Editing Christian Science (section)

== Overview ==
=== Metaphysical family ===
{{See also|Great Awakening}}
Several periods of [[Protestantism|Protestant Christian]] revival nurtured a proliferation of [[new religious movements in the United States]].<ref>[[William G. McLoughlin]], ''Revivals, Awakenings, and Reform'', Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980, pp.&nbsp;10–11, 16–17.{{pb}}
Roy M. Anker, "Revivalism, Religious Experience and the Birth of Mental Healing", ''Self-help and Popular Religion in Early American Culture: An Interpretive Guide'', Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Company, 1999(a), (pp.&nbsp;11–100), pp.&nbsp;8, 176ff.</ref> In the latter half of the 19th century, these included what came to be known as the [[Metaphysics (supernatural)|metaphysical]] family: groups such as Christian Science, [[Divine Science]], the [[Unity Church|Unity School of Christianity]], and (later) the [[United Church of Religious Science]].{{refn|group=n|name=Saliba2003p26|Dawn Hutchinson, 2014: "Scholars of American religious history have used the term "New Thought" to refer either to individuals and churches that officially joined the International New Thought Alliance (INTA) or to American metaphysical religions affiliated with Phineas Quimby, Mary Baker Eddy, and Emma Curtis Hopkins. New Thought writers shared the idea that God is Mind."<ref>Hutchinson, Dawn (November 2014). "New Thought's Prosperity Theology and Its Influence on American Ideas of Success", ''Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions'', 18(2), (pp.&nbsp;28–44), p.&nbsp;28. {{JSTOR|10.1525/nr.2014.18.2.28}}</ref>{{pb}}
[[John Saliba]], 2003: "The Christian Science–Metaphysical Family. This family, known also as 'New Thought' in academic literature, stresses the need to understand the functioning of the human mind in order to achieve the healing of all human ailments.&nbsp;... Metaphysics/New Thought is a nineteenth-century movement and is exemplified by such groups as the Unity School of Christianity, the United Church of Religious Science, Divine Science Federation International, and Christian Science."<ref>[[John Saliba|Saliba, John]] (2003). ''Understanding New Religious Movements''. Walnut Creek, California: Rowman Altamira. p.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=EPfTWgerZN0C&pg=PA26 26] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221101115021/https://books.google.com/books?id=EPfTWgerZN0C&pg=PA26 |date=2022-11-01 }}.</ref>{{pb}}
[[James R. Lewis (scholar)|James R. Lewis]], 2003: "Groups in the metaphysical (Christian Science–New Thought) tradition&nbsp;... usually claim to have discovered spiritual laws which, if properly understood and applied, transform and improve the lives of ordinary individuals&nbsp;..."<ref>[[James R. Lewis (scholar)|Lewis, James R.]] (2003). ''Legitimating New Religions''. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. p.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=hdYSdts1udcC&pg=PA94 94] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221101115020/https://books.google.com/books?id=hdYSdts1udcC&pg=PA94 |date=2022-11-01 }}.</ref>{{pb}}
John K. Simmons, 1995: "While members, past and present, of the Christian Science movement understandably claim Mrs. Eddy's truths to be part of a unique and final religious revelation, most outside observers place Christian Science in the metaphysical family of religious organizations&nbsp;..."<ref>Simmons, John K. (1995). "Christian Science and American Culture", in Timothy Miller (ed.). ''America's Alternative Religions'', New York: State University of New York Press. p.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=og_u0Re1uwUC&pg=PA61 61] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221101115018/https://books.google.com/books?id=og_u0Re1uwUC&pg=PA61 |date=2022-11-01 }}.</ref>{{pb}}
