Christian Scientist

Christian Science is a set of beliefs and practices associated with members of the Church 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 19th-century New England by Mary Baker Eddy, who wrote the 1875 book '' Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures'', which outlined the theology of Christian Science. The book became Christian Science's central text, along with the Bible, and by 2001 had sold over nine million copies.

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. The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, was built in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1894. Christian Science became the fastest growing religion in the United States, with nearly 270,000 members there by 1936, a figure that had declined to just over 100,000 by 1990 and reportedly to under 50,000 by 2009. The church is known for its newspaper, ''The Christian Science Monitor'', which won seven Pulitzer Prizes between 1950 and 2002, and for its public Reading Rooms around the world.

Eddy described Christian Science as a return to "primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing".
Eddy, ''Manual of the Mother Church'', p.&nbs
17
There are key differences between Christian Science theology and that of traditional Christianity. In particular, adherents subscribe to a radical form of philosophical idealism, believing that reality is purely spiritual and the material world an illusion. 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.

The church does not require that Christian Scientists avoid medical care—adherents use dentists, optometrists, obstetricians, physicians for broken bones, and vaccination when required by law—but maintains that Christian Science prayer is most effective when not combined with medicine.Schoepflin, Rennie B. (2003). ''Christian Science on Trial: Religious Healing in America''. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 192–193.
Trammell, Mary M., chair, Christian Science board of directors (March 26, 2010)
"Letter; What the Christian Science Church Teaches"
. ''The New York Times''. Most controversially, the reliance on prayer and avoidance of medical treatment has been blamed for the deaths of several adherents and their children. Between the 1880s and 1990s, parents and others were prosecuted for, and in a few cases convicted of, manslaughter or neglect.

Overview

Metaphysical family

Several periods of Protestant Christian revival nurtured a proliferation of new religious movements in the United States. In the latter half of the 19th century these included what came to be known as the metaphysical family: groups such as Christian Science, Divine Science, the Unity School of Christianity, and (later) the United Church of Religious Science. From the 1890s the liberal section of the movement became known as New Thought, in part to distinguish it from the more authoritarian Christian Science.

The term ''metaphysical'' referred to the movement's philosophical idealism, a belief in the primacy of the mental world. 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 as Divine Mind, Truth, God, Love, Life, Spirit, Principle or Father–Mother, reflecting elements of Plato, Hinduism, Berkeley, Hegel, Swedenborg, and transcendentalism.

The metaphysical groups became known as the mind-cure movement because of their strong focus on healing. 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. The movement traced its roots in the United States to Phineas Parkhurst Quimby (1802–1866), a New England clockmaker turned mental healer, whose motto was "the truth is the cure."Wilson 1961, p.&nbs
135
; Braden 1963, p. 62 (for "the truth is the cure"); McGuire 1988, p.&nbs
79
.
Also se

, ''Time'' magazine, 7 November 1938
"Phineas Parkhurst Quimby"
, ''Encyclopædia Britannica'', September 9, 2013. Mary Baker Eddy had been a patient of his, leading to debate about how much of Christian Science was based on his ideas.Simmons 1995, p.&nbs
64
; Fuller 2013, pp.&nbs
212–213
, n. 16.

New Thought and Christian Science differed in that Eddy saw her views as a unique and final revelation. Eddy's idea of malicious 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. 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, or '' materia medica'', and making Christian Science the most controversial of the metaphysical groups. Reality for Eddy was purely spiritual.

Christian Science theology

Christian Science leaders place their religion within mainstream Christian teaching, according to J. Gordon Melton, and reject any identification with the New Thought movement. Eddy was strongly influenced by her Congregationalist upbringing. According to the church's tenets, adherents accept "the inspired Word of the Bible as heirsufficient guide to eternal Life ... acknowledge and adore one supreme and infinite God ... ndacknowledge His Son, one Christ; the Holy Ghost or divine Comforter; and man in God's image and likeness." 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". Later she suggested that Christian Science was a kind of second coming and that '' Science and Health'' was an inspired text. In 1895, in the ''Manual of the Mother Church'', she ordained the Bible and ''Science and Health'' as "Pastor over the Mother Church".

Christian Science theology differs in several respects from that of traditional Christianity. Eddy's ''Science and Health'' reinterprets key Christian concepts, including the Trinity, divinity of Jesus, atonement, and resurrection; 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. 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 to Bryan Wilson; what she called "mortal man" is simply humanity's distorted view of itself. Despite her view of the non-existence of evil, an important element of Christian Science theology is that evil thought, in the form of malicious animal magnetism, can cause harm, even if the harm is only apparent.

