary Baker Eddy was born Mary Morse Baker on a farm inBow, New Hampshire, the youngest of six children in a religious family ofProtestantCongregationalists.[72] In common with most women at the time, Eddy was given little formal education, but read widely at home and was privately tutored.[73] From childhood, she lived with protracted ill health.[74] Eddy's first husband died six months after their marriage and three months before their son was born, leaving her penniless; and as a result of her poor health she lost custody of the boy when he was four.[75] She married again, and her new husband promised to become the child's legal guardian, but after their marriage he refused to sign the needed papers and the boy was taken to Minnesota and told his mother had died.[76][n 14] Eddy, then known as Mary Patterson, and her husband moved to rural New Hampshire, where Eddy continued to suffer from health problems which often kept her bedridden.[78] Eddy tried various cures for her health problems, includingconventional medicine as well as many forms ofalternative medicine such asGrahamism,electrotherapy,homeopathy,hydropathy, and finallymesmerism underPhineas Quimby.[79] She was later accused by critics, beginning withJulius Dresser, of borrowing ideas from Quimby in what biographerGillian Gill would call the "single most controversial issue" of her life.[80]
In February 1866, Eddy fell on the ice inLynn, Massachusetts. Evidence suggests she had severe injuries, but a few days later she apparently asked for her Bible, opened it to an account of one of Jesus' miracles, and left her bed telling her friends that she was healed through prayer alone.[81] The moment has since been controversial, but she considered this moment one of the "falling apples" that helped her to understand Christian Science, although she said she did not fully understand it at the time.[82]
Eddy encountered significant opposition after she began teaching and writing on Christian Science, which only increased towards the end of her life.[90] One of the most prominent examples wasMark Twain, who wrote a number of articles on Eddy and Christian Science which were first published inCosmopolitan magazine in 1899 and were laterpublished as a book.[91] Another extended criticism, which again was first serialized in a magazine and then published in book form, wasGeorgine Milmine andWilla Cather'sThe Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy and the History of Christian Science which first appeared inMcClure's magazine in January 1907.[92] Also in 1907, several of Eddy's relatives filed an unsuccessful lawsuit instigated by theNew York World, known in the press as the "Next Friends Suit", against members of Eddy's household, alleging that she was mentally unable to manage her own affairs.[93] The suit fell apart after Eddy was interviewed in her home in August 1907 by the judge and two court-appointed masters (one a psychiatrist) who concluded that she was mentally competent. Separately, she was seen by two psychiatrists, includingAllan McLane Hamilton, who came to the same conclusion.[94] TheMcClure's andNew York World stories are considered to at least partially be the reason Eddy asked the church in July 1908 to found theChristian Science Monitor as a platform for responsible journalism.[95]
Eddy died two years later, on the evening of Saturday, December 3, 1910, aged 89. The Mother Church announced at the end of the Sunday morning service that Eddy had "passed from our sight". The church stated that "the time will come when there will be no more death," but that Christian Scientists "do not look for [Eddy's] return in this world."[96] Her estate was valued at $1.5 million, most of which she left to the church.[97]
In the aftermath of Eddy's death, some newspapers speculated that the church would fall apart, while others expected it to continue just as it had before.[98] As it was, the movement continued to grow in the first few decades after 1910.[99] TheManual of the Mother Church prohibits the church from publishing membership figures,[n 15] and it is not clear exactly when the height of the movement was. A 1936 census counted c. 268,915 Christian Scientists in the United States (2,098 per million), andRodney Stark believes this to be close to the height.[101] However, the number of Christian Science churches continued to increase until around 1960, at which point there was a reversal and, since then,many churches have closed their doors.[102] The number ofChristian Science practitioners in the United States began to decline in the 1940s according to Stark.[103] According toJ. Gordon Melton, in 1972 there were 3,237 congregations worldwide, of which roughly 2,400 were in the United States; and, in the following ten years, about 200 congregations were closed.[104]