[[Charles S. Braden]], 1963: "[I]t was in America that [mesmerism]&nbsp;... gave rise to a complex of religious faiths varying from one another in significant ways, but all agreeing upon the central fact that healing and for that matter every good thing is possible through a right relationship with the ultimate power in the Universe, Creative Mind—called God, Principle, Life, Wisdom&nbsp;...{{pb}}"This broad complex of religions is sometimes described by the rather general term 'metaphysical'&nbsp;... The general movement has proliferated in many directions. Two main streams seem most vigorous: one is called Christian Science; the other, which no single name adequately describes, has come rather generally to be known as New Thought."<ref>[[Charles S. Braden]], ''Spirits in Rebellion: The Rise and Development of New Thought'', Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1963, pp.&nbsp;4–5.</ref>}} 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.<ref>John S. Haller, ''The History of New Thought: From Mental Healing to Positive Thinking and the Prosperity Gospel'', West Chester, Pennsylvania: Swedenborg Foundation Press, 2012, pp.&nbsp;10–11.{{pb}}
[[Horatio W. Dresser]], ''A History of the New Thought Movement'', New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1919, pp.&nbsp;[https://archive.org/stream/historyofnewthou00dresuoft#page/152/mode/2up 152–153].{{pb}}
For early uses of ''New Thought'', William Henry Holcombe, ''Condensed Thoughts about Christian Science'' (pamphlet), Chicago: Purdy Publishing Company, 1887; Horatio W. Dresser, "The Metaphysical Movement" (from a statement issued by the Metaphysical Club, Boston, 1901), ''The Spirit of the New Thought'', New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1917, p.&nbsp;[https://archive.org/stream/spiritnewthough00dresgoog#page/n235/mode/1up 215].</ref>

The term ''metaphysical'' referred to the movement's philosophical [[idealism]], a belief in the primacy of the mental world.{{refn|group=n|John K. Simmons, 1995: "The broad descriptive term 'metaphysical' is not used in a manner common to the trained philosopher. Instead, it denotes the primacy of Mind as ''the'' controlling factor in human experience. At the heart of the metaphysical perspective is the theological/ontological affirmation that God is perfect Mind and human beings, in reality, exist in a state of eternal manifestation of that Divine Mind."<ref>Simmons 1995, p.&nbsp;61.</ref>}} 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 [[Absolute (philosophy)|Divine Mind]], Truth, God, Love, Life, Spirit, Principle or Father–Mother, reflecting elements of [[Platonism|Plato]], [[Hindu idealism|Hinduism]], [[George Berkeley|Berkeley]], [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel|Hegel]], [[Emanuel Swedenborg|Swedenborg]], and [[transcendentalism]].<ref>Dell De Chant, "The American New Thought Movement", in Eugene Gallagher and Michael Ashcraft (eds.),  ''Introduction to New and Alternative Religions in America'', Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Company, 2007, pp.&nbsp;81–82.</ref><ref>[[William James]], ''[[The Varieties of Religious Experience]]'' (Gifford Lectures, Edinburgh), New York: Longmans, Green, & Co, 1902, pp.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=2AezbiIYHssC&pg=PA75 75–76]; [https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/412169/New-Thought "New Thought"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150516030240/http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/412169/New-Thought |date=2015-05-16 }}, ''Encyclopædia Britannica'', 2014.</ref>

The metaphysical groups became known as the mind-cure movement because of their strong focus on healing.<ref>de Chant 2007, p.&nbsp;73.</ref>{{refn|group=n|[[William James]], 1902: "To my mind a current far more important and interesting religiously&nbsp;... I will give the title of the Mind-Cure movement. There are various sects of this 'New Thought'&nbsp;... but their agreements are so profound that their differences may be neglected for my present purposes&nbsp;..."<ref>James 1902, p.&nbsp;[https://archive.org/stream/varietiesofrelig00jameuoft#page/94/mode/1up 94].</ref> "Christian Science so-called, the sect of Mrs. Eddy, is the most radical branch of mind-cure in its dealings with evil."<ref>James 1902, p.&nbsp;[https://archive.org/stream/varietiesofrelig00jameuoft#page/106/mode/1up 106].</ref>}} 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.<ref>{{harvnb|Stark|1998|pp=197–198, 211–212}}; de Chant 2007, p.&nbsp;67.</ref> The movement traced its roots in the United States to [[Phineas Parkhurst Quimby]] (1802–1866), a New England clockmaker turned mental healer. His advertising flyer, "To the Sick" included this explanation of his clairvoyant methodology: "he gives no medicines and makes no outward applications, but simply sits down by the patients, tells them their feelings and what they think is their disease. If the patients admit that he tells them their feelings, &c., then his explanation is the cure; and, if he succeeds in correcting their error, he changes the fluids of the system and establishes the truth, or health. The Truth is the Cure. This mode of practise applies to all cases. If no explanation is given, no charge is made, for no effect is produced."