Significance

In the history of religion, Christian Science is a small movement, but it has had significance out of proportion to its size. It is one of several lasting movements from 19th-century America and reflects the interest of many religious groups in the revitalization of primitive Christianity. Yet Christian Science has aroused considerable controversy as well as misunderstanding as a result of its view of creation as wholly spiritual, a view that breaks decisively with traditional Christian cosmology and scientific materialism. Eddy’s rejection of the divine creation of matter most clearly differentiates Christian Science from traditional Christianity, in which God’s creation of the world and the Incarnation of Jesus are core beliefs. Christian leaders have noted that although Eddy used Christian language, she did so to create a different religion. This perception has generated much literature opposed to the church.

Although it offers a unique theology, Christian Science’s major impact on the world has come from its ministry of spiritual healing. Many of the more than 50,000 testimonials of healing reported by the church since the beginning of the 20th century concern undiagnosed disorders, emotional problems, and psychosomatic illnesses. On the other hand, a substantial number of “healings” involve conditions diagnosed by physicians as congenital, degenerative, or terminal, though there has been little systematic evaluation of such healings. Furthermore, Eddy’s emphasis on healing had a direct influence on the revival of interest in spiritual healing in mainstream Protestantism. The healing performed in the Pentecostal and Holiness churches and in healing movements including the Order of St. Luke (Episcopal Church) were inspired by the ministry of two of Eddy’s contemporaries, Charles Cullis and the Rev. Elwood Worcester.

In social terms, the Christian Science movement has increasingly been perceived as an antecedent of the development of feminism in the religious world. While not a “feminist,” Eddy was clearly “liberated,” assigned strong females to key leadership positions, and taught that the spiritual equality of men and women must have political and social effects. She remains an extremely controversial figure, but scholars since the 1960s have successfully challenged the negative perceptions of early critics and biographers.

In the 20 years following Eddy’s death in 1910, Christian Science churches increased from 1,213 to 2,400. However, Eddy felt that numbers were no measure of spiritual vitality and mandated that membership statistics not be made public. Nonetheless, a report by the U.S. Bureau of the Census in 1936 listed the Mother Church membership in the United States at about 269,000. Following this dramatic early growth, there was a period of leveling off in the 1930s and ’40s and steady decline since then, except in a few areas (notably some Third World countries) where membership increased in the 1970s.

Responding to its stagnation, the Mother Church sought to revitalize the movement. In 1972 the impressive Church Center opened in Boston and became a major tourist attraction. The Christian Science Monitor, the daily international newspaper that the church publishes in Boston, has been extremely successful, and in the 1980s the church tried to further extend its outreach through radio and television. Eventually the television effort proved too costly and was discontinued amid significant internal church controversy. In the early 21st century the church claimed more than 1,700 congregations in 80 countries, and membership estimates ranged from 100,000 to about 400,000 worldwide.