During the years after Eddy's death, the church has gone through a number of hardships and controversies.[105] This included attempts to make practicing Christian Science illegal in the United States and elsewhere;[106] a period known as the Great Litigation which involved two intertwined lawsuits regarding church governance;[107] persecution under theNazi andCommunist regimes in Germany[108] and theImperial regime in Japan;[109] a series of lawsuits involving the deaths of members of the church, most notably some children;[110] and a controversial decision to publisha book byBliss Knapp.[111] In conjunction with the Knapp book controversy, there was controversy within the church involvingThe Monitor Channel, part ofThe Christian Science Monitor which had been losing money, and which eventually led to the channel shutting down.[112] Acknowledging their earlier mistake, of accepting a multi-million dollar publishing incentive to offset broadcasting losses, The Christian Science Board Of Directors, with the concurrence of the Trustees Of The Christian Science Publishing Society, withdrew Destiny Of The Mother Church from publication in September 2023.[113] In addition, it has since its beginning been branded as a cult by more fundamentalist strains of Christianity, and attracted significant opposition as a result.[114] A number of independent teachers and alternative movements of Christian Science have emerged since its founding, but none of these individuals or groups have achieved the prominence of the Christian Science church.[115]
Despite the hardships and controversies, many Christian Science churches andReading Rooms remain in existence around the world,[116] and, in recent years, there have been reports of the religion growing in Africa, though it remains significantly behind other evangelical groups.[117][118]The Christian Science Monitor also remains a well-respected non-religious paper which is especially noted for its international reporting and lack of partisanship.[119]
[A]ll healing is a metaphysical process. That means that there is no person to be healed, no material body, no patient, no matter, no illness, no one to heal, no substance, no person, no thing and no place that needs to be influenced. This is what the practitioner must first be clear about.
Christian Scientists avoid almost all medical treatment, relying instead on Christian Science prayer.[121] This consists of silently arguing with oneself; there are no appeals to a personal god, and no set words.[122]Caroline Fraser wrote in 1999 that the practitioner might repeat: "the allness of God using Eddy's seven synonyms—Life, Truth, Love, Spirit, Soul, Principle and Mind," then that "Spirit, Substance, is the only Mind, and man is its image and likeness; that Mind is intelligence; that Spirit is substance; that Love is wholeness; that Life, Truth, and Love are the only reality." She might deny other religions, the existence of evil, mesmerism,astrology,numerology, and the symptoms of whatever the illness is. She concludes, Fraser writes, by asserting that disease is a lie, that this is the word of God, and that it has the power to heal.[123]
Christian Science practitioners are certified by the Church of Christ, Scientist, to charge a fee for Christian Science prayer. There were 1,249 practitioners worldwide in 2015;[124] in the United States in 2010 they charged $25–$50 for an e-mail, telephone or face-to-face consultation.[125] Their training is a two-week, 12-lesson course called "primary class", based on the Recapitulation chapter ofScience and Health.[126] Practitioners wanting to teach primary class take a six-day "normal class", held in Boston once every three years, and become Christian Science teachers.[127] There are also Christian Science nursing homes. They offer no medical services; the nurses are Christian Scientists who have completed a course of religious study and training in basic skills, such as feeding and bathing.[128]
TheChristian Science Journal andChristian Science Sentinel publish anecdotal healing testimonials (they published 53,900 between 1900 and April 1989),[129] which must be accompanied by statements from three verifiers: "people who know [the testifier] well and have either witnessed the healing or can vouch for [the testifier's] integrity in sharing it".[130] PhilosopherMargaret P. Battin wrote in 1999 that the seriousness with which these testimonials are treated by Christian Scientists ignores factors such as false positives caused by self-limiting conditions. Because no negative accounts are published, the testimonials strengthen people's tendency to rely on anecdotes.[129] A church study published in 1989 examined 10,000 published testimonials, 2,337 of which the church said involved conditions that had been medically diagnosed, and 623 of which were "medically confirmed by follow-up examinations". The report offered no evidence of the medical follow-up.[131] The Massachusetts Committee for Children and Youth listed among the report's flaws that it had failed to compare the rates of successful and unsuccessful Christian Science treatment.[132]