Eddy viewed God not as 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 did Ann Lee, the founder of Shakerism), and in the third edition of ''Science 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". The Holy Ghost is Christian Science, and heaven and hell are states of mind. There is no supplication in Christian Science prayer. The process involves the Scientist engaging in a silent argument to affirm to herself the unreality of matter, something Christian Science practitioners will do for a fee, including ''in absentia'', to address ill health or other problems. 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." 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.

Eddy accepted as true the creation narrative in the Book 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. Her theology is nontrinitarian: she viewed the Trinity as suggestive of polytheism. She saw Jesus as a Christian Scientist, a "Way-shower" between humanity and God, 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. The crucifixion 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. Her views on life after death were vague and, according to Wilson, "there is no doctrine of the soul" in Christian Science: " ter death, the individual continues his probationary state until he has worked out his own salvation by proving the truths of Christian Science." Eddy did not believe that the dead and living could communicate.

To the more conservative of the Protestant clergy, Eddy's view of ''Science and Health'' as divinely inspired was a challenge to the Bible's authority. "Eddyism" was viewed as a cult; one of the first uses of the modern sense of the word was in A. H. Barrington's ''Anti-Christian Cults'' (1898), a book about Spiritualism, Theosophy and Christian Science. 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 London ''Times'' 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." In 1907 Mark Twain described the appeal of the new religion to its adherents:

History

Mary Baker Eddy and the early Christian Science movement

Mary Baker Eddy was born Mary Morse Baker on a farm in Bow, New Hampshire, the youngest of six children in a religious family of Protestant Congregationalists. In common with most women at the time, Eddy was given little formal education, but read widely at home and was privately tutored. From childhood she lived with protracted ill health. 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. 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. 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. Eddy tried various cures for her health problems, including "allopathic" or conventional medicine, and most forms of alternative medicine such as Grahamism, electrotherapy, homeopathy, hydropathy, and finally mesmerism under Phineas Quimby. She was later accused by critics, beginning with Julius Dresser, of borrowing ideas from Quimby in what biographer Gillian Gill would call the "single most controversial issue" of her life.

In February 1866, Eddy fell on the ice in Lynn, 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. 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.

In 1866, after her fall on the ice, Eddy began teaching her first student and began writing her ideas which she eventually published in '' Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures'', considered her most important work. Her students voted to form a church called the Church of Christ (Scientist) in 1879, later reorganized as The First Church of Christ, Scientist, also known as The Mother Church, in 1892. She founded the Massachusetts Metaphysical College in 1881 to continue teaching students, Eddy started a number of periodicals: ''The Christian Science Journal'' in 1898, ''The Herald of Christian Science'' in 1903, and ''The Christian Science Monitor'' in 1908, the latter being a secular newspaper., pp
xxxix–xxxvChronology
, Mary Baker Eddy Library. The ''Monitor'' has gone on to win seven Pulitzer prizes as of 2011. She also wrote numerous books and articles in addition to ''Science and Health'', including the Manual of The Mother Church which contained by-laws for church government and member activity, and founded the Christian Science Publishing Society in 1898 in order to distribute Christian Science literature. Although the movement started in Boston, the first purpose-built Christian Science church building was erected in 1886 in Oconto, Wisconsin. During Eddy's lifetime, Christian Science spread throughout the United States and to other parts of the world including Canada, Great Britain, Germany, South Africa, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Australia, and elsewhere.

Eddy encountered significant opposition after she began teaching and writing on Christian Science, which only increased towards the end of her life. One of the most prominent examples was Mark Twain, who wrote a number of articles on Eddy and Christian Science which were first published in ''Cosmopolitan'' magazine in 1899 and were later published as a book. Another extended criticism, which again was first serialized in a magazine and then published in book form, was Georgine Milmine and Willa Cather's '' The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy and the History of Christian Science'' which first appeared in ''McClure's'' magazine in January 1907. Also in 1907, several of Eddy's relatives filed an unsuccessful lawsuit instigated by the ''New 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. The suit fell apart after Eddy was interviewed in her home in August 1907 by the judge and two psychiatrists, including Allan McLane Hamilton, who concluded that she was mentally competent. The ''McClure's'' and ''New York World'' stories are considered to at least partially be the reason Eddy asked the church in July 1908 to found the ''Christian Science Monitor'' as a platform for responsible journalism.

