A New Christian Identity - by Amy B Voorhees (Paperback)

About the Book

"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, rather than Eddy's already well known biography. Introducing the experiences of everyday adherents from the earliest days of Science and Health's appearance in 1875, Voorhees shows how Christian Science came into dialogue with more mainstream Christian theologies of healing and health. Viewing the material world as illusory and sickness as a state that can be corrected by prayer, Christian Science emerged as an anti-mesmeric, millennialist form of Christianity that interpreted the Bible and approached emerging modern medicine on its own terms"--

Book Synopsis

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.

Review Quotes

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

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

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.