<ref name=Quimby>Wilson 1961, p.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=1NWVP5kDBJcC&pg=PA135 135] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221101115020/https://books.google.com/books?id=1NWVP5kDBJcC&pg=PA135 |date=2022-11-01 }}; Braden 1963, p.&nbsp;62 (for "the truth is the cure"); McGuire 1988, p.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=5iIBzoOVQecC&pg=PA79 79] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221101115034/https://books.google.com/books?id=5iIBzoOVQecC&pg=PA79 |date=2022-11-01 }}.{{pb}}
Also see [http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,788876,00.html "Religion: New Thought"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141220080303/http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,788876,00.html |date=2014-12-20 }}, ''Time'' magazine, 7 November 1938; [https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/487342/Phineas-Parkhurst-Quimby "Phineas Parkhurst Quimby"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141111231639/http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/487342/Phineas-Parkhurst-Quimby |date=2014-11-11 }}, ''Encyclopædia Britannica'', September 9, 2013.</ref>{{refn|group=n|[[Philip Jenkins]], 2000: "Christian Science and New Thought both emerged from a common intellectual background in mid-nineteenth-century New England, and they shared many influences from an older mystical and magical fringe, including Swedenborgian teachings, Mesmerism, and Transcentalism. The central figure and prophet of the emerging synthesis was Phineas P. Quimby, 'the John the Baptist of Christian Science', whose faith-healing work began in 1838. Quimby and his followers taught the overwhelming importance of thought in shaping reality, a message that was crucial for healing. If disease existed only as thought, then only by curing the mind could the body be set right: disease was a matter of wrong belief."<ref>[[Philip Jenkins]], ''Mystics and Messiahs: Cults and New Religions in American History'', Oxford University Press, 2000, pp.&nbsp;[https://archive.org/details/mysticsmessiahsc00phil/page/53 53–54].</ref>}} [[Mary Baker Eddy]] had been a patient of his (1862–1865), [[#Eddy's debt to Quimby|leading to debate]] about how much of Christian Science was based on his ideas.<ref name=Simmons1995p64>Simmons 1995, p.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=og_u0Re1uwUC&pg=PA64 64] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221101115019/https://books.google.com/books?id=og_u0Re1uwUC&pg=PA64 |date=2022-11-01 }}; Fuller 2013, pp.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=-jAPOfbCpHwC&pg=PA212 212–213] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221101115036/https://books.google.com/books?id=-jAPOfbCpHwC&pg=PA212 |date=2022-11-01 }}, n.&nbsp;16.</ref>

New Thought and Christian Science differed in that Eddy saw her views as a unique and final [[revelation]].<ref>Wilson 1961, p.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=1NWVP5kDBJcC&pg=PA156 156] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221101115020/https://books.google.com/books?id=1NWVP5kDBJcC&pg=PA156 |date=2022-11-01 }}; Braden 1963, pp.&nbsp;14, 16; Simmons 1995, p.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=og_u0Re1uwUC&pg=PA61 61] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221101115018/https://books.google.com/books?id=og_u0Re1uwUC&pg=PA61 |date=2022-11-01 }}.</ref>{{refn|group=n|Meredith B. McGuire, 1988: "The most familiar offshoot of the metaphysical movement&nbsp;... is Christian Science, which was based upon a more extreme interpretation of metaphysical healing than that of the New Thought groups.&nbsp;... Christian Science is unlike New Thought and other metaphysical movements of that era in that Mary Baker Eddy successfully arrogated to herself all teaching authority, centralized decision-making and organizational power, and developed the movement's sectarian character."<ref>McGuire 1988, p.&nbsp;79.</ref>}} Eddy's idea of [[History of the Christian Science movement#Malicious animal magnetism|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.<ref>Wilson 1961, pp.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=1NWVP5kDBJcC&pg=PA126 126–127] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221101115020/https://books.google.com/books?id=1NWVP5kDBJcC&pg=PA126 |date=2022-11-01 }}; Braden 1963, pp.&nbsp;18–19.</ref><ref>[[Stephen Gottschalk|Gottschalk, Stephen]] (1973). ''The Emergence of Christian Science in American Religious Life''. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp.&nbsp;[https://archive.org/details/emergenceofchris00step/page/128 128], [https://archive.org/details/emergenceofchris00step/page/148 148–149].{{pb}}
