Christian Science and vaccinations

The following is an excerpt from an article recently published by The Mary Baker Eddy Library. The two-thousand-word article takes a historical look at how the Leader of the Christian Science movement responded to the question of inoculations.

On March 7, 1900, in a Leavenworth, Kansas, newspaper, Eddy’s guidance to Christian Scientists about vaccination appeared in print. The Christian Scientist parents of seven children who had been kept out of school for over a month because they would not comply with the local school board’s order that all children be vaccinated reversed course. Edward H. Keach, the First Reader of the local Christian Science branch church, explained to the reporter that they had “consulted with Mrs. Eddy of Boston, the [F]ounder of their church, and received the following instructions:

“ ‘Rather than quarrel over being vaccinated, I recommend that, if the law demand an individual to submit to this process, he obey the law; and then appeal to the gospel to save him from any bad results. Whatever belongs to this century, or any epoch, we may safely submit to the providence of God, to common justice, individual rights and governmental usages.’ ”