Nathan Talbot, a church spokesperson, told theNew England Journal of Medicine in 1983 that church members were free to choose medical care,[133] but according to former Christian Scientists those who do may beostracized.[125] In 2010 theNew York Times reported church leaders as saying that, for over a year, they had been "encouraging members to see a physician if they feel it is necessary", and that they were repositioning Christian Science prayer as a supplement to medical care, rather than a substitute. The church has lobbied to have the work of Christian Science practitioners covered by insurance.[125]
As of 2015, it was reported that Christian Scientists in Australia were not advising anyone against vaccines, and the religious exception was deemed "no longer current or necessary".[134] In 2021, a church Committee on Publication reiterated that although vaccination was an individual choice, that the church did not dictate against it, and those who were not vaccinated did not do so because of any "church dogma".[135]
In thehierarchy of theChurch of Christ, Scientist, only the Mother Church in Boston, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, uses thedefinite article in its name. Otherwise the first Christian Science church in any city is called First Church of Christ, Scientist, then Second Church of Christ, Scientist, and so on, followed by the name of the city (for example,Third Church of Christ, Scientist, London). When a church closes, the others in that city are not renamed.[136]
Founded in April 1879, the Church of Christ, Scientist is led by a president and five-person board of directors. There is a public-relations department, known as the Committee on Publication, with representatives around the world; this was set up by Eddy in 1898 to protect her own and the church's reputation.[137] The church was accused in the 1990s of silencing internal criticism by firing staff, delisting practitioners and excommunicating members.[138]
The church's administration is headquartered onChristian Science Center on the corner ofMassachusetts Avenue andHuntington Avenue, located on several acres in the Back Bay section of Boston.[139] The 14.5-acre site includes the Mother Church (1894), Mother Church Extension (1906), theChristian Science Publishing Society building (1934)—which houses theMary Baker Eddy Library and the church's administrative staff—the Sunday School building (1971), and the Church Colonnade building (1972).[140] It also includes the 26-story Administration Building (1972), designed byAraldo Cossutta ofI. M. Pei & Associates, which until 2008 housed the administrative staff from the church's 15 departments. There is also a children's fountain and a 690 ft × 100 ft (210 m × 30 m)reflecting pool.[141][142]
Eddy'sManual of The Mother Church (first published 1895) lists the church'sby-laws.[144] Requirements for members include daily prayer and daily study of the Bible andScience and Health.[n 16] Members must subscribe to church periodicals if they can afford to, and pay an annual tax to the church of not less than one dollar.[146]
Prohibitions include engaging in mental malpractice; visiting a store that sells "obnoxious" books; joining other churches; publishing articles that are uncharitable toward religion, medicine, the courts or the law; and publishing the number of church members.[147] The manual also prohibits engaging in public debate about Christian Science without board approval,[148] and learning hypnotism.[149] It includes "The Golden Rule": "A member of The Mother Church shall not haunt Mrs. Eddy's drive when she goes out, continually stroll by her house, or make a summer resort near her for such a purpose."[150]
The Church of Christ, Scientist is alay church which has no ordained clergy or rituals, and performs no baptisms; with clergy of other faiths often performing marriage or funeral services since they have no clergy of their own. Its main religious texts are theBible andScience and Health. Each church has twoReaders, who read aloud a "Bible lesson" or "lesson sermon" made up of selections from those texts during the Sunday service, and a shorter set of readings to open Wednesday evening testimony meetings. In addition to readings, members offer testimonials during the main portion of the Wednesday meetings, including recovery from ill health attributed to prayer. There are alsohymns, time for silent prayer, and repeating together theLord's Prayer at each service.[151]