Moore, Laurence R. (1986). ''Religious Outsiders and the Making of Americans''. New York: Oxford University Press. pp.&nbsp;112–113.{{pb}}
Simmons 1995, p.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=og_u0Re1uwUC&pg=PA62 62] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221101115026/https://books.google.com/books?id=og_u0Re1uwUC&pg=PA62 |date=2022-11-01 }}; Whorton, James C. (2004). ''Nature Cures: The History of Alternative Medicine in America''. New York: Oxford University Press. pp.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=RU0DndWVSPoC&pg=PA128 128–129] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221101115019/https://books.google.com/books?id=RU0DndWVSPoC&pg=PA128 |date=2022-11-01 }}.</ref> 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.<ref>Craig R. Prentiss, "Sickness, Death and Illusion in Christian Science", in Colleen McDannell (ed.), ''Religions of the United States in Practice'', Vol. 1, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001, p.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=s0tCip7DZL4C&pg=PA322 322] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221101115019/https://books.google.com/books?id=s0tCip7DZL4C&lpg=PP1&pg=PA322 |date=2022-11-01 }}.{{pb}}
Claudia Stokes, ''The Altar at Home: Sentimental Literature and Nineteenth-Century American Religion'', University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014, p.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=kOwJBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA181 181] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221101115042/https://books.google.com/books?id=kOwJBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA181 |date=2022-11-01 }}.</ref>{{refn|group=n|[[Charles S. Braden]], 1963: "Mary Baker Eddy pushed the postulates of positive thinking to their absolute limit.&nbsp;... She proposed not merely that the spiritual overshadows the material, but that the material world does not exist. The world of our senses is but an illusion of our minds. If the material world causes us pain, grief, danger and even death, that can be changed by changing our thoughts."<ref>Braden 1963, p.&nbsp;19; {{harvnb|Stark|1998|p=195}}</ref>{{pb}}
Roy M. Anker, 1999: "Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science (denominationally known as the Church of Christ, Scientist), the most prominent, successful, controversial, and distinctive of all the groups whose inspiration scholars trace to the healing and intellectual influence of Quimby."<ref>Anker 1999(a), p.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=Yv8Qv5Zg0JUC&pg=PA9 9] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221101115020/https://books.google.com/books?id=Yv8Qv5Zg0JUC&pg=PA9 |date=2022-11-01 }}.</ref>}}

=== Christian Science theology ===
{{further|#Christian Science prayer}}
[[File:Christian Science logo (1891).jpg|thumb|upright|left|alt=logo of crown and cross inside a circle|Christian Science seal, with the [[Cross and Crown]] and words from [[Gospel of Matthew|Matthew]] 10:8]]
Christian Science leaders place their religion within mainstream Christian teaching, according to [[J. Gordon Melton]], and reject any identification with the New Thought movement.{{refn|group=n|name=Melton1992p36}} Eddy was strongly influenced by her [[Congregational church|Congregationalist]] upbringing.<ref>Catherine Albanese, ''A Republic of Mind and Spirit: A Cultural History of American Metaphysical Religion'', New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007, p.&nbsp;284.</ref> According to the church's tenets, adherents accept "the inspired Word of the Bible as [their] sufficient guide to eternal Life&nbsp;... acknowledge and adore one supreme and infinite God&nbsp;... [and] acknowledge His Son, one Christ; the Holy Ghost or divine Comforter; and man in God's image and likeness."