Read complete books and articles on: Christian Science

Christian Science - religion founded upon principles of divine healing and laws expressed in the acts and sayings of Jesus, as discovered and set forth by Mary Baker Eddy and practiced by the Church of Christ, Scientist. The church teaches that God is good and the only reality, and that sin, evil, and illness are overcome on the basis of this understanding. Adherents rely on spiritual, rather than medical or material, means for healing. The occasion of Mary Baker Eddy's discovery of divine healing was her immediate recovery of life and health when in 1866 she read an account of healing by Jesus in the New Testament. In 1875 her Science and Health (later published as Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures) was published. In 1879 she established the Church of Christ, Scientist. In Boston in 1892 was organized the First Church of Christ, Scientist—the Mother Church, of which Christian Science churches throughout the world are branches. Each individual church is self-governing and self-supporting, but all accept the tenets framed by the founder and incorporated in the Church Manual. Upon Eddy's death in 1910, the administrative power was assumed, as laid down in the Manual, by the Christian Science Board of Directors. An extremely active organization, the board enabled Christian Science to grow steadily in numbers and scope of activity during the first third of the 20th cent. Of the numerous publications the church issues, the most important include the Christian Science Monitor, a daily newspaper; the Christian Science Quarterly; the Christian Science Sentinel; and the Christian Science Journal. These are published by the Christian Science Publishing Society. Other activities are conducted by a board of education and a board of lectureship. The churches have no individual pastors. Services are conducted by two readers, one reading from the Scriptures, the other from Science and Health. All churches use the same lessons at the same time. The teachings are drawn from the life and words of Jesus. Although most Christian Scientists are in the United States, the religion is found in 70 countries with large Protestant populations. A great percentage of its adherents are women.

See R. Peel, Christian Science (1958); S. Gottschalk, The Emergence of Christian Science in American Religious Life (1973); C. Fraser, God's Perfect Child: Living and Dying in the Christian Science Church (1999).

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15 of the Best Books and Articles on: Christian Science

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

Christian Science in the Age of Mary Baker Eddy » Read Now
by Stuart E. Knee, Jon L. Wakelyn. 164 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

The thesis of this study is that Christian Science was a manifestation of the unrest gripping the United States after the Civil War. The age in which the movement flowered was, at once, sordid and gilded, commercial and optimistic. The "stormy way" through which the new religion passed was, in a...
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The thesis of this study is that Christian Science was a manifestation of the unrest gripping the United States after the Civil War. The age in which the movement flowered was, at once, sordid and gilded, commercial and optimistic. The "stormy way" through which the new religion passed was, in a sense, the road upon which all new ideas and schemes are tried. Mrs. Eddy's vision was subjected to reasoned and irrational scrutiny for 40 years. In truth, Christian Science belonged only tenuously to a modern era. It reflected the prevailing optimism, progressivism, utopianism, and feminism of the Gilded Age but did not illuminate the stage with a unique light of its own.
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2.

Mary Baker Eddy » Read Now
by Gillian Gill. 716 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, History, Entire Library

Mary Baker Eddy, whom Mark Twain called "the most interesting woman who ever lived, " rose in mid-life from poverty, illness, and obscurity to become the revered leader of the christian Science Church. Gillian Gill's full-scale biography is the first to portray her as neither a saint nor a demon...
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Mary Baker Eddy, whom Mark Twain called "the most interesting woman who ever lived, " rose in mid-life from poverty, illness, and obscurity to become the revered leader of the christian Science Church. Gillian Gill's full-scale biography is the first to portray her as neither a saint nor a demon, but a woman of extraordinary talents who overcame the repressive forces of society, jealousy, intrigue, and scandal to found a powerful, wealthy church and a world-class newspaper.
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3.

Mary Baker Eddy: A Life Size Portrait » Read Now
by Lyman P. Powell. 370 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

...Catholic, by Protestant, or by Christian Science. . . . I would no more quarrel...more or less interested in Christian Science, this interest had a year...came under the...
4.

