Christian Science
Christian Science
International Metaphysical Association
Church of Christ, Scientist
Christian Science Church Center, Boston, MA 02115-3195
Alternate Address
The First Church of Christ, Scientist, 210 Massachusetts Ave., Boston, MA 02115-3195.
The Church of Christ, Scientist, grew out of the experiences, work, and writings of Mary Baker Eddy. Following her healing in 1866, which happened concurrently with her discovery of God as the sole reality of life, Eddy began a period of Bible study that involved testing the practicality of her new discovery, as well as questioning the earlier teachings on mental healing she had received from Phineas P. Quimby. The result was the development of her thought, first expressed in a booklet, The Science of Man (1870), and later embodied in her textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1875). Eddy began almost immediately to apply the precepts of Christian Science to healing and to teach them informally to others. Her work led her to seek a letter of dismissal from the Congregational Church in which she was raised, and in 1876 she founded the Christian Science Association, the first organization for her students.
The next 16 years saw the development of a variety of organizational expressions, some temporary, some lasting. A final reorganization in 1892, and the development of the church’s by-laws in the Church Manual (1895), resulted in the church as it is known today. These 16 years were punctuated by the formation of the Church of Christ, Scientist, in 1879; Eddy’s ordination in 1881; the dissolution of the church in 1889; and its reorganization in 1892. This reorganization placed the governance of the Christian Science movement in the First Church of Christ, Scientist, of Boston, generally known as the Mother Church. The remainder of Eddy’s life was spent in perfecting the textbook of the movement, which went through several revisions, and in completing by-laws as codified in the Church Manual. The texts of these two volumes remain the prime sources of the church’s doctrine and polity.
The beliefs of the Church of Christ, Scientist, are summarized in a set of Tenets printed in both Science and Health (p. 497) and the Church Manual (p. 15). The Church defines itself as Christian in essence, a major difference between it and most other “metaphysical” churches with which it is often compared. The Tenets affirm the Church’s allegiance to the inspired Word of the Bible as the sufficient guide to Life, and belief in one God, God’s Son, the Holy Ghost, and man as being in God’s likeness and image. Forgiveness for sin comes with spiritual understanding that casts out evil as having no God-ordained reality. Jesus is acknowledged as the Way-shower. His atonement, as the evidence of God’s love and salvation, comes through the Truth, Life, and Love he demonstrated in his healing activity and by his overcoming sin and death.
Healing activity following the principles laid down in the Bible and in Science and Health has been the keynote of the Christian Science movement. Christian healing is a normal practice among members—with some giving their full time to the ministry of spiritual healing. This is in accord with Eddy’s experience of the allness of God. Spiritual healing is distinct from other forms of healing, especially psychic or magnetic healing.
Eddy is held in high regard by Christian Scientists. The church does, however, carefully distinguish Eddy’s status and role as the discoverer of Christian Science from that of Jesus as the Savior of humanity. In like measure, while acknowledging the essential and central role of the Christian Science textbook, it does not understand Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures to be a second Scripture or a revelation equal in authority to the Bible. Rather, Science and Health is considered a tool for understanding the Bible.
The governance of the Christian Science movement is vested in the Mother Church, whose rules of operation are spelled out in the Church Manual. Administration is placed in a five-member, self-perpetuating board of directors. The board charters branch churches, which are run according to their own democratic control (apart from any matters covered in the Church Manual). Worship in all branch churches is conducted by elected readers, each of whom must be a member in good standing of the Mother Church. Services in the branch churches consist of readings from scripture and Science and Health. The exact passages for each week are delineated in The Christian Science Quarterly.
Publications of the Church are produced by the Christian Science Publishing Society and its board of directors. Included in its publications are its award-winning newspaper, The Christian Science Monitor; its prime foreign language periodical, The Herald of Christian Science (published in 12 languages and in braille for the blind); and numerous books and pamphlets. Eddy’s writings are controlled and published by the Trustees Under the Will of Mary Baker Eddy. Under the board of directors of the Mother Church is a board of lectureship that approves speakers who travel the world offering free public lectures on Christian Science. The Committee on Publication is charged with correcting false information about the church and injustices done to Mrs. Eddy, the Mother Church, and Christian Scientists.