<ref>Wilson 1961, p.&nbsp;121; Eddy, ''Manual of the Mother Church'', pp.&nbsp;15–16.</ref> 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".<ref name=lostelement /> Later she suggested that Christian Science was a kind of [[second coming]] and that ''[[Science and Health]]'' was an [[Biblical inspiration|inspired text]].{{refn|group=n|[[Mary Baker Eddy]], 1891: "The second appearing of Jesus is, unquestionably, the spiritual advent of the advancing idea of God, as in Christian Science."<ref>Eddy, ''Retrospection and Introspection'', The First Church of Christ, Scientist, 1891, p.&nbsp;[https://archive.org/stream/retrospectionint00eddy#page/70/mode/1up 70].</ref>{{pb}}
Eddy, January 1901: "I should blush to write of ''Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures'' as I have, were it of human origin, and I, apart from God, its author. But, as I was only a scribe echoing the harmonies of heaven in divine metaphysics, I cannot be super-modest in my estimate of the Christian Science textbook."<ref>Eddy, ''Christian Science Journal'', January 1901, reprinted in "The Christian Science Textbook", ''The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany'', Boston: Alison V. Stewart, 1914, p.&nbsp;[https://archive.org/stream/firstchurchchri04eddygoog#page/n143/mode/1up 115].</ref>}}<ref>David L. Weddle, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/1510020 "The Christian Science Textbook: An Analysis of the Religious Authority of Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy"], {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200729012837/https://www.jstor.org/stable/1510020 |date=2020-07-29 }}, ''The Harvard Theological Review'', 84(3), 1991, p.&nbsp;281; Gottschalk 1973, p.&nbsp;xxi.</ref> In 1895, in the ''Manual of the Mother Church'', she ordained the Bible and ''Science and Health'' as "Pastor over the Mother Church".<ref>Eddy, ''Manual of the Mother Church'', p.&nbsp;58; [https://www.jstor.org/stable/1510020 Weddle 1991] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200729012837/https://www.jstor.org/stable/1510020 |date=2020-07-29 }}, p.&nbsp;273.</ref>

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 in Christianity|atonement]], and [[Resurrection of Jesus|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.{{refn|group=n|name=Melton1992p36|[[J. Gordon Melton]], 1992: "Almost as much as the medical controversy, charges of heresy from orthodox Christian churches have hounded the Church. Leaders of Christian Science insist that they are within the mainstream of Christian teachings, a concern which leads to their strong resentment of any identification with the New Thought movement, which they see as having drifted far from their central Christian affirmations. At the same time, strong differences with traditional Christian teachings concerning the Trinity, the unique divinity of Jesus Christ, atonement for sin, and the creation are undeniable. While using Christian language, ''Science and Health with Key to Scriptures'' and Eddy's other writings radically redefine basic theological terms, usually by the process commonly called allegorization. Such redefinitions are most clearly evident in the glossary to ''Science and Health'' (pages 579–599)."<ref>[[J. Gordon Melton]], "Church of Christ, Scientist (Christian Science)", ''Encyclopedic Handbook of Cults in America'', New York: Routledge, 1992, p.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=KRTGzgpDvL4C&pg=PA36 36] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221101115020/https://books.google.com/books?id=KRTGzgpDvL4C&pg=PA36 |date=2022-11-01 }}.</ref>{{pb}}
Rodney Stark, 1998: "But, of course, Christian Science was not just another Protestant sect. Like Joseph Smith, Mary Baker Eddy added too much new religious culture for her movement to qualify fully as a member of the Christian family—as all the leading clerics of the time repeatedly and vociferously pointed out. However, unlike Madame Blavatsky's Theosophical Society, and like the Mormons, Christian Science retained an immense amount of Christian culture. These continuities allowed converts from a Christian background to preserve a great deal of cultural capital."{{sfn|Stark|1998|p=195}}}} 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 R. Wilson|Bryan Wilson]]; what she called "mortal man" is simply humanity's distorted view of itself.<ref>Wilson 1961, p.