A New Christian Identity: Christian Science Origins and Experience in American Culture

by Amy B. Voorhees

Overview

In this study of Christian Science and the culture in which it arose, Amy B. Voorhees emphasizes Mary Baker Eddy's foundational religious text, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. Assessing the experiences of everyday adherents after Science and Health's appearance in 1875, Voorhees shows how Christian Science developed a dialogue with both mainstream and alternative Christian theologies. Viewing God's benevolent allness as able to heal human afflictions through prayer, Christian Science emerged as an anti-mesmeric, restorationist form of Christianity that interpreted the Bible and approached emerging modern medicine on its own terms.

Voorhees traces a surprising story of religious origins, cultural conversations, and controversies. She contextualizes Christian Science within a wide swath of cultural and religious movements, showing how Eddy and her followers interacted regularly with Baptists, Methodists, Congregationalists, Catholics, Jews, New Thought adherents, agnostics, and Theosophists. Influences flowed in both directions, but Voorhees argues that Christian Science was distinct not only organizationally, as scholars have long viewed it, but also theologically, a singular expression of Christianity engaging modernity with an innovative, healing rationale.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781469662350
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	03/15/2021
Pages:	326
Sales rank:	731,749
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.73(d)

About the Author

Amy B. Voorhees is an independent scholar.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Amy Voorhees's survey of Christian Science's first century, one that emphasizes its historical development, theological depth, and complex image in a shifting cultural context, is an undeniable gift to those who want to understand American religious culture in this period. Voorhees compellingly draws our attention to Science and Health's key moments of revision and development, tying these to both Mary Baker Eddy's biography and the dynamics of American religion at particular historical moments."—David F. Holland, Harvard Divinity School



Voorhees's fine-grained and multifaceted analysis of the evolution of Mary Baker Eddy's thought, discussion of Eddy's relationship to modernity, and comparative analysis of Christian Science in relation to other nineteenth-century expressions of Christianity are very welcome contributions to the study of Christian Science and to American religious history more generally. Voorhees shows how Eddy's religious innovations—and her success—ultimately hinged on her ability to defy easy categorization and to bridge and transcend numerous religious debates of the time."—Joseph Williams, Rutgers University

Editorial Reviews

01/11/2021

Independent scholar Voorhees debuts with an excellent study of Mary Baker Eddy, founder of Christian Science Church. Voorhees argues that Christian Science blurs the lines traditionally used to understand religion in modern America by relying on pseudoscience and “healers” who claim to cure ailments (both physical and spiritual) with techniques based on Eddy’s 1875 Science and Health with Key to the Scripture. Voorhees establishes Eddy as a key figure in the religious life of America in the late 19th and early 20th century—and Christian Science as a pivotal shift away from mainstream denominations for many Christians who felt disenfranchised. While Voorhees meticulously details Eddy’s life, she focuses on the period between 1865 and 1900, when Eddy’s development of the dogmas of Christian Science followed her own “revelatory” healing from debilitating “nervous inflammation and digestive problems” diagnosed as “neuralgia of the spine and stomach.” Her conviction that Jesus had saved her launched her lifelong work to “find and explain the gospel truth operating on human individuality to effect the cure” of any ailment. Voorhees has done exceptional work among the archival and primary sources, including close comparison of the many editions of Science and Health. This definitive look establishes Eddy as a major figure in America’s faith history. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

An excellent study of Mary Baker Eddy, founder of Christian Science Church. . . . Voorhees has done exceptional work among the archival and primary sources, including close comparison of the many editions of Science and Health. This definitive look establishes Eddy as a major figure in America's faith history."—Publishers Weekly



A New Christian Identity will captivate, surprise, and inform anyone interested in American religious history, women in religion, and New Thought." —Nova Religio



The helpful precision that Voorhees achieves in defining Christian Science identity makes this book a serious scholarly contribution that will attract the attention of specialists. At the same time, all scholars of American religious history and religious studies will find this masterful account of early Christian
Science illuminating, for it beautifully demonstrates how 'the outliers of American religion' challenge us to view the entire religious landscape in new ways"—Church History.

From the Publisher