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.