Headquarters of the church are in the Christian Science Church Center (also known as Christian Science Plaza), a large complex in Boston, Massachusetts, that has become one of the city’s most-visited tourist stops. As of 2008 approximately 2,000 branch churches and societies exist in more than 80 nations of the world (though approximately 73 percent of the membership is in North America).
Membership
Not reported.
Educational Facilities
Principia College, Elsah, Illinois. (Unofficial.)
Periodicals
The Christian Science Monitor. • The Christian Science Journal. • Christian Science Sentinel. • The Herald of Christian Science. • The Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lessons (Study Edition) (published in 12 languages).
Remarks
Since its founding, the Church of Christ, Scientist, has been the subject of intense controversy. Its healing emphasis brought criticism from a variety of perspectives, encompassing both those who shared the emphasis but followed a different set of teachings and practices, and those who disapproved of any form of spiritual healing. The most intense criticism found its way into various legal proceedings and has led to an extensive body of legal opinion defining the rights and limits of Christian Science practice. Courts have defined Christian Science healing as a form of worship and thus a legally protected activity of the church. Deductions for some Christian Science services are allowed by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. Various state-level committees have issued handbooks defining the legal rights and obligations of Christian Scientists in some detail.
During the 1880s Eddy was accused of drawing her teachings from Phineas P. Quimby—first by Annetta Dresser and her husband, Julius Dresser, who, like Eddy, had been students of Quimby, and later by numerous members of what became known as the New Thought movement. An impartial examination of Eddy’s writings and the publications of the Church of Christ, Scientist, however, reveals an essential difference between Eddy’s teachings on healing and those of Quimby and shows that the major similarity lies in the area of terminology, and results from the attempt to struggle with some of the same questions of religion and health.
The Church of Christ, Scientist, has maintained over the years that there is a basic gulf between its teachings and those of the New Thought movement. This difference is highlighted in Eddy’s rejection of Quimby’s adherence to magnetic healing and the movement’s abandonment of Eddy’s essential Christian orientation. The Church also disapproves of the emphasis in the movement on prosperity and the openness to various psychic and occult practices most evident in some of the larger New Thought groups. Christian Science retains a focus on healing and has denounced Spiritualism and animal magnetism, the forms of the occult most evident in Eddy’s lifetime, from its earliest years. Some obvious differences between New Thought and Christian Science can be seen by comparing the Tenets of the Church with the Declaration of the International New Thought Alliance (INTA). Despite these differences, the two movements are historically related. New Thought was, to a great extent, built upon the work of Eddy’s early students, particularly Emma Curtis Hopkins, and used Science and Health as a major sourcebook. Today, New Thought groups vary considerably, from those who are close to Eddy’s teaching to those who more closely follow Quimby while developing their own form of metaphysical thought.
Finally, over the years the Church has had to face formal and informal challenges to its authority, beginning with the various individuals and groups claiming to have inherited Mary Baker Eddy’s authority. These challenges led to the formation of several movements, such as the Christian Science Parent Church, none of which prospered more than a few years. There is, of course, a small but steady stream of practitioners who have left the church and who continue to practice independently. Many have built a successful personal following (possibly the most prominent being Joel S. Goldsmith). Most, however, have been anti-organization and their following has continued only briefly after their retirement or death.
Sources
Church of Christ, Scientist. www.churchofchristscientist.org.
Braden, Charles S. Christian Science Today. Dallas, TX: Southern Methodist University Press, 1958.
Christian Science: A Sourcebook of Contemporary Materials. Boston: Christian Science Publishing Society, 1990.
Eddy, Mary Baker. Church Manual of the First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass. Boston: Trustees Under the Will of Mary Baker Eddy, 1908.
———. Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. Boston: Trustees Under the Will of Mary Baker Eddy, 1906.
Gill, Gillian. Mary Baker Eddy. Reading, MA: Perseus Books, 1998.
Gottschalk, Stephen. The Emergence of Christian Science in American Religious Life. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973.
Peel, Robert. Mary Baker Eddy. 3 vols. New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, 1971.
Swihart, Altman K. Since Mrs. Eddy. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1931.
