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Christian Science

★1484★

Church of Christ, Scientist

Christian Science Center
Boston, MA 02115

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 which 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). She 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 were ones of 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 the 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; one God; God's Son; the Holy Ghost; and man as being in God's likeness and image. Forgiveness for sin comes in 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–some giving their full time to the ministry of spiritual healing. This is in accord with Eddy's experience of the allness of God. It 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 eachweek 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 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 which 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, a large complex in Boston, Massachusetts, which has become one of the city's most-visited tourist stops. Branch churches are found in more than 70 nations of the world (though approximately 73 percent of the membership is in North America).

Membership: Not reported.

Educational Facilities:Unofficial: Principia College, Elsah, Illinois.

Periodicals: The Christian Science Monitor. • The Christian Science Journal. • Christian Science Sentinel Christian Science Quarterly. • The Herald of Christian Science–in 12 languages. Available from One Norway St., Boston, MA 02115.

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, both those who shared the emphasis but followed a different set of teachings and practice, 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 legally protected activity of the church as a form of worship. Deductions for some Christian Science services are allowed by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. Various state-level committees on publication 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 examination of Eddy's writings and the publications of the Church of Christ, Scientist, reveals an essential difference between Eddy's teachings on healing and those of Quimby and finds the major similarity to be in the area of terminology, and 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 historicall 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 and/or death.

Sources:

Braden, Charles S. Christian Science Today. Dallas: 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 and Winston, 1971.

Swihart, Altman K. Since Mrs. Eddy. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1931.

★1485★

Church of Integration

(Defunct)

The Church of Integration was founded in 1935 as the Society of Life, but has roots that go back to 1912 and the formation in London, England, of a small group of former members of the Church of Christ, Scientist around Annie C. Bill (1865?-1937). Bill, a member of the Third Church of Christ, Scientist, in London, resigned after a friend of hers, R. L. Rawson, was excommunicated. The church took exception to Rawson's book, Life Understood, which Bill had a hand in writing. Rawson would later found a prominent British New Thought group, the Society for the Propagation of True Prayer. In the meantime, a few months after Bill resigned, Mary Baker Eddy, founder of the church, died and left no successor. Bill became convinced that she was the true successor and in 1912 organized what became known as the Christian Science Parent Church. After World War I she moved to the United States and in 1924 established the church in America.

At the time Bill became active in America, the Church of Christ, Scientist was involved in an intense controversy which had grown out of varying interpretations of Eddy's instruction to the church once she had died. Her church acquired members from among the losers in that battle, the most prominent being John V. Dittemore. About the same time, she made a most significant convert, A. A. Beauchamp, who turned over the services of his publishing house, including his magazine, Watchman of Israel, to the new church. The new church grew steadily. In the 1926 Census of Religious Bodies it reported 29 churches and 582 members in the United States. By 1928 there were 44 branches, including churches in Great Britain, Australia, and Canada, with approximately 80 branches and 1,200 members by 1930.

The last major development of Bill's church occurred around 1930. During the 1920s Bill had become convinced that many of the criticisms leveled by Eddy's critics were true. In particular, she came to believe that Eddy had been a frequent user of morphine and that she had derived many of her teachings from Phineas P. Quimby, the healer who had been her teacher in the 1860s. Bill concluded that Eddy no longer deserved the central role the parent church had accorded her and that Eddy's textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, was no longer a valid textbook. She authored a new textbook, The Science of Reality(1930),which replaced The Universal Design of Life(1924), the older volume that acknowledged Eddy's authority. She also reorganized the parent church into the Church of Universal Design and The Watchman became The Universal Design, A Journal of Applied Metaphysics.

Two ideas dominated the new church. First, Bill suggested the possibility of conscious spiritual evolution by direct intention and in accordance with a universal design of Life which impels periodic transformations. The design is based upon the prior recognition that Mind is God and that the universe unfolds from Mind. This unfoldment follows a sevenfold pattern. Secondly, response to the design was also built into the new organization. When the church's recognized leader died, the church entered an interim period during which church directors appointed deputy leaders to carry on the services of the church until a new leader emerged who demonstrated that s/he had made the discovery of the next successive step in the design of Life.

