Christian Science

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Christian Science

In 1875 Mary Baker Eddy, one of the most fascinating and controversial religious leaders in American history, finished her best-known work, Science and Health. Her followers are known as Christian Scientists, and she is the founder of what is called Christian Science. The Church of Christ (Scientist) was incorporated in 1879. Today Christian Science is known mainly for its famous newspaper (The Christian Science Monitor) and for the reluctance of members to follow traditional medical procedures.

Boston is the site of the Mother Church and the denomination's world headquarters. Christian Science has a worldwide following, though its popularity has declined since the death of Eddy in 1910. Born on July 16, 1821, in Bow, New Hampshire, Eddy (née Baker) joined the Congregational Church in her teenage years. Her religious outlook changed in the early 1860s through her contact with Phineas Park-hurt Quimby (1802–1866).

Quimby, a native of Maine, was shaped in his medical and religious outlook by the thought of Franz Mesmer (1734–1815), an Austrian physician known for his radical views on the power of trancelike states. Quimby became fascinated with Mesmerism, hypnotism, and other medical therapies that illustrated the profound impact of the mind on human health. Quimby's ideas were revolutionary to Mary Baker Eddy and also had an impact on the founders of the New Thought movement (Warren Felt Evans, Annetta Seabury Dresser, and Julius Dresser), a religious cousin to Christian Science.

In Eddy's life and since her death, her relationship with Quimby has been the source of much debate. New Thought leaders have accused Eddy of plagiarism, suggesting that there is nothing original in her ideology. Christian Scientists have preferred to downplay Quimby's role in Eddy's development. However, it is evident that his impact on her was considerable, though the departures from Quimby on key theological and ecclesiastical issues and her own originality must be noted.

Christian Scientists point to Eddy's own healing story as the central biographical moment in the life of Christian Science. After she had a nasty fall on February 1, 1866, Eddy claimed that her miraculous healing came because of her prayers, her faith in God, and the recognition that mind has power over false beliefs about illness. This healing claim is expressed in Eddy's well-known (and complicated) view that matter is not real. Healing comes as one places trust in God (the author of Spirit) over the illusory power of false material claims.

As Eddy developed her own healing and religious ministry, her movement was hurt by internal division and by external critiques. Mark Twain wrote a biting exposé about her, accusing her of money grubbing, dictatorship, medical fraud, and outright delusion. Eddy weathered these storms, and she sheltered herself in later years in her home in Concord, New Hampshire.

Christian Science is a version of absolute idealism. Resistance to traditional medicine is rooted in an objection to emphasis on the physical realm. The focus away from the physical also explains why the church has no rite of water baptism and communion is understood as meditation only. Christian Scientists use traditional theological vocabulary, though the meaning of words is oriented to Eddy's symbolic and idealistic interpretations.

Conservative Christians have always attacked the Christian Science understanding of the Trinity, creation, the nature of Christ, the meaning of the death of Jesus, and views about heaven and hell. They have also targeted Christian Scientists for their elevation of Mary Baker Eddy, their reliance on her writings, and their understanding of divine healing.

Secular criticism of Christian Science has been directed to recent economic turmoil in the movement, and also to the church's controversial rejection of standard medical procedures, particularly in cases involving children. Internally, Christian Science has suffered from strong dissent over some disastrous financial moves by church leaders, the church-sponsored publication of a very controversial book about Mary Baker Eddy by Bliss Knapp, and allegations that the church is dictatorial in its mode of decision making.

Bliss Knapp (1877–1958) was the son of a prominent early follower of Eddy. The younger Knapp inherited his father's love for the Book of Revelation. Out of that study, Bliss Knapp speculated that Eddy had status equal to Jesus and that she was one of the central figures in the apostle's apocalyptic visions. Knapp's book The Destiny of the Mother Church (privately printed in 1947) was later refused publication by the Christian Science Publishing Society. In his will Knapp threatened that his family's wealth would not go to the church unless it published his book by 1993. The amount in question was over $90 million by 1990. The church met the deadline with official publication, but that move created enormous controversy.

The more vigorous external attack on the church's controversial healing methods has been met by the decades-long assertion of the freedom of Christian Scientists to practice their religion and of the right of Christian Science parents to raise their children in obedience to church belief and tradition. American courts have been reluctant to prosecute adults who choose to reject traditional medicine. Cases involving children have been much more complicated—emotionally, morally, and legally.

Caroline Fraser drew national attention to this issue in a major report in the April 1995 issue of The Atlantic Monthly. Under the title "Suffering Children and the Christian Science Church," Fraser, herself from a Christian Science background, documented the recent woes of Christian Science, focusing on dramatic cases of childhood deaths involving Christian Science faith healing. Church members replied to her article by citing alleged cases of positive healing, disputing the causal elements in the relevant cases she cited, and chiding her for not allowing freedom of religion.

Rita and Doug Swan, former Christian Scientists, started a national organization called CHILD (Children's Healthcare Is a Legal Duty) in 1983. Their work arose out of their lengthy legal battle with the church over the death of their son Matthew. He had meningitis, but they refused standard medical treatment for him out of belief that Christian Science healing traditions were correct. Caroline Fraser draws attention to this death, among others. She ends her article with bitterness: "As it is, if 7,000 children attend Christian Science Sunday schools in this country, then 7,000 children may have nothing standing between themselves and death but Science and Health and dumb luck."

One impact of the tragic cases Fraser cites is a growing moderation among some Christian Science faith healers. There have been arguments advanced that Eddy allowed a combination of faith and medicine in her own life (she is said to have taken morphine in her later years) and that common sense demands greater access to traditional medical procedures. These moderates also argue that Christian Scientists are allowed to go to dentists, wear glasses, and have broken bones fixed at the local hospital. Why not allow surgery for cancer or drugs for diabetes?

Christian Science leaders have responded aggressively in court to challenges about medical malpractice and have mounted effective public relations campaigns about the importance of religious liberty in American life. Ironically, some Christian Science dissidents (like Stephen Gottschalk) have accused the church of ignoring the liberty of its own members to ask hard questions about what constitutes true allegiance to Eddy's teachings. These questions will continue to dominate Christian Science as it continues into its second century as one of America's most controversial religious movements.