Mrs. Eddy’s Children Archives


Forgiveness as a way of life

Friday, August 4th, 2023

Let’s think about becoming a people who don’t keep score on each other, serving a God who doesn’t keep score on us. Imagine a life of grace and love, acceptance and belonging, unshakable security and soulful serenity, joyous freedom and limitless possibilities. (more…)

Imperfect child: My debt to Caroline Fraser

Friday, November 18th, 2022

“I alone have escaped to tell you.” This is the refrain, three times in the first chapter of the Book of Job, when wide-eyed survivors bring the old man ever-grimmer reports from the scene of tragedy. It has become a life verse for me since escaping Christian Science. (more…)

When Barbara’s world collapsed

Monday, July 4th, 2022

Individuals who leave Christian Science tend to arrive, after some wandering, either at a commitment to the biblical Christianity from which CS originally departed or—more often, sadly—at an atheistic, agnostic, or self-generated spirituality that blithely disavows God. My heart goes out to these “nones,” as sociologists call them. (more…)

A visit to Christian Science Plaza

Monday, July 4th, 2022

One might think that Christian Science is both prominent and permanent, to judge by the religion’s imposing, mega-million-dollar headquarters complex in Boston. Actually, though, it’s neither, as the facts attest. (more…)

Who is Jesus to you?

Saturday, February 12th, 2022

A friend of mine, call him Clint, follows Christian Science but struggles with it. He also struggles with biblical Christianity, though—and Jesus in particular. It’s as if he needs to convince himself, and in so doing convince me, that Jesus is not God incarnate, the second person of the Trinity. (more…)

Remaking ‘The Chosen’ Boston-Style

Wednesday, September 29th, 2021

“The Chosen,” by director Dallas Jenkins, is drawing big audiences as the first multi-season TV series about Jesus.  The show is extremely well done, and I’ve recommended it to several CS friends, who responded favorably. (more…)

‘Up, make us gods’

Tuesday, May 18th, 2021

In the affair of the golden calf, would I have stood with Moses or with Aaron? The answer should be obvious. Yet it’s not, considering how utterly I was taken in by Christian Science. (more…)

It all starts with ‘true truth’

Wednesday, April 14th, 2021

The great Francis Schaeffer coined the term “true truth” to describe that which simply is, always has been, and always will be, whether we like it or not. What a contrast to CS with its variable truth, simultaneously connoting one thing AND its opposite, depending how one looks at it. (more…)

Premises for prayer

Tuesday, March 23rd, 2021

My friend Hal is a lifelong Christian Scientist who is in the very early stages of questioning the Eddy doctrines and losing patience with some aspects of the CS culture. After reading my new book Discovering a Larger God and commenting favorably on it, Hal asked how I as a Bible Christian would go about praying for several situations that are troubling him at present.

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New book: ‘Discovering a Larger God’

Monday, March 1st, 2021

Raised in Christian Science, I experienced a crisis in my thirties when it became clear Mrs. Eddy’s God was not big enough for the desperation engulfing me.  Her deity was too small to look upon my ugly sinfulness and love me anyway. (more…)

Shut that book

Monday, February 8th, 2021

C. S. Lewis invites us to imagine a man with a lizard attached to, or actually growing out of, his shoulder. Clinging there, it whispers lies in the man’s ear to keep him out of heaven. An angel, seeing that the poor soul is half-willing to be rid of the lizard, asks his permission to kill it. (more…)

CS health claims don’t prove out

Tuesday, October 27th, 2020

I just learned of the untimely death of a prominent, well-loved CS figure in our community. One more sad reminder that Christian Science as we see it lived by devoted individuals across the world, across the generations, simply does not measure up as a reliable approach to health, wellness, and bodily dominion. (more…)

Escapees tell their story

Tuesday, September 29th, 2020

“This isn’t working. I’ve been misled, harmed, ill served. I want out. I need to find a better way of life.” Such are the thoughts of someone feeling trapped in an unhealthy belief system or subculture.

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MBE’s pride or Job’s humility?

Saturday, September 19th, 2020

Life is unfair. Bad things happen to good people. Prayer may receive answers we can’t make sense of. Suffering isn’t always explicable. The world is broken. To know all this, and still have faith that God loves us lavishly, is spiritual maturity. (more…)

Starting points for evangelism

Monday, May 4th, 2020

“You need Jesus. More than anything, you need Jesus. Your whole life depends on it, your whole world.” When I came to accept that this was true and began to make all the changes it would require of me, I was an earnest, fourth-generation Christian Scientist in my late 30s. (more…)

Mrs. Eddy vs. the Book of Acts: No Contest

Wednesday, April 15th, 2020

How did Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection utterly transform human experience and change the world forever? By convincing a few dozen of his followers, who then convinced billions down the centuries and around the world, that Jesus was God incarnate and that through his blood believers could enter into eternal life. (more…)

Assessing Mrs. Eddy’s legacy

Thursday, March 19th, 2020

“Mary Baker Eddy: Christian Scientist and Persister” was the title of a laudatory piece on the influential website Real Clear Politics, published March 16, 2020, as part of a Women’s History Month series recognizing notable speeches by women. (more…)

I helped kill the heir

Sunday, December 1st, 2019

What a shock to hear a story about someone coldly defying God, and suddenly realize the story is about me. I have a sense of how King David must have felt when confronted with his murderous selfishness (II Samuel 12:7). (more…)

Mary Baker Eddy: Who Was She?

Wednesday, March 13th, 2019

“What shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?” asks Pilate in Matthew 27:22. I decided many years ago, after half a lifetime in Christian Science, that my own answer to that question must be to acclaim Jesus as Savior and Lord and thus to place him on the throne of my heart. (more…)

Amid division, subtraction, CS ranks dwindle

Sunday, February 10th, 2019

Editor: This completes our five-part conversation with former practitioner Tanner Johnsrud, who is now a baptized Christian. Continuing from the fourth part, Tanner spells out more of the reasons he sees the Christian Science movement in steep decline, rather than progressing toward global preeminence as Mrs. Eddy predicted in 1902. (more…)