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=1NWVP5kDBJcC&pg=PA122 122] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221101115020/https://books.google.com/books?id=1NWVP5kDBJcC&pg=PA122 |date=2022-11-01 }}.</ref> Despite her view of the non-existence of evil, an important element of Christian Science theology is that evil thought, in the form of [[History of the Christian Science movement#Malicious animal magnetism|malicious animal magnetism]], can cause harm, even if the harm is only apparent.<ref>Wilson 1961, p.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=1NWVP5kDBJcC&pg=PA127 127] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221101115043/https://books.google.com/books?id=1NWVP5kDBJcC&pg=PA127 |date=2022-11-01 }}; Moore 1986, p.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=SG2qNXqdNHsC&pg=PA112 112] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221101115047/https://books.google.com/books?id=SG2qNXqdNHsC&pg=PA112 |date=2022-11-01 }}; Simmons 1995, p.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=og_u0Re1uwUC&pg=PA62 62] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221101115026/https://books.google.com/books?id=og_u0Re1uwUC&pg=PA62 |date=2022-11-01 }}.</ref>

[[File:First Church of Christ Scientist in Boston (closeup).jpg|thumb|upright|alt=detail of stone church|[[The First Church of Christ, Scientist]], Boston]]
Eddy viewed God not [[Personal god|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".<ref>For personhood, "Father–Mother God" and "she", see Gottschalk 1973, p.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=LPDduA4B7-MC&pg=PA52 52] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221101115027/https://books.google.com/books?id=LPDduA4B7-MC&pg=PA52 |date=2022-11-01 }}; for Ann Lee, see Stokes 2014, p.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=kOwJBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA186 186] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221101115027/https://books.google.com/books?id=kOwJBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA186 |date=2022-11-01 }}. For the seven synonyms, see Wilson 1961, p.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=1NWVP5kDBJcC&pg=PA124 124] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221101115028/https://books.google.com/books?id=1NWVP5kDBJcC&pg=PA124 |date=2022-11-01 }}.</ref>{{refn|group=n|Eddy, ''Science and Health'': "Question.&nbsp;– What is God?" Answer.&nbsp;– God is incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love."<ref>Eddy, ''Science and Health'', [http://christianscience.com/read-online/science-and-health/%28chapter%29/chapter-xiv-recapitulation#anchor.1.14 "Recapitulation"], {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140203115409/http://christianscience.com/read-online/science-and-health/%28chapter%29/chapter-xiv-recapitulation |date=2014-02-03 }}, p.&nbsp;465.</ref>}} The Holy Ghost is Christian Science, and heaven and hell are states of mind.{{refn|group=n|Wilson 1961: "[T]he Holy Ghost is understood to be Christian Science—the promised Comforter." "Heaven and Hell are understood to be mental states".<ref>Wilson 1961, pp.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=1NWVP5kDBJcC&pg=PA121 121] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221101115029/https://books.google.com/books?id=1NWVP5kDBJcC&pg=PA121 |date=2022-11-01 }}, 125.</ref>}} There is no [[supplication]] in [[#Christian Science prayer|Christian Science prayer]]. The process involves the Scientist engaging in a silent argument to affirm to herself the unreality of matter, something [[Christian Science practitioner]]s will do for a fee, including ''in absentia'', to address ill health or other problems.<ref>Wilson 1961, p.&nbsp;129; {{harvnb|Stark|1998|pp=196–197}}</ref> Wilson writes that Christian Science healing is "not curative&nbsp;... 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."<ref>Wilson 1961, pp.&nbsp;125–126.</ref> 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.<ref>Wilson 1961, pp.&nbsp;123, 128–129.</ref>

