Christian Science
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Christian Science
Founder
Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910)
Texts
Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy and King James Bible
Members
Estimated 100,000 in the United States in 1990; 400,000 worldwide in 2008, according to the church.
Beliefs
"Basic teachings", Church of Christ, Scientist
Website
christianscience.com
Christian Science is a set of beliefs and practices belonging to the metaphysical family of new religious movements. It was developed in 19th-century New England by Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910), who argued in her book Science and Health (1875) that sickness is an illusion that can be corrected by prayer alone. The book became Christian Science's central text, along with the King James Bible, and by 2001 had sold over nine million copies.Eddy and 26 followers were granted a charter in 1879 to found the Church of Christ, Scientist, and in 1894 the Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, was built in Boston, Massachusetts. In the early 20th century Christian Science became the fastest growing religion in the United States, with nearly 270,000 members there by 1936, a figure that had declined by 1990 to just over 100,000. The church is known for its newspaper, the Christian Science Monitor, which won seven Pulitzer Prizes between 1950 and 2002, and for its Reading Rooms, which are open to the public in around 1,200 cities.Eddy described Christian Science as a return to "primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing." There are key differences between Christian Science theology and that of orthodox 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 all 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. Between the 1880s and 1990s the avoidance of medical treatment led to the deaths of several adherents and their children. Parents and others were prosecuted for, and in a few cases convicted of, manslaughter or neglect.
^ "Christian Science Center Complex", Boston Landmarks Commission, Environment Department, City of Boston, January 25, 2011 (hereafter Boston Landmarks Commission 2011), pp. 6–12.
^ Rodney Stark, "The Rise and Fall of Christian Science", Journal of Contemporary Religion, 13(2), 1998 (pp. 189–214), p. 191.
^ Judy Valente, "Christian Science Healing", PBS, August 1, 2008.
^ Cite error: The named reference scienceandhealth was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ For the charter, Mary Baker Eddy, Manual of the Mother Church, Boston: The First Church of Christ, Scientist, 89th edition, 1908 , pp. 17–18.
^ Stark 1998, pp. 190–191.
^ Linda K. Fuller, The Christian Science Monitor: An Evolving Experiment in Journalism, Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2011, p. 175; "Reading rooms", Christian Science.
^ Bryan R. Wilson, "Christian Science," in Sects and Society: A Sociological Study of the Elim Tabernacle, Christian Science, and Christadelphians, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961 (pp. 121–215), p. 125; Eddy, Manual of the Mother Church, p. 17.
^ Wilson 1961, p. 124.
^ Wilson 1961, p. 127; Nicholas Rescher, "Idealism," in Jaegwon Kim, Ernest Sosa, (eds.), A Companion to Metaphysics, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009 , p. 318.
^ Wilson 1961, p. 125; Margaret P. Battin, "High-Risk Religion: Christian Science and the Violation of Informed Consent," in Peggy DesAutels, Margaret P. Battin and Larry May (eds.), Praying for a Cure: When Medical and Religious Practices Conflict, New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1999, p. 11.
^ Rennie B. Schoepflin, Christian Science on Trial: Religious Healing in America, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003, pp. 192–193.
Mary M. Trammell (chair, Christian Science board of directors), "Letter; What the Christian Science Church Teaches", The New York Times, March 26, 2010.
^ Schoepflin 2003, pp. 212–216; Shawn Francis Peters, When Prayer Fails: Faith Healing, Children, and the Law, New York: Oxford University Press, 2007, pp. 91, 109–130.
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