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Mary Baker Eddy founded the Church of Christ, Scientist, after developing a belief system based on her research and understanding of the relationship between mind and body. She wrote Science and Health with a Key to the Scriptures and founded the Christian Science Monitor. Her legacy continues with the Church of Christ, Scientist and her writings still provide spiritual enlightenment and healing for many.
As founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist, Mary Baker Eddy created a faith tradition that has continued to provide solace and a place of worship for a number of people. Here is some background on Mary Eddy and the events leading up to her Divine Science theology.
Mary Baker Eddy was born Mary Morse Baker on July 16, 1821. Married to George Washington Glover in 1843, she took the name Mary Baker Glover and settled into married life, soon becoming pregnant with the couple’s first child. Unfortunately, Glover died two months before the birth of their son, George Glover, Jr.
In time, Mary Glover lost custody of her son, due to ill health and an inability to care for the child. An attempt by her second husband, Dr. Daniel Patterson, to restore her child was never successful, and Mrs. Patterson reached a point where her physical and mental condition was severely weakened. Later in her life, her second marriage ended in divorce and she married Asa G. Eddy.
Seeking to improve her health, Mary Baker Eddy turned to alternative healing methods, including the use of herbal medicine and homeopathic remedies. While searching for her, she learned about the magnetic healing techniques used by Phineas Quimby. Undergoing a series of treatments under Quimby’s direction, Mrs Patterson began to recover some health. She was also introduced to some basic ideas about the relationship between emotional and mental stress and their effects on physical condition. This concept would remain here in later years and, while refined over time, would play an important part in the development of what would come to be known as Christian Science.
Following a back injury in February 1866, Mrs. Eddy documents receiving healing by reading passages from the Bible. This prompted her to further investigate the miracles and healings described in the Christian scriptures. Over the next three years, she slowly developed a belief system based on her research and her previous understandings of the relationship between mind and body. Formulating a principle that healing could come through gaining a deeper understanding of God, Mary Baker Eddy began offering healing readings to people of her acquaintance, often with great success.
During the early 1870s, Mary Baker Eddy wrote what would become the foundational document for Christian Science, entitled Science and Health with a Key to the Scriptures. While the average Christian scientist does not consider this or any of Mrs. Eddy’s writings on equal footing with the accepted canon of the Bible, the work is often read at worship services along with corresponding passages of Scripture. Shortly after the publication of Science and Health in 1976, Mrs. Eddy began composing The Manual for the Mother Church, which is also used regularly in Christian Science worship.
By opening the Massachusetts Metaphysical College in Boston, Mary Baker Eddy found devoted believers who were more than willing to spread the news of Christian Science across the nation. From 1882 to 1889, Mrs. Eddy trained and licensed these devotees to act as practitioners of Christian Science, announcing their status in the new church’s newspapers and publications.
One of the most enduring achievements outside of the foundation of Christian Science faith came near the end of Mary Bake Glover Eddy’s life. In 1908 she founded the Christian Science Monitor as a daily newspaper. Over the years, the paper has grown into a national publication, read by people from all walks of life. The Monitor was already a success when Mrs. Eddy died on December 3, 1910.
Hundreds of thousands of people today still look to Mary Baker Eddy’s writings for spiritual enlightenment and healing from physical and emotional ailments. As an enduring legacy to this 19th-century religious pioneer, the Church of Christ, Scientist still maintains congregations in the United States, as well as some international locations. While there are many critics of both the faith tradition she created and Mary Baker Eddy herself, few would deny that she had a major impact on the American religious landscape.
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