Infinite Way
PO Box 8260, Moreno Valley, CA 92552
The Infinite Way is the name given to the teachings of Joel S. Goldsmith (1892–1964), a nonpracticing Jew who encountered Christian Science as a young man. When Goldsmith’s father was healed by a practitioner in 1915, Goldsmith began seriously to study Christian Science. Later, consulting a practitioner for help with a cold, he found himself cured not only of the cold, but also of smoking and drinking. The experience changed his life. He began to pray for people, and to his amazement, they were healed. He joined the Church of Christ, Scientist, and became a practitioner, a practice he pursued for sixteen years. In 1946, however, after having grown uncomfortable with the pressure of the organization, he withdrew from the church. He began working on a book, The Infinite Way, and then accepted invitations to teach and lecture, primarily on the West Coast and Hawaii.
In 1946, a year after withdrawing from Christian Science, he experienced a mystic “initiation” that lasted over several months and that has been described as lifting him to a new dimension of life, a God-experience. Most of the Infinite Way emphases derive from that incident. The Infinite Way represents a mystical form of Christian Science. Without rejecting healing or prosperity demonstration, Goldsmith centered his teaching on the experience of God, believing that the seeker of truth begins with solving problems and overcoming discord. When these endeavors become futile, he can then perceive that one can transcend them. Desiring to improve his human condition, he can move toward spiritual consciousness.
Spiritual consciousness is attained by contemplative meditation, the holding of spiritual truth in the consciousness. As posited by the Infinite Way, pure meditation is the state of complete silence within. God is within; people cannot make it so, they can only come to the realization. To establish a relationship with the God within is to be able to tap the ready supply of all that makes life worthwhile. As the Infinite Way stresses, God appears as the many, but appearance must not be confused with reality. Christ is the activity of truth within each individual consciousness. The revelation brought by Jesus is the revelation of the Christ.
Goldsmith rejected the idea of founding another organization, and during his lifetime the Infinite Way existed only as an informal circle of his students. However, he did offer regular classes that were taped and transcribed (and later became the bases for several books). A newsletter provided a means to keep the scattered students in regular contact. The first of several Infinite Way study centers appeared in Chicago in 1954. For several years after Goldsmith’s death, his wife, Emma Goldsmith (1904–1986), continued to issue the newsletter from Hawaii, with the editorial assistance of Lorraine Sinkler, a longtime student. Emma Goldsmith moved to Arizona, and with the assistance of Thelma G. “Geri” McDonald, her daughter (by a previous marriage), continued to make available the tapes of his lectures. McDonald continued this work after her mother’s death. The majority of Goldsmith’s material has been edited by Sinkler and published in book form.
Membership
Because the Infinite Way is not an organization but rather a designation given to Goldsmith’s teachings, there is no formal membership. In 2008 McDonald reported that she and her daughter, Sue Ropac, were available to conduct classes and give lectures upon invitation.
Periodicals
The Monthly Letter.
Sources
The Infinite Way. www.joelgoldsmith.com.
Goldsmith, Joel S. The Art of Spiritual Healing. New York: Harper & Row, 1959.
———. The Infinite Way. San Gabriel, CA: Willing Publishing Company, 1961.
Sinkler, Lorraine. The Alchemy of Awareness. New York: Harper & Row, 1977.
———. The Spiritual Journey of Joel S. Goldsmith. New York: Harper & Row, 1973.
International Metaphysical Association
Current address not obtained for this edition.
Among the various independent Christian Science groups, the International Metaphysical Association (IMA), formed in 1955, is perhaps the largest and most influential. It was formed by a number of ex-members of the Church of Christ, Scientist, who saw that the often individual, fragmentary and undisciplined study of independent followers of Mary Baker Eddy was inadequate. The Association has as its purposes to bring to public notice Eddy’s scientific revelation, and to encourage students of Christian Science to regard the teachings as a science and approach them in an orderly way.
To accomplish these goals, it sponsors television and radio work, lectures and special schools, and publishes a number of pamphlets and books. Closely associated is the independent Rare Book Company, which has reprinted the first three editions of Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy and serves as a clearinghouse and distributor of much Christian Science literature.
The IMA is headed by a seven-member board of trustees which included Ethel Schroeder, a popular speaker and writer. In 1966, it sponsored its first international conference, which featured popular independent Christian Scientists from Europe: Peggy Brook, Max Kappeler, and Gordon Brown. A second conference was held in California in 1968. At the time of last publication, the mailing list of the IMA included students from around the United States, some of whom were banded into study groups that use IMA material.
Membership
Not reported.
Periodicals
Independent Christian Science Quarterly.
