The Christian Science home church which grew out of the writings and vision of Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910) is located at the edge of Back Bay in downtown Boston. Her own most important writing turned into a bestselling book Science and Health with a Key to the Scriptures, with a sort of mind over matter approach to healing. Mary herself was a sick person in need of healing at various points in her life and she came to believe that spiritualism, rather than medicine prescribed by doctors was the key to healing, disease being mostly a mental problem. She had tried being a medium, even of Abraham Lincoln, and she promoted certain kinds of meditation on the Scripture, while one would read with it her bestselling book. If one examines closely her writings and approach it is a sort of latter day Gnosticism, with a concentration on the power of positive thinking and Scriptural thoughts promoting healing. Below you will see some of the things to be seen in the newer main sanctuary. This particular denomination, which at one point published a newspaper, called the Christian Science Monitor, which was lauded for its objective analysis, has been like its newspaper in decline for a long time. In the analysis of Mary’s various illnesses it has been wondered if she was epileptic,or at times even possessed.
One of the things one notices right away, is no images of Christ on the cross, or of suffering, not lease because Mary did not see suffering as a means of healing, but rather as something associated with evil. It was something to overcome, not something that could be the means of healing or atonement for sin. Two other notable features about worship in Christian Science– it involves reading from the King James Bible, and also a great deal of singing. Scripture would be read, but with the hermeneutical key being a reading from Eddy’s book, the authorized commentary on the Bible. Like other unorthodox groups (think Mormons, or Jehovah Witnesses) there would always be a supplemental sectarian text as a key to interpreting the Bible (e.g. the book of Mormon), and in some cases, such as the Jehovah’s Witness, they would produce their own translation of the Bible. This is how one controls the interpretation of the Bible itself.
English (US) · 