fathermothergod
fathermothergod

Author: Lucia Greenhouse

Publisher: Crown

Published: 2012-08-28

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 0307720934

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“A courageous and finely crafted portrait of a young woman struggling with her family, her faith, and that awkward space between being a child and growing into adulthood.”—Star Tribune (Minneapolis) “Unimaginable . . . As much an indictment of Christian Science as it is a memoir of her family’s experience of loss.”—O: the Oprah Magazine Lucia Ewing had what looked like an all-American childhood, but when it came to accidents and illnesses, her parents didn’t take their kids to the doctor’s office—they prayed and called a Christian Science practitioner. As a teenager, her visit to an ophthalmologist created a family crisis, and she was a sophomore in college before she had her first annual physical. In December 1985, when Lucia and her siblings, by then young adults, discovered that their mother was sick, they came face-to-face with the reality that they had few—if any—options to save her. Powerless as their mother suffered, they were grief-stricken, angry, and confused. In this haunting, beautifully written book, Lucia pulls back the curtain on the Christian Science faith and chronicles its complicated legacy for her family. At once an essentially American coming-of-age story and a glimpse into the practices of a religion few really understand, fathermothergod is an unflinching exploration of personal loss and the boundaries of family and faith.

God's Perfect Child
God's Perfect Child

Author: Caroline Fraser

Publisher: Macmillan + ORM

Published: 2018-06-19

Total Pages: 378

ISBN-13: 1250207274

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From Pulitzer Prize-winning author and former Christian Scientist Caroline Fraser comes the first unvarnished account of one of America's most controversial and little-understood religious movements. Millions of Americans – from Lady Astor to Ginger Rogers to Watergate conspirator H. R. Haldeman – have been touched by the Church of Christ, Scientist. Founded by Mary Baker Eddy in 1879, Christian Science was based on a belief that intense contemplation of the perfection of God can heal all ills – an extreme expression of the American faith in self-reliance. In this unflinching investigation, Caroline Fraser, herself raised in a Scientist household, shows how the Church transformed itself from a small, eccentric sect into a politically powerful and socially respectable religion, and explores the human cost of Christian Science's remarkable rise. Fraser examines the strange life and psychology of Mary Baker Eddy, who lived in dread of a kind of witchcraft she called Malicious Animal Magnetism. She takes us into the closed world of Eddy's followers, who refuse to acknowledge the existence of illness