Sources
Brown, W. Gordon. Christian Science Nonsectarian. Haslemere, Surrey, England: Gordon & Estelle Brown, 1966.
Kappeler, Max. Animal Magnetism–Unmasked. London: Foundational Book Company Limited, 1975.
Schroeder, Ethel. Science of Christianity. New York: International Metaphysical Association, n.d.
William Samuel Foundation
307 N Montgomery St., Ojai, CA 93023
William Samuel (1924–1996) was a writer and teacher in the field of religion, science, and metaphysics. In 1968 he began publishing Notes from Woodsong (originally Notes from Lollygog), sent to an unspecified number of students across the United States. Groups in several areas formed to study the letters and Samuel’s books, most notably A Guide to Awareness and Tranquillity. Samuel professed a profound sense of well-being and a surprising ability to pass that well-being on to others. He asserted that tranquillity is acquired not through step-by-step methods but rather by simplicity and honesty in a childlike approach.
Periodicals
The Child Within, A Journal.
Membership
Not a membership organization. The foundation looks to a community of like-minded people who support the ideas articulated in Samuel’s books and wish to communicate with each other about living with these ideas.
Sources
William Samuel and Friends. www.williamsamuel.com/.
Samuel, William. The Child within Us Lives!: A Synthesis of Science, Religion and Metaphysics. Mountain Brook, AL: Mountain Brook Publications, 1986.
———. A Guide to Awareness and Tranquillity. Lakemont, GA: CSA Press, 1967.
———. The Melody of the Woodcutter and the King. Palo Alto, CA: Seed Center, 1976.
———. 2 Plus 2=Reality. Lakemont, GA: CSA Press, 1963.
Truth Center
566 Crestview Dr., Ojai, CA 93023
Truth Center was founded in Los Angeles, California, in 1970 by W. Norman Cooper. Born in Winnipeg, Canada, in the 1920s, as a youth Cooper moved with his family to Los Angeles in 1939. He received his college degree from Chapman College and a Doctor of Divinity degree from Eastern Nebraska Christian College (associated with the Congregational Church of Practical Theology and now superceded by St. John’s University, Ponchatoula, Louisiana). An active church worker, he withdrew from church life in 1965 and spent three years largely in meditation. After his years of withdrawal he began to hold one-day seminars to share his discoveries and later initiated Sunday services. This activity led to the organization of Truth Center.
Cooper’s teachings emphasize two principal aspects. He teaches the Bible and Bible history (primarily the Gospels) as illustrative of the inner life. In this process he has come to believe that the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas provides the purest presentation of Jesus’teachings. Secondly, he emphasizes the inner search for one’s divine Self. He advises daily meditation. The inward search should lead to a realization of the individual’s oneness with the Source, i.e., God. Cooper also stresses the need for activity in the world as opposed to merely a self-centered mysticism.
Membership
At the time of last publication, there was one center in Los Angeles where most of Cooper’s students resided. However, some of Cooper’s students were scattered across the United States.
Sources
Cooper, W. Norman. Dance with God. Marina del Rey, CA: DeVorss & Company, 1982.
———. The Non-Thinking Self. Marina del Rey, CA: DeVorss & Company, 1980.
Field, Filip. W. Norman Cooper, a Prophet for Our Time. Marina del Rey, CA: DeVorss & Company, 1979.
Witt, Roselyn. W. Norman Cooper, A View of a Holy Man. Marina del Rey, CA: DeVorss & Company, 1982.
United Christian Scientists
Current address not obtained for this edition.
United Christian Scientists was founded in 1975 in New Jersey by a group of independent students of Christian Science. The following year David James Nolan of San Jose, California, was elected to serve as chairman of the religious education foundation. The prime issue raised by the United Christian Scientists concerns the polity of the Church of Christ, Scientist. They filed a suit seeking to have the text of the writings of Mary Baker Eddy declared in the public domain and were successful. More recently they have begun a probe into the issues involved in the establishment of centralized control at the Boston, Massachusetts, headquarters of the Church of Christ, Scientist, in what they consider to be flagrant disregard of Eddy’s instructions to dissolve such control at the time of her passing.
The United Christian Scientists operate within the context of the larger movement of independent Christian Scientists, continuing their work individually in much the same way as they did prior to leaving the Church of Christ, Scientist.
Membership
Not reported.