Article November 9, 1981 Issue

Why Christian Science is not a cult—7

Editors' Note: From earliest days misrepresentations of Christian Science teachings have been circulated by critics. More recently these have reached a crescendo in a broad-scale attempt to brand Christian Science a "non-Christian cult. " We feel these questions and answers on key points, prepared by the Committee on Publication, will be of interest to our readers and inquirers. We present them in line with the purpose our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, assigned this publication, "to hold guard over Truth, Life, and Love,"^{The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 353.} and in the spirit of her words, "A lie left to itself is not so soon destroyed as it is with the help of truth-telling."^{Ibid., p. 130.}

Question: Mrs. Eddy claimed to be the Discoverer of Christian Science, but many writers repeat that she was actually indebted for it to Phineas P. Quimby.

Answer: This has been said—but not by scholars who have investigated the matter fully. A thorough examination of the historical facts on this subject can be found in two recent scholarly works.^{Robert Peel, Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Discovery, The Years of Trial, The Years of Authority (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966, 1971, 1977) and Stephen Gottschalk, The Emergence of Christian Science in American Religious Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973)} These and other carefully researched studies show that there is a categorical difference between the basic Christianity of Mrs. Eddy's teachings and Quimby's views, which were rooted in mesmerism. In Christian Science, healing is a phase of Christian salvation, and it results from a wholehearted turning to God as the one infinite, divine Mind. Quimby, on the other hand, saw healing as the result of what we today call mental suggestion—as a matter of psychological manipulation rather than of spiritual rebirth.