Eddy accepted as true the [[Genesis creation narrative|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.<ref>Wilson 1961, p.&nbsp;122; Gottschalk 1972, p.&nbsp;xxvii; [http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Genesis-Chapter-2/ "Genesis Chapter 2"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141111210430/http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Genesis-Chapter-2/ |date=2014-11-11 }}, kingjamesbibleonline.org.</ref> Her theology is [[Nontrinitarianism|nontrinitarian]]: she viewed the Trinity as suggestive of [[polytheism]].{{refn|group=n|Eddy, ''Science and Health'': "The theory of three persons in one God (that is, a personal Trinity or Tri-unity) suggests polytheism, rather than the one ever-present I AM."<ref>Eddy, ''Science and Health'', p.&nbsp;256; Wilson 1961, p.&nbsp;127.</ref>}} She saw Jesus as a Christian Scientist, a "Way-shower" between humanity and God,<ref>Eddy, ''Retrospection and Introspection'', p.&nbsp;[https://archive.org/stream/retrospectionint00eddy#page/26/mode/1up 26].</ref> 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.<ref>Wilson 1961, p.&nbsp;121; {{harvnb|Stark|1998|pp=199}}</ref> The [[Crucifixion of Jesus|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.<ref>Wilson 1961, p.&nbsp;124.</ref> Her views on life after death were vague and, according to Wilson, "there is no doctrine of the soul" in Christian Science: "[A]fter death, the individual continues his probationary state until he has worked out his own salvation by proving the truths of Christian Science."{{sfn|Wilson|1961|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=1NWVP5kDBJcC&pg=PA125 125]}} Eddy did not believe that the dead and living could communicate.<ref>Gottschalk 1973, p.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=LPDduA4B7-MC&pg=PA95 95] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221101115033/https://books.google.com/books?id=LPDduA4B7-MC&pg=PA95 |date=2022-11-01 }}.</ref>

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.<ref>Melton 1992, p.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=KRTGzgpDvL4C&pg=PA36 36] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221101115020/https://books.google.com/books?id=KRTGzgpDvL4C&pg=PA36 |date=2022-11-01 }}.</ref> "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 (movement)|Spiritualism]], [[Theosophy]] and Christian Science.<ref>[[J. Gordon Melton]], "An Introduction to New Religions", in James R. Lewis (ed.), ''The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements'', New York: Oxford University Press, 2003, p.&nbsp;17; for Barrington, see Jenkins 2000, p.&nbsp;49.</ref> 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."<ref>Raymond J. Cunningham, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/1846660 "The Impact of Christian Science on the American Churches, 1880–1910"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170402222803/http://www.jstor.org/stable/1846660 |date=2017-04-02 }}, ''The American Historical Review'', 72(3), April 1967 (pp.&nbsp;885–905), p.&nbsp;892; "Faith Healing in America", ''The Times'', May 26, 1885.</ref> In 1907 [[Mark Twain]] described the appeal of the new religion to its adherents:

{{blockquote|[Mrs. Eddy] has delivered to them a religion which has revolutionized their lives, banished the glooms that shadowed them, and filled them and flooded them with sunshine and gladness and peace; a religion which has no hell; a religion whose heaven is not put off to another time, with a break and a gulf between, but begins here and now, and melts into eternity as fancies of the waking day melt into the dreams of sleep.{{pb}}
They believe it is a Christianity that is in the New Testament; that it has always been there, that in the drift of ages it was lost through disuse and neglect, and that this benefactor has found it and given it back to men, turning the night of life into day, its terrors into myths, its lamentations into songs of emancipation and rejoicing.{{pb}}
There we have Mrs. Eddy as her followers see her. ...  They sincerely believe that Mrs. Eddy's character is pure and perfect and beautiful, and her history without stain or blot or blemish. But that does not settle it.<ref name=Twainquote>Mark Twain, ''Christian Science'', p.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=J_NsuqC3V3AC&pg=PA180 180] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221101115036/https://books.google.com/books?id=J_NsuqC3V3AC&pg=PA180 |date=2022-11-01 }}; [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Aei4Ttb4-g "Mark Twain & Mary Baker Eddy, a film by Val Kilmer"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140628235718/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Aei4Ttb4-g |date=2014-06-28 }}, ''YouTube'', from 04:30 mins.</ref>}}