Bill adopted several controvesial ideas which took prominence in the church's beliefs. A. A. Beauchamp had been an advocate of British-Israelism, the idea that the modern Anglo-Saxon people of northern and western Europe and North America were the descendents of the ancient 10 tribes of Israel. His magazine, published on behalf of British-Israelism, became the magazine of the parent church and the central perspective adopted by Bill. She also came to believe in pyramidology, the idea that the measurements and geometric design of the Great Pyramid in Egypt had religious and prophetic significance.

The transition from the Church of Universal Design to the Church of Integration occurred following Bill's death in 1937 in a manner quite similar to the pattern she had proposed. In 1934 Francis J. Mott (b. 1901), who had been with Bill since 1922, withdrew from the Church of Universal Design. Claiming new light on the spiritual process, he organized The Society of Life. Following Bill's death he presented his new findings and new organization to the leaders of the Church of Universal Design and won their support. They voted to dissolve the church and urged all the members to join the society. Overwhelmingly they did, though there were a few exceptions, such as Dittemore who wrote a letter to the Church of Christ, Scientist, recanting his association with Bill.

Over the next decade, the society evolved and in several years emerged as the Church of Integration. As evolved, the church saw itself still in continuity with the Church of Christ, Scientist. It tenets acknowledge one God who creates according to One Plan. Particular reverence is given to the "Seed in the Church," that is the discoverer of the new, often at first looked upon as a heretic, who is actually the bearer of a new birth for the church. Mott also believed that the new Seed need not wait until the death of the present leader before addressing the mind of the church.

Mott initially published his views in a several books (published by A. A. Beauchamp) and over a decade issued at least four editions of the covenant of the new church. The British branch of the church was destroyed in the chaos of World War II. In America the church survived and briefly revived after the war. A new magazine, Integration, was issued from the church's headquarters in Washington, D.C., beginning in 1946. Eventually, however, the church, which was never numerically strong, dissolved.

At least one follower of Bill who opposed Mott's leadership, Mary Sayles Atkins, continued to write, under her pen name, Mary Sayles Moore, about Bill and during the 1950s published several volumes with A. A. Beauchamp, who had left the Church of Integration in the 1940s. Her most important volume was Conquest of Chaos, which reviewed Bill's career and the rise of Mott.

Remarks:The organization headed by Annie C. Bill frequently changed names, a fact that can be confusing to anyone seeking information on the church. Founded orginally as the Central Assembly of the Church of Christian Science in 1913 in England, it became the New Church of Christ, Scientist, the Mother Church in 1916. The following year the name became the New Church, the Leading Christian Science Church. In the United States in 1922 it was briefly known as the New Community of Christian Scientists, the Parent Community. In 1924 it became the Christian Science Parent Church of the New Generation but was also known as the Church of the Transforming Covenant. It eventually became known as the Church of Universal Design, by which it was known until Bill died.

Sources:

Bill, Annie C. The Universal Design of Life. Boston: A. A. Beauchamp, 1924.

Mott, Francis J. Christ the Seed. Boston: A. A. Beauchamp, [1939].

——. Consciousness Creative. Boston: A.A. Beauchamp, 1937.

——. The Universal Design of Birth. Philadelphia: David McKay Company, 1948.

Spiritual Organization. New York: Integration Publishing Company, 1946.

Swihart, Altma K. Since Mrs. Eddy. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1931.

★1486★

Infinite Way

Box 2089
Peoria, AZ 85380-2089

The Infinite Way is the name given to the teachings of Joel S. Goldsmith (1892-1964). A nonpracticing Jew, Goldsmith encountered Christian Science as a young man. The father of a woman he was dating was a practitioner. When Joel's father was healed by that practitioner in 1915, Joel 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 the early 1940s, however, he began to feel the pressure of the organization, and in 1946 withdrew drew from the Church. He began working on the book which became The Infinite Way. Reluctantly at first, he accepted invitations to teach and lecture, primarily on the West Coast and in 1950 for the first time in Hawaii.