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 ddy'sreturn in this world." Her estate was valued at $1.5 million, most of which she left to the church.

The Christian Science movement after 1910

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. As it was, the movement continued to grow in the first few decades after 1910. The Manual of the Mother Church prohibits the church from publishing membership figures, and it is not clear exactly where the height of the movement was. A 1936 census counted c. 268,915 Christian Scientists in the United States (2,098 per million), and Rodney Stark believes this to be close to the height. 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. The number of Christian Science practitioners in the United States began to decline in the 1940s according to Stark. According to J. 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.

During the years after Eddy's death, the church has gone through a number of hardships and controversies. This included attempts to make practicing Christian Science illegal in the United States and elsewhere; a period known as the Great Litigation which involved two intertwined lawsuits regarding church governance; persecution under the Nazi and Communist regimes in Germany and the Imperial regime in Japan; a series of lawsuits involving the deaths of members of the church, most notably some children; and a controversial decision to publish a book by Bliss Knapp. In conjunction with the Knapp book controversy, there was controversy within the church involving ''The Monitor Channel'', part of ''The Christian Science Monitor'' which had been losing money, and which eventually led to the channel shutting down. 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. 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.

Despite the hardships and controversies, many Christian Science churches and Reading Rooms remain in existence around the world, and in recent years there have been reports of the religion growing in Africa. ''The Christian Science Monitor'' also remains a well respected non-religious paper which is especially noted for its international reporting and lack of partisanship.

Healing practices

Christian Science prayer

Christian Scientists avoid almost all medical treatment, relying instead on Christian Science prayer. This consists of silently arguing with oneself; there are no appeals to a personal god, and no set words. 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.

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; in the United States in 2010 they charged $25–$50 for an e-mail, telephone or face-to-face consultation.Vitello, Paul (March 23, 2010)
"Christian Science Church Seeks Truce With Modern Medicine"
, ''The New York Times''. Their training is a two-week, 12-lesson course called "primary class", based on the Recapitulation chapter of ''Science and Health''. Practitioners wanting to teach primary class take a six-day " normal class", held in Boston once every three years, and become Christian Science teachers. 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.

The ''Christian Science Journal'' publish anecdotal healing testimonials (they published 53,900 between 1900 and April 1989),Battin 1999, p.&nbs
15
. which must be accompanied by statements from three verifiers: "people who know he testifierwell and have either witnessed the healing or can vouch for he testifier'sintegrity in sharing it". Philosopher Margaret 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. 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. 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.

Nathan Talbot, a church spokesperson, told the ''New England Journal of Medicine'' in 1983 that church members were free to choose medical care, but according to former Christian Scientists those who do may be ostracized. In 2010 the ''New 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.

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". 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".

Church of Christ, Scientist

Governance

In the hierarchy of the Church of Christ, Scientist, only the Mother Church in Boston, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, uses the definite 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.

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. The church was accused in the 1990s of silencing internal criticism by firing staff, delisting practitioners and excommunicating members.

The church's administration is headquartered on Christian Science Center on the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Huntington Avenue, Boston. The 14.5-acre site includes the Mother Church (1894), Mother Church Extension (1906), the Christian Science Publishing Society building (1934)—which houses the Mary Baker Eddy Library and the church's administrative staff—the Sunday School building (1971), and the Church Colonnade building (1972). It also includes the 26-story Administration Building (1972), designed by Araldo Cossutta of I. 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 reflecting pool."Christian Science Plaza Revitalization Project Citizen Advisory Committee (CAC)"
, Boston Redevelopment Authority.

''Manual of the Mother Church''

Eddy's ''Manual of The Mother Church'' (first published 1895) lists the church's by-laws. Requirements for members include daily prayer and daily study of the Bible and ''Science and Health''. 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.

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. The manual also prohibits engaging in public debate about Christian Science without board approval, and learning hypnotism. 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."

Services

The Church of Christ, Scientist is a lay 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 the Bible and ''Science and Health''. Each church has two Readers, 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 also hymns, time for silent prayer, and repeating together the Lord’s Prayer at each service.