The Christian Science Publishing Society publishes several periodicals, including theChristian Science Monitor, winner of seven Pulitzer Prizes between 1950 and 2002. This had a daily circulation in 1970 of 220,000, which by 2008 had contracted to 52,000. In 2009 it moved to a largely online presence with a weekly print run.[180] In the 1980s the church produced its own television programs, and in 1991 it founded a 24-hour news channel, which closed with heavy losses after 13 months.[181]
The church also publishes the weeklyChristian Science Sentinel, the monthlyChristian Science Journal, and theHerald of Christian Science, a non-English publication. In April 2012 JSH-Online made back issues of theJournal,Sentinel andHerald available online to subscribers.[182]
^PBS, August 2008: "The church estimates it has about 400,000 members worldwide, but independent studies put membership at around 100,000."[4]
^In April 2010, theChristian Science Journal listed 1,068 Reading Rooms in the United States and 489 elsewhere.[10]
^Dawn Hutchinson, 2014: "Scholars of American religious history have used the term "New Thought" to refer either to individuals and churches that officially joined the International New Thought Alliance (INTA) or to American metaphysical religions affiliated with Phineas Quimby, Mary Baker Eddy, and Emma Curtis Hopkins. New Thought writers shared the idea that God is Mind."[23]John Saliba, 2003: "The Christian Science–Metaphysical Family. This family, known also as 'New Thought' in academic literature, stresses the need to understand the functioning of the human mind in order to achieve the healing of all human ailments. ... Metaphysics/New Thought is a nineteenth-century movement and is exemplified by such groups as the Unity School of Christianity, the United Church of Religious Science, Divine Science Federation International, and Christian Science."[24]James R. Lewis, 2003: "Groups in the metaphysical (Christian Science–New Thought) tradition ... usually claim to have discovered spiritual laws which, if properly understood and applied, transform and improve the lives of ordinary individuals ..."[25]John K. Simmons, 1995: "While members, past and present, of the Christian Science movement understandably claim Mrs. Eddy's truths to be part of a unique and final religious revelation, most outside observers place Christian Science in the metaphysical family of religious organizations ..."[26]Charles S. Braden, 1963: "[I]t was in America that [mesmerism] ... gave rise to a complex of religious faiths varying from one another in significant ways, but all agreeing upon the central fact that healing and for that matter every good thing is possible through a right relationship with the ultimate power in the Universe, Creative Mind—called God, Principle, Life, Wisdom ..."This broad complex of religions is sometimes described by the rather general term 'metaphysical' ... The general movement has proliferated in many directions. Two main streams seem most vigorous: one is called Christian Science; the other, which no single name adequately describes, has come rather generally to be known as New Thought."[27]
^John K. Simmons, 1995: "The broad descriptive term 'metaphysical' is not used in a manner common to the trained philosopher. Instead, it denotes the primacy of Mind asthe controlling factor in human experience. At the heart of the metaphysical perspective is the theological/ontological affirmation that God is perfect Mind and human beings, in reality, exist in a state of eternal manifestation of that Divine Mind."[29]
^William James, 1902: "To my mind a current far more important and interesting religiously ... I will give the title of the Mind-Cure movement. There are various sects of this 'New Thought' ... but their agreements are so profound that their differences may be neglected for my present purposes ..."[33] "Christian Science so-called, the sect of Mrs. Eddy, is the most radical branch of mind-cure in its dealings with evil."[34]
^Philip Jenkins, 2000: "Christian Science and New Thought both emerged from a common intellectual background in mid-nineteenth-century New England, and they shared many influences from an older mystical and magical fringe, including Swedenborgian teachings, Mesmerism, and Transcentalism. The central figure and prophet of the emerging synthesis was Phineas P. Quimby, 'the John the Baptist of Christian Science', whose faith-healing work began in 1838. Quimby and his followers taught the overwhelming importance of thought in shaping reality, a message that was crucial for healing. If disease existed only as thought, then only by curing the mind could the body be set right: disease was a matter of wrong belief."[37]