In 1946, a year after withdrawing from Christian Science, he experienced a mystic "initiation" which lasted over several months and which 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. "The Infinite Way is not to give the world a new teaching, but to give the world an experience." It was Goldsmith's belief that the seeker of truth begins with solving problems and overcoming discords. When these endeavors become futile, he can then perceive that one can transcend them. Desiring to improve his human condition, he moves out of the less pain/more pleasure syndrome into spiritual consciousness.

Methodologically, spiritual consciousness is attained by meditation. Contemplative meditation, the primal step, is the holding of spiritual truth in the consciousness. Pure meditation is the state of complete silence within. God is within. We cannot make it so; we can only come to the realization.

God is the one, hence he is all-presence, all-power and allwisdom. To establish a relationship with the god within is to be able to tap the ready supply of all that makes life worthwhile. 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 fall into a pattern of offering regular classes which were taped and transcribed (an later became the bases for several books). A weekly (later monthly) newsletter was begun and 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, continued to issue the newsletter from Hawaii, with the editorial assistance of Lorraine Sinkler, a longtime student. She has more recently moved to Arizona, and with the assistance of Geri MacDonald, her daughter (by a previous marriage), continues to make available the tapes of his lectures. The majority of Goldsmith's material has been edited by Sinkler and published in book form. Individual students such as Sinkler travel around the United States lecturing to groups of people who follow Goldsmith's teaching and others facilitate gatherings which make Goldsmith's material available to local audiences.

Membership: The Infinite Way is not an organization. Rather, it is a designation given to Goldsmith's teachings and, collectively, to the unnumbered people who have accepted them.

Periodicals: Aloha Nui.

Sources:

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.

★1487★

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. The mailing list of the IMA includes students from around the United States, some of whom are banded into study groups which 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.

★1488★

Margaret Laird Foundation

(Defunct)

Margaret Laird was a practitioner at the first Church of Christ, Scientist, in Evanston, Illinois. In the late 1930s, she was accused of erroneous teachings. These charges led to a decade of negotiations between the board of directors of the mother church and herself, ending with the removal of her name from the list of practitioners. In 1957 she resigned from the Mother Church. Mrs. Laird continued to teach and operate as an independent Christian Science practitioner. Then in 1959, she incorporated the Margaret Laird Foundation in California. The stated purposes were research into the science of being and dissemination of the results of such research. A world-wide fellowship with other independent Scientists was established and centers were opened in Liverpool and Bombay. The British group published The Liverpool Newsletter of the Margaret Laird Foundation a bimonthly periodical.

Among the former Christian Scientists associated with Laird was Harold Woodhull Lund of Bridgeport, Connecticut. Lund published The Lund Re-View beginning in 1963 and authored a number of pamphlets. He maintained a cordial relation with the Margaret Laird Foundation and each distributed the other's writings.

Sources:

Laird, Margaret. Christian Science Re-explored. Los Angeles: Margaret Laird Foundation, 1971.

——. The Personal Concept. Los Angeles: Maragret Laird Foundation, 1969.

Lund, Harold Woodhull. Four Steps in the Evolution of Religious Thought. Bridgeport, CT: The Author, 1964.

★1489★

William Samuel Foundation

307 N. Montgomery St.
Ojai, CA 93023

Among the popular metaphysicians in the United States is William Samuel. Since 1968 Samuel has been publishing Notes from Woodsong(originally Notes from Lollygog), which is sent to an unspecified number of students across the United States. In several areas groups have formed to study the letters and/or Samuel's books, most notably A Guide to Awareness and Tranquility. Samuel professes a profound sense of well-being and a surprising abililty to pass that well-being on to others. He asserts that tranquility is acquired not through step-by-step methods but rather by simplicity and honesty in a childlike approach.

Periodicals: The Child Within, A Journal.

Sources:

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 Tranquility. Lakemont, GA: CSA Press, 1967.

——. The Melody of the Woodcutter and the King. Palo Alto: Seed Center, 1976.

——. 2 Plus 2=Reality. Lakemont, GA: CSA Press, 1963.

★1490★

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, Cooper moved as a youth 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: There is one center in Los Angeles where most of Cooper's students reside. However, some of Cooper's students are 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.

★1491★

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 concern 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