On this day in 1885, Mary Baker Eddy shook up religious authority
Dana Rubin
Empowering a speak-out culture. Strong Voice | Strong World ?? speaking ?? workshops???consulting
Mary Baker Eddy suffered from poor health since childhood. Growing up in New Hampshire, she was nearly an invalid.
But she experienced a dramatic turnaround after reading a Bible passage —?an experience that drove her to a period of intense Biblical study. She became a popular healer and pastor who preached that illness was an illusion best treated through prayer.
Her natural healing methods attracted thousands of followers and launched a popular religious movement. In 1779, she founded a new church, the Church of Christ, Scientist.
But the establishment clergy were not pleased, not surprisingly at a time when women preachers were not welcome on the mainstream pulpits. They saw her as a threat to their spiritual authority.
The temple was packed with nearly 3,000 people who came to see this small, frail woman take on the religious establishment.
Among them was the famed Reverend Joseph Cook, who held regular Monday noon prayer meetings in the magnificent Tremont Temple in Boston. His gatherings were hugely popular, attracting the city's cultural elite.
On Feb. 26, 1885, Cook read out loud from the pulpit a letter written by his colleague, the Reverend Adoniram Judson Gordon. It was an unvarnished strike against Eddy, attacking her as “a mesmerist, a medium, a pantheist, and prayerless.”
But Eddy pushed back with ferocity. She insisted on the right to defend herself in person —?in her own voice. The newspapers reported the standoff with glee.
On March 16, in 1885, Eddy was given the lectern at the same venue, Tremont Temple. But she was allotted only ten minutes.
The temple was packed with nearly 3,000 people who came to see this small, frail woman take on the religious establishment. Also in the audience were hundreds of clergymen who were hostile to her views.
Before starting, Eddy turning to Cook and said: “’I can hardly explain Christian Science in 10 minutes. May I have a few moments more?” To which he replied: “No, Madam, and if you take one moment longer you will be forcibly stopped.”
“No, Madam, and if you take one moment longer you will be forcibly stopped."
And so, speaking without notes, Eddy delivered a brief but poised and powerful verbal defense. She structured her remarks as a series of questions and answers in which she laid out her beliefs.
By far, the most controversial aspect was her promotion of physical healing through mental and spiritual teaching. Eddy taught that physical matter was not real, and that human ailments and maladies were irrelevant. All human activity and experience, she believed, took place in the spiritual realm.
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"I understand that God is an ever-present help in all times of trouble – have found Him so; and would have no other gods, no remedies in drugs, no material medicine," she explained to the audience. Christian Science "is not of the flesh, but of the Spirit."
You can read Eddy's remarks here , in the Speaking While Female Speech Bank .
Her appearance that day caused a sensation. Her words were printed in newspapers and shared. She also demonstrated that a woman's words carried weight and authority.
The event spurred a turning point for Christian Science, which gained thousands of new adherents.
And two years later, Eddy returned to the pulpit of the Tremont Temple. But this time the space was hers to use as she pleased. It was rented by her Christian Science Church as the venue for its annual meeting, with no limits on how long she was allowed to speak.
Today Christian Science has hundreds of thousands of adherents, and Eddy's book Science and Health with Key to Scriptures?remains on bestseller lists around the world.
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My name is Dana Rubin, and I help women put their ideas into the world powerfully and persuasively. I’m the founder of?The Speaking While Female Speech Bank , and the editor of the forthcoming?Speaking While Female: 50?Extraordinary?Speeches by American Women?(Real Clear | Fall 2021).
I'm opening up a discussion about the role of women’s public speech in history and invite you to take part. We need to hear the best ideas from everyone to address our toughest problems — so let's improve this world together.
? 2021 Dana Rubin
Senior Writer and Editor
3 年Many thanks for this article, which vibrantly captures the moral courage and spiritual clarity of Mary Baker Eddy at a key point in the development of the Christian Science movement. I hope that my pointing out a couple of areas for improvement won’t overshadow my appreciation for this encouraging article. There is one factual error, probably due to a typographical mistake, that you will probably want to correct: the Church of Christ, Scientist was founded in 1879, not 1779. As a lifelong Christian Scientist, I also wanted to bring attention to one other point that could easily leave readers with a misimpression. While Eddy taught that ailments and maladies can be overcome through a spiritual understanding of God’s law of love, she did not teach that human suffering should be ignored as irrelevant. Her chief work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, includes the following: “If we would open their prison doors for the sick, we must first learn to bind up the broken-hearted.” Dismissing human suffering does not relieve it, but Christian Scientists, in following Jesus’ example, are finding that a whole-hearted response to God’s vast love brings healing.
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3 年She was so very accomplished in so many fields and her name has been well remembered by generations of women and it should still be that way ! and probably will !
Student of Art History at the Department of Culture and Aesthetics, University of Stockholm
3 年??????
Coach | Conscious Business Women's Circle Founder | Guide to Women in Worklife Transitions | Author & Researcher on Women Over 50 | Keynote Speaker | Advisor IMPACT Table
3 年She also founded an international newspaper The Christian Science Monitor before the time women were allowed to vote! Her non-denominational paper has gone on to win many Pulitzer Prizes. To think that a woman in the late 1800s would become an author, publicist, magazine founder, founder of a church and worldwide movement, and run a church organization is almost unfathomable. Susan B Anthony took classes from Mary Baker Eddy and respected each others’ work. Her seminal book Science and Health is way before its time, still radical and inspiring. Thanks for this article Dana.