^Meredith B. McGuire, 1988: "The most familiar offshoot of the metaphysical movement ... is Christian Science, which was based upon a more extreme interpretation of metaphysical healing than that of the New Thought groups. ... Christian Science is unlike New Thought and other metaphysical movements of that era in that Mary Baker Eddy successfully arrogated to herself all teaching authority, centralized decision-making and organizational power, and developed the movement's sectarian character."[40]
^Charles S. Braden, 1963: "Mary Baker Eddy pushed the postulates of positive thinking to their absolute limit. ... She proposed not merely that the spiritual overshadows the material, but that the material world does not exist. The world of our senses is but an illusion of our minds. If the material world causes us pain, grief, danger and even death, that can be changed by changing our thoughts."[44]
Roy M. Anker, 1999: "Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science (denominationally known as the Church of Christ, Scientist), the most prominent, successful, controversial, and distinctive of all the groups whose inspiration scholars trace to the healing and intellectual influence of Quimby."[45]
^abJ. Gordon Melton, 1992: "Almost as much as the medical controversy, charges of heresy from orthodox Christian churches have hounded the Church. Leaders of Christian Science insist that they are within the mainstream of Christian teachings, a concern which leads to their strong resentment of any identification with the New Thought movement, which they see as having drifted far from their central Christian affirmations. At the same time, strong differences with traditional Christian teachings concerning the Trinity, the unique divinity of Jesus Christ, atonement for sin, and the creation are undeniable. While using Christian language,Science and Health with Key to Scriptures and Eddy's other writings radically redefine basic theological terms, usually by the process commonly called allegorization. Such redefinitions are most clearly evident in the glossary toScience and Health (pages 579–599)."[52]
Rodney Stark, 1998: "But, of course, Christian Science was not just another Protestant sect. Like Joseph Smith, Mary Baker Eddy added too much new religious culture for her movement to qualify fully as a member of the Christian family—as all the leading clerics of the time repeatedly and vociferously pointed out. However, unlike Madame Blavatsky's Theosophical Society, and like the Mormons, Christian Science retained an immense amount of Christian culture. These continuities allowed converts from a Christian background to preserve a great deal of cultural capital."[53]
^Mary Baker Eddy, 1891: "The second appearing of Jesus is, unquestionably, the spiritual advent of the advancing idea of God, as in Christian Science."[48]
Eddy, January 1901: "I should blush to write ofScience and Health with Key to the Scriptures as I have, were it of human origin, and I, apart from God, its author. But, as I was only a scribe echoing the harmonies of heaven in divine metaphysics, I cannot be super-modest in my estimate of the Christian Science textbook."[49]
^Eddy,Science and Health: "Question. – What is God?" Answer. – God is incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love."[57]
^Wilson 1961: "[T]he Holy Ghost is understood to be Christian Science—the promised Comforter." "Heaven and Hell are understood to be mental states".[58]
^Eddy,Science and Health: "The theory of three persons in one God (that is, a personal Trinity or Tri-unity) suggests polytheism, rather than the one ever-present I AM."[63]
^Per the legal doctrine ofcoverture, women in the United States could not then be their own children's guardians.Harvard Business School, 2010: "A married woman orfeme covert was a dependent, like an underage child or a slave, and could not own property in her own name or control her own earnings, except under very specific circumstances. When a husband died, his wife could not be the guardian to their under-age children."[77]
^Manual of the Mother Church: "Christian Scientists shall not report for publication the number of the members of The Mother Church, nor that of the branch churches. According to the Scripture they shall turn away from personality and numbering the people."[100]
^Members are expected to pray each day: "Thy kingdom come; let the reign of divine Truth, Life, and Love be established in me, and rule out of me all sin; and may Thy Word enrich the affections of all mankind, and govern them!"[145]
^abWilson, Bryan (1961).Sects and Society: A Sociological Study of the Elim Tabernacle, Christian Science, and Christadelphians. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 125.
^Battin, Margaret P. (1999). "High-Risk Religion: Christian Science and the Violation of Informed Consent". In DesAutels, Peggy; Battin, Margaret P.; May, Larry (eds.).Praying for a Cure: When Medical and Religious Practices Conflict. Lanham, MD, and Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. p. 11.ISBN0-8476-9262-0.
