Christian Science

Christian Science is the popular designation for the Church of Christ, Scientist, the controversial movement founded by Mary Baker Eddy in Lynn, Massachusetts, in 1879. Eddy published Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures in 1875. She revised the work several times before her death. Science and Health is the defining text of the religion.

Eddy was born in Bow, New Hampshire, on July 16, 1821. She claimed that the turning point of her spiritual life came in February 1866 after life-threatening injuries from a fall on the sidewalk were reversed when she discovered the healing methods of Jesus. Critics dispute not only her account of the healing but also her underlying ideology of sickness and health.

Eddy started public teaching of her method of healing in 1870, founded her church in 1879, and established the Massachusetts Metaphysical College in 1881. The movement grew rapidly in the final two decades of the century in spite of widespread criticism in the media and from religious leaders such as fellow Bostonian A. J. Gordon. The mother church in Boston was dedicated in January of 1895 and the movement published the first issue of The Christian Science Monitor in 1908. Mrs. Eddy died on December 3, 1910, at age eighty-nine, in her home in Chestnut Hill.

Christian Science represents Mrs. Eddys metaphysical understanding of Christian faith. Though the movement uses the standard terms of Christian orthodoxy, it invests them with the ideology of the mind science tradition that was popular in America in the 1800s, most notably through the work of Phineas Parkhurt Quimby (180266), a pioneer in the field of mesmerism in the United States. Eddy turned to Quimby in 1862 for medical assistance but later abandoned his approach for her own theories of divine healing.

The movement has faced crisis in the last few decades. Several ex-members have launched massive campaigns against Christian Science for its neglect of the health needs of children. Doug and Rita Swan blamed Christian Science ideology and practice for the death of their son Matthew from spinal meningitis. They formed an organization named C.H.I.L.D. (Childrens Healthcare Is a Legal Duty) that monitors Christian Science and other groups accused of putting children at risk.

Caroline Fraser, a prominent ex-member, created controversy when she chronicled the death of Christian Science children in The Atlantic Monthly in 1995. Frasers later work, Gods Perfect Child, published in 1999, created further turmoil for Christian Science. For example, her work highlighted the case of Robyn Twitchell, a two- year-old who died in 1986 of a bowel obstruction that was treatable. Robyns parents, David and Ginger Twitchell, claimed that their reliance on prayer alone was allowed under a religious exemption clause that was added to the Massachusetts law on child neglect in 1971. They were convicted in 1990 of involuntary manslaughter.

In recent years Christian Science has tried to appeal to those attracted to the New Age movement and to modern notions of spirituality. Virginia Harris, the current head of the mother church, has campaigned aggressively for a fresh image of the movement. She has appeared on Larry King Live and on PBS and has been interviewed by The New York Times, Forbes Magazine, and The Los Angeles Times. Mrs. Harris is also on the board of the Mary Baker Eddy Library for the Betterment of Humanity, opened in September 2002.

Christian Science is one of the few religions in the world that contains in its core a teaching that is often deadly when put into practice. Mrs. Eddy repeatedly taught that matter is not real and that sin, disease, and death are illusions. These denials lead Christian Scientists to avoid doctors and hospitals as they pray for healing from false belief in the reality of sickness. Thus, Christian Science claims of healing are not about reversal of real physical disease but about faith-based denial that disease has any actuality other than in the mind.

typology        Christian esoteric sectarian

founder        Mary Baker Eddy

scripture        Science and Health

home pages        Church of Christ, Scientist, Web site

www.tfccs.com