A Comparison of Christian Science and Mainline Christian Healing Ideologies and Practices, in Review of Religious Research » Read Now
by Margaret M. Poloma. 14 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

...A COMPARISON OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND MAINLINE CHRISTIAN HEALING...Unity School of Christianity and Christian Science as metaphysical offshoots of the...Unity was never so...
5.

Self-Help and Popular Religion in Modern American Culture: An Interpretive Guide (Chap. 2 "Romanticism, the Gilded Age, and the History of Christian Science") » Read Now
by Roy M. Anker. 191 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

The second of two volumes on the relationship between popular religion and the self-help tradition in American culture, this book continues chronologically where the first left off. As with the first volume, this work focuses on the intersection of American history and popular religion and is...
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The second of two volumes on the relationship between popular religion and the self-help tradition in American culture, this book continues chronologically where the first left off. As with the first volume, this work focuses on the intersection of American history and popular religion and is intended as an introductory interpretive guide to major self-help figures and movements with origins in popular religious movements. This volume spans from Romanticism, the Gilded Age, and the history of Christian Science, with discussions of Mary Baker Patterson, Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, and Mary Baker Eddy, through Norman Vincent Peale and Robert Schuller. Peale and Schuller, with the exception of Evangelist Billy Graham, constitute the public face of mainstream American Protestantism and bring this two-volume study to its conclusion in the second half of the 20th century.
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6.

Why I Am a Christian Scientist » Read Now
by Thomas Linton Leishman. 245 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

...him to become a student of Christian Science and to outline some of its...this book purport to teach Christian Science, for in our church such official...Discoverer and...
7.

Challenging Medical Authority: The Refusal of Treatment by Christian Scientists, in The Hastings Center Report » Read Now
by Larry May. 7 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Philosophy, Entire Library
8.

Suffering Children and the Christian Science Church, in The Atlantic Monthly » Read Now
by Caroline Fraser. 16 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library
9.

Christian Science Polity in Crisis, in The Christian Century » Read Now
by Stephen Gottschalk. 5 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library
10.

When Faith Fails Children, in The Humanist » Read Now
by Rita Swan. 6 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library
11.

Vital Issues in Christian Science: A Record of Unsettled Questions Which Arose in the Year 1909, Between the Directors of the Mother Church, the First Church of Christ, Scientist, Boston, Massachusetts, and First Church of Christ, Scientist, New York City » Read Now
by Augusta E. Stetson. 412 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

...Reminiscences, Sermons, and Correspondence Proving Adherence to Principle of Christian Science Vital Issues in Christian Science Poems Vital Issues in Christian Science A...
12.

American Originals: Homemade Varieties of Christianity (Chap. 5 "Spiritual Christianity: Christian Science and Unity") » Read Now
by Paul K. Conkin. 340 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library
13.

Odd Gods: New Religions and the Cult Controversy (Chap. 16 "Christian Science and the New Thought Tradition") » Read Now
by James R. Lewis. 435 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

Lewis analyses the characteristics of truly dangerous groups compared to those of the merely unusual but innocuous, and he discusses what people find attractive about membership in minority religions, as well as community suspicions and media hype that lead to misunderstandings. The bulk of the book...
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Lewis analyses the characteristics of truly dangerous groups compared to those of the merely unusual but innocuous, and he discusses what people find attractive about membership in minority religions, as well as community suspicions and media hype that lead to misunderstandings. The bulk of the book is devoted to a broad-based survey of unusual religious groups. Included are minority religious sects stemming from Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, and Sikh tradition, as well as unrelated groups such as the Moonies, Wiccans, Satanists, Spiritualists, Channellers, Scientologists, the Heaven's Gate cult, a host of New Age and UFO groups, and many others. This is the definitive sourcebook for understanding and researching the crazy-quilt landscape of free religious expression in America.
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14.

When Prophets Die: The Postcharismatic Fate of New Religious Movements (Chap. 7 "Charisma and Covenant: The Christian Science Movement in Its Initial Postcharismatic Phase") » Read Now
by Timothy Miller. 248 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library
15.

An Encyclopedia of Religion » Read Now
by Vergilius Ferm. 846 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library