^Schoepflin, Rennie B. (2003).Christian Science on Trial: Religious Healing in America. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 192–193.
^Peters, Shawn Francis (2007).When Prayer Fails: Faith Healing, Children, and the Law. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 91, 109–130.Archived 2022-11-01 at theWayback Machine.
^Massachusetts Citizens for Children (MassKids), 2023, “Cases of Childhood Deaths Due to Parental Religious Objection to Necessary Medical Care”.[1]Archived 2024-12-02 at theWayback Machine
^William G. McLoughlin,Revivals, Awakenings, and Reform, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980, pp. 10–11, 16–17.
Roy M. Anker, "Revivalism, Religious Experience and the Birth of Mental Healing",Self-help and Popular Religion in Early American Culture: An Interpretive Guide, Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Company, 1999(a), (pp. 11–100), pp. 8, 176ff.
^Hutchinson, Dawn (November 2014). "New Thought's Prosperity Theology and Its Influence on American Ideas of Success",Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, 18(2), (pp. 28–44), p. 28.JSTOR10.1525/nr.2014.18.2.28
^Simmons, John K. (1995). "Christian Science and American Culture", in Timothy Miller (ed.).America's Alternative Religions, New York: State University of New York Press. p. 61Archived 2022-11-01 at theWayback Machine.
^Charles S. Braden,Spirits in Rebellion: The Rise and Development of New Thought, Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1963, pp. 4–5.
^John S. Haller,The History of New Thought: From Mental Healing to Positive Thinking and the Prosperity Gospel, West Chester, Pennsylvania: Swedenborg Foundation Press, 2012, pp. 10–11.Horatio W. Dresser,A History of the New Thought Movement, New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1919, pp. 152–153.
For early uses ofNew Thought, William Henry Holcombe,Condensed Thoughts about Christian Science (pamphlet), Chicago: Purdy Publishing Company, 1887; Horatio W. Dresser, "The Metaphysical Movement" (from a statement issued by the Metaphysical Club, Boston, 1901),The Spirit of the New Thought, New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1917, p. 215.
^Dell De Chant, "The American New Thought Movement", in Eugene Gallagher and Michael Ashcraft (eds.),Introduction to New and Alternative Religions in America, Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Company, 2007, pp. 81–82.
^Gottschalk, Stephen (1973).The Emergence of Christian Science in American Religious Life. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 128,148–149.Moore, Laurence R. (1986).Religious Outsiders and the Making of Americans. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 112–113.
Simmons 1995, p. 62Archived 2022-11-01 at theWayback Machine; Whorton, James C. (2004).Nature Cures: The History of Alternative Medicine in America. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 128–129Archived 2022-11-01 at theWayback Machine.
^Craig R. Prentiss, "Sickness, Death and Illusion in Christian Science", in Colleen McDannell (ed.),Religions of the United States in Practice, Vol. 1, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001, p. 322Archived 2022-11-01 at theWayback Machine.
Claudia Stokes,The Altar at Home: Sentimental Literature and Nineteenth-Century American Religion, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014, p. 181Archived 2022-11-01 at theWayback Machine.
^Catherine Albanese,A Republic of Mind and Spirit: A Cultural History of American Metaphysical Religion, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007, p. 284.
^Wilson 1961, p. 121; Eddy,Manual of the Mother Church, pp. 15–16.
^Eddy,Retrospection and Introspection, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, 1891, p. 70.
^Eddy,Christian Science Journal, January 1901, reprinted in "The Christian Science Textbook",The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, Boston: Alison V. Stewart, 1914, p. 115.
^J. Gordon Melton, "Church of Christ, Scientist (Christian Science)",Encyclopedic Handbook of Cults in America, New York: Routledge, 1992, p. 36Archived 2022-11-01 at theWayback Machine.