Notable members

Notable Scientists have included Directors of Central Intelligence William H. Webster and Admiral Stansfield M. Turner; Richard Nixon's chief of staff H. R. Haldeman; and Chief Domestic Advisor John Ehrlichman. The viscountess Nancy Astor was a Christian Scientist, as was naval officer Charles Lightoller, who survived the sinking of the ''Titanic'' in 1912.

There used to be a concentration of Scientists in the film industry, including Joan Crawford, Carol Channing, Doris Day, Colleen Dewhurst, Cecil B. DeMille, Horton Foote, George Hamilton, Mary Pickford, Ginger Rogers, Mickey Rooney, Jean Stapleton and King Vidor. Robert Duvall and Val Kilmer are Christian Scientists. Those raised by Christian Scientists include jurist Helmuth James Graf von Moltke, military analyst Daniel Ellsberg, Ellen DeGeneres, Henry Fonda, James Hetfield, Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe, Robin Williams, and Elizabeth Taylor. Taylor's godfather, the British politician Victor Cazalet, was also a member of the church. Actor Anne Archer was raised within Christian Science; she left the church when her son, Tommy Davis, was a child, and both became prominent in the Church of Scientology.

A conspicuous event was the death in June 1937 of actress Jean Harlow, who died of kidney failure at age 26. Her mother, known as Mama Jean, was a recent convert to Christian Science and did on at least two occasions attempt to block conventional medical treatment for her daughter. Fellow actors and studio executives intervened, and Harlow received medical treatment, although in 1937, nothing could be done for kidney failure and she perished.

Christian Science Publishing Society

The Christian Science Publishing Society publishes several periodicals, including the ''Christian 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. 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.

The church also publishes the weekly ''Christian Science Sentinel'', the monthly ''Christian Science Journal'', and the ''Herald of Christian Science'', a non-English publication. In April 2012 JSH-Online made back issues of the ''Journal'', ''Sentinel'' and ''Herald'' available online to subscribers."Learn more about JSH-Online"
, christianscience.com.

Works by Mary Baker Eddy

* '' Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures'' (1875)
* ''Christian Healing'' (1880)
* ''The People's Idea of God: Its Effect on Health and Christianity'' (1883)
* ''Historical Sketch of Metaphysical Healing'' (1885)
* ''Defence of Christian Science'' (1885)
* ''No and Yes'' (1887)
* ''Rudiments and Rules of Divine Science'' (1887)
* ''Unity of Good and Unreality of Evil'' (1888)
* ''Retrospection and Introspection'' (1891)
* ''Christ and Christmas'' (1893)
* ''Rudimental Divine Science'' (1894)
* ''Manual of The Mother Church'' (1895)
* ''Pulpit and Press'' (1895)
* ''Miscellaneous Writings, 1883–1896'' (1897)
* ''Christian Science versus Pantheism'' (1898)
* ''The Christian Science Hymnal'' (1898)
* ''Christian Healing and the People's Idea of God'' (1908)
* ''Poems'' (1910)
* ''The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany'' (1913)
* ''Prose Works Other than Science and Health'' (1925)

See also

* Efficacy of prayer
* Faith healing
* Principia College
* Therapeutic nihilism

Citations

Notes

Sources

*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*

References

Further reading

Church of Christ, Scientist
, christianscience.com
* Mary Baker Eddy
''Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures''
, christianscience.com
* ''New York Times'' archives
"Christian Science"

"Mary Baker Eddy"
.

''The Christian Science Monitor''


''Christian Science Journal''


''Christian Science Sentinel''


''The Herald of Christian Science''


JSH-Online
(''Journal'', ''Sentinel'', ''Herald'')

Independent Christian Science
, plainfieldscs.com
* Haller, John S. ''Shadow Medicine: The Placebo in Conventional and Alternative Therapies'', New York: Columbia University Press, 2014.
*
*
* Rogers, Alan. ''The Child Cases: How America's Religious Exemption Laws Harm Children'', Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2014.
* Swan, Rita
"Religion, Culture and Criminal Law"
, Child-Friendly Faith Project Conference, November 8, 2013.

