Horizons far beyond one’s own doorstep

Richard Nenneman | from the Christian Science Sentinel

When Mary Baker Eddy described her life-purpose, she was reminding her followers that Christian Science requires their progress in redeeming the ills connected with a material sense of existence, including disease. She was also making it clear that this Science is available to everyone in their everyday affairs. She helped make it accessible in a way that was unique to her, and beneficial to those who would come after her.

Mrs. Eddy set out her vision of a church community that would stand the test of time.

Mrs. Eddy set out her vision of a church community that would stand the test of time. This needed to be a community in which the statement of Christian Science would not become adulterated by the passage of time or even well-intentioned personal opinions. And it needed to be a community that would allow members to move out into the wider world.

In Science and Health, she referred to her withdrawal from most social connections by noting “how much time and toil are still required to establish the stately operations of Christian Science” (p. 464). She spent several hours each day in prayer and spiritual study. Much of her thought was given over to how the movement she had established would function when she was no longer at the helm.

The spiritual inspiration in her teaching had resulted in the quick spread of Christian Science throughout the United States. However, she knew that her own teaching could reach only a limited number of people and perhaps for only a few more years. Acting on spiritual inspiration, in 1889 she closed the Boston classroom where she taught classes on Christian Science and moved to New Hampshire.

Almost as soon as Mrs. Eddy was settled into a new mode of living, she began to revise Science and Health, and after two years produced the fifth major revision of her book. In content, but not arrangement of chapters, it is very close to what we read today. When she was no longer here, the book would remain as the chief vehicle for fully explaining Christian Science. Its metaphysics had to be as clear as humanly possible so that future generations could read it and grasp her meaning.

As churches grew up in almost every section of the country, she remained concerned about the quality of the preaching.

Another way in which she oversaw the development of the “stately operations of Christian Science” was in her change in the services conducted in Churches of Christ, Scientist. Over the next few years, as churches grew up in almost every section of the country, she remained concerned about the quality of the preaching in them. But she had not yet decided on any other form of church service. She had allowed some churches to read from Science and Health, but only as a temporary measure. She wrote in 1893 to one student in Chicago, “… the time has come when you … ought to be prepared and feel it a privilege and stop reading Sunday services[,] and out of the abundance of the heart declare the Truth” (L10741, Mary Baker Eddy to Martha Bogue, The Mary Baker Eddy Collection, The Mary Baker Eddy Library for the Betterment of Humanity).

Yet, as Mrs. Eddy continued to pray over this dilemma, a new approach came into view. One might call it an illustration of her own statement that “Love inspires, illumines, designates, and leads the way” (Science and Health, p. 454). She decided in 1894, just before the dedication of the Original Edifice of The Mother Church, that there should be only an impersonal pastor—the Bible and Science and Health—for The Mother Church. Just a few months later, she expanded this to all Christian Science churches.

A century later one can see the wisdom of this decision. If pastors speaking from “the abundance of the heart” were in scarce supply in 1893, how could the myriads of Churches of Christ, Scientist, have been supplied with adequate preaching in the years since then? With this kind of impersonal pastor, Christian Scientists are able to gather in small congregations or even home groups and still worship together. The prophet Jeremiah wrote, “I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding” (Jer. 3:15).

Appointing an impersonal pastor had the additional benefit of keeping even well-intentioned human opinions from the pulpit.

Appointing an impersonal pastor had the additional benefit of keeping even well-intentioned human opinions from the pulpit. It’s an element that may at first surprise the visitor. But for the aching heart that needs spiritual nourishment, the weekly Christian Science Lesson-Sermon, read each Sunday, supplies comfort, encouragement, and a clear metaphysical statement of God’s supremacy—of Love’s ever-presence, of Mind’s intelligent activity, of never-ending Life.

Mary Baker Eddy regarded the abundant evidence of spiritual healing in the movement as proof of the correctness of her metaphysics. But her deep Christianity and compassion for humankind would not let her stop without trying to kindle a larger concern in the hearts of her early followers. She used whatever means of communication seemed feasible at the time to awaken thought to the wider challenges of the world at large. She had written in Science and Health that “signs and wonders are wrought in the metaphysical healing of physical disease; but these signs are only to demonstrate its divine origin,—to attest the reality of the higher mission of the Christ-power to take away the sins of the world” (p. 150).

In 1898 Mrs. Eddy inaugurated a new magazine, the Christian Science Sentinel (in addition to The Christian Science Journal which she had founded in 1883), and within its pages she included items of current news. Early in the new century, she wrote Mr. and Mrs. Edward Kimball, early workers in the Christian Science movement in Chicago, about having a “widespread press” (L07593, June 22, 1902, The Mary Baker Eddy Collection). Then, in 1908, as the last of her steps in establishing her movement, she instructed The Christian Science Publishing Society to start a daily newspaper. The very idea of a newly established church owning and editing a daily secular newspaper—something Christian Scientists may not even take time to think about today—must have seemed as radical at the time as had her establishment of the present form of church service.

The aim of the Monitor was ‘to injure no man, but to bless all mankind.’

The aim of The Christian Science Monitor, as simply stated by Mrs. Eddy, was “to injure no man, but to bless all mankind.” For those who knew her intentions, it was clear that she hoped to widen the horizon of Christian Scientists—to help them grapple with the problems of the world at large after being reliably informed about them by a non-sensational press. One Christian Scientist wrote of the Monitor in the Sentinel, “… [it lifted] one’s eyes to an horizon far beyond one’s own door-step…. Things we did not like to look at nor think of, problems we did not feel able to cope with, must now be faced manfully, and correct thinking concerning the world’s doings cultivated and maintained” (Christian Science Sentinel, Vol. XI, Dec. 26, 1908, p. 324).

The Monitor also fulfilled a need that some might have felt was missing because there was no personal pastor, since the paper dealt with the current situation in a way many ministers in churches do today in their sermons. Although the Monitor reported on the chief political and social issues of the day, its editorial position was based on the moral imperatives of Christianity, as well as the element of hopefulness that Christians share. The Monitor was destined to round out the individual Christian Scientist’s practice by engaging his or her thinking with the issues of society.

So it was that Mrs. Eddy filled out her vision of making Christian Science operational in all aspects of living. Through divine inspiration and revelation, she did all that could be done to make the teaching clear in Science and Health, to keep personal opinions and interpretations out of church services, and to encourage Christian Scientists to push out into the larger world in their use of Christian Science by being well-informed members of society.

Such aspects of Christian Science may sound so basic as not to need saying. Yet, particularly in its form of church service and in its secular newspaper, the Church of Christ, Scientist, stands in a unique situation among church organizations. Through establishing these “stately operations of Christian Science,” Mary Baker Eddy helped guide the way to making Christian Science practical and operative in all aspects of people’s lives.