^J. Gordon Melton, "An Introduction to New Religions", in James R. Lewis (ed.),The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements, New York: Oxford University Press, 2003, p. 17; for Barrington, see Jenkins 2000, p. 49.
^Bates & Dittemore 1932, pp. 118–135;Gottschalk 2006, pp. 80–81;Voorhees 2021, pp. 65–70; Gutjahr, Paul C. "Sacred Texts in the United States",Book History, 4, 2001 (335–370), 348.JSTOR30227336
^Paul Eli Ivey,Prayers in Stone: Christian Science Architecture in the United States, 1894–1930, Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1999, p. 31;"First Church of Christ, Scientist"Archived 2013-10-29 at theWayback Machine, Oconto County Historical Society.
^King, Christine Elizabeth. (1982).The Nazi State and The New Religions: Five Case Studies in Non-Conformity.Lewiston, New York:Edwin Mellen Press. pp.29–57;Beasley 1956, pp. 233–246; Sandford, Gregory W. (2014).Christian Science in East Germany: The Church that Came in from the Cold. CreateSpace Independent Publishing.
^Beasley 1956, pp. 245–246; Abiko, Emi (1978).A Precious Legacy: Christian Science Comes to Japan. E. D. Abbott Co.
^Barns, Linda L.; Plotnikoff, Gregory A.; Fox, Kenneth; Pendleton, Sara (2000). "Spirituality, Religion, and Pediatrics: Intersecting Worlds of Healing".Pediatrics 104, no. 6: 899–911; DesAutels, Peggy; Battin, Margaret; May, Larry (1999).Praying for a Cure: When Medical and Religious Practices Conflict. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers; Kondos, Elena M. (1992). "The Law and Christian Science Healing for Children: A Pathfinder."Legal Reference Services Quarterly. 12: 5–71;Gill 1998, pp. xv–xvi.
^Talbot, Nathan (1983). "The position of the Christian Science church".New England Journal of Medicine.309 (26): 1641–1644 [1642].doi:10.1056/NEJM198312293092611.PMID6646189.
^Stuart M. Matlins; Arthur J. Magida,How to Be a Perfect Stranger: The Essential Religious Etiquette Handbook, Skylight Paths Publishing, 2003 (pp. 70–76)Dell de Chant, "World Religions made in the U.S.A.: Metaphysical Communities – Christian Science and Theosophy," in Jacob Neusner (ed.),World Religions in America, Westminster John Knox Press, 2009 (pp. 251–270), p. 257.
^Brownfoot, Janice N."Vida Jane Goldstein (1869–1949)".Australian Dictionary of Biography. National Centre of Biography, Australian National University.
^Wright, Clare (2018).You Daughters of Freedom. Text Publishing. p. 479.
^Eder, Jonathon (December 2020). "Manhood and Mary Baker Eddy: Muscular Christianity and Christian Science".Church History.89 (4):875–896.doi:10.1017/S0009640720001390.
^Shout, John D. (2004). "Colleen Dewhurst". In Ware, Susan (ed.).Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary: Completing the Twentieth Century. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press. pp. 174–175.
Voorhees, Amy B. (2021).A New Christian Identity: Christian Science Origins and Experience in American Culture. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
Wilbur, Sibyl.The Life of Mary Baker Eddy, New York: Concord Publishing Company, 1908 (first serialized inHuman Life, 1907; published by the Christian Science Publishing Society, 1913).
Greenhouse, Lucy.Fathermothergod: My Journey Out of Christian Science, New York: Crown Publishers, 2011.
Kramer, Linda S.Perfect Peril: Christian Science and Mind Control, Lafayette: Huntington House, 2000 (first published asThe Religion That Kills. Christian Science: Abuse, Neglect, and Mind Control).
Simmons, Thomas.The Unseen Shore: Memories of a Christian Science Childhood, Boston: Beacon 1991.
Swan, Rita.The Last Strawberry, Dublin: Hag's Head Press, 2009.
Wilson, Barbara.Blue Windows: A Christian Science Childhood, New York: Picador 1997.
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