Church histories
:''(chronological)''

* Cather, Willa and Milmine, Georgine. "Mary Baker G. Eddy", ''McClure's'' magazine, December 1906 – June 1908.
* Powell, Lyman Pierson
''Christian Science: The Faith and Its Founder''
New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1917 907
* Peabody, Frederick William
''Complete Exposure of Eddyism or Christian Science''
Boston: Frederick Peabody, 1907.
* Wilbur, Sibyl
''The Life of Mary Baker Eddy''
New York: Concord Publishing Company, 1908 (first serialized in ''Human Life'', 1907; published by the Christian Science Publishing Society, 1913).
* Meehan, Michael
''Mrs. Eddy and the Late Suit in Equity''
Concord, NH: Michael Meehan, 1908 (also published as ''Mrs. Eddy and Next Friends'').
*
via Archive.org
* Lord, Myra B.
Mary Baker Eddy: A Concise Story of Her Life and Work
', Boston, Mass: Davis & Bond, 1918
* Bancroft, Samuel P. ''Mrs. Eddy as I Knew Her in 1870'', Boston: Geo H. Ellis Co, 1923.
* Ramsay, E. Mary.
Christian Science and its Discoverer
', Cambridge: Heffer & Sons, 1923. epublished: CS Pub. Soc., 1923* Dickey, Adam E. ''Memoirs of Mary Baker Eddy'', London: Robert G. Carter, 1927.
* Dakin, Edwin Franden. ''Mrs. Eddy, the Biography of a Virginal Mind'', New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1929.
* Fisher, H. A. L. ''Our New Religion: An Examination of Christian Science'', New York, J. Cape & H. Smith, 1930.
* Powell, Lyman Pierson.
Mary Baker Eddy: A Life Size Portrait
', New York: The MacMillan Company, 1930. eprinted by CS Pub. Soc.: 1930, 1950, 1991* Springer, Fleta Campbell. ''According to the Flesh'', New York: Coward-McCann, 1930.
* Bates, Ernest Sutherland and Dittemore, John V. ''Mary Baker Eddy: The Truth and the Tradition'', New York: A. A. Knopf, 1932.
* Zweig, Stefan. ''Mental Healers: Mesmer, Eddy and Freud'', London: Pushkin Press, 2012 932
* Smith, Clifford P.
Historical Sketches from the Life of Mary Baker Eddy and the History of Christian Science
', Boston: CS Pub. Soc., 1934. 941, 1969* Tomlinson, Irving C.
Twelve Years with Mary Baker Eddy
', Boston: Christian Science Publishing Society, 1945.
* Studdert Kennedy, Hugh A. ''Mrs. Eddy: Her Life, Her Work and Her Place in History'', San Francisco: The Farallon Press, 1947.
* Beasley, Norman.
The Cross and the Crown, the History of Christian Science
', New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1952.
* Beasley, Norman.
The Continuing Spirit
', New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1956.
* Beasley, Norman. ''Mary Baker Eddy'', New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1963.
* Peel, Robert.
Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Discovery
', New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966.
* Peel, Robert.
Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Trial
', New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971.
* Peel, Robert.
Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Authority
', New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1977.
* Silberger, Julius.
Mary Baker Eddy, an interpretive biography of the founder of Christian Science
', Boston: Little, Brown, 1980.
* Gardner, Martin. ''The Healing Revelations of Mary Baker Eddy'', New York: Prometheus Books, 1993.
* Thomas, Robert David. ''With Bleeding Footsteps: Mary Baker Eddy's Path to Religious Leadership'', New York: Knopf, 1994.
* Knee, Stuart E. ''Christian Science in the Age of Mary Baker Eddy'', Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Company, 1994.
* Williams, Jean Kinney.
The Christian Scientists
'. NY: Franklin Watts, 1997.
* Nenneman, Richard A.
Persistent Pilgrim: The Life of Mary Baker Eddy
', Etna, NH: Nebbadoon Press, 1997.
* Gill, Gillian.
Mary Baker Eddy
', Reading, MA: Perseus Books, 1998.
* Von Fettweis, Yvonne Cache; Warneck, Robert Townsend
Mary Baker Eddy: Christian Healer
', Boston: CS Pub. Soc., 1998. mplified 2009* Koestler-Grack, Rachel A.
Mary Baker Eddy
', Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2004.
* Gottschalk, Stephen. ''Rolling Away the Stone: Mary Baker Eddy's Challenge to Materialism'', Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006.
* Ferguson, Isabel and Vogel Frederick, Heather.
A World More Bright: The Life of Mary Baker Eddy
', Boston: CS Pub. Soc., 2013.

Books by former Christian Scientists

* Fraser, Caroline. '' God's Perfect Child: Living and Dying in the Christian Science Church'', New York: Metropolitan Books, 1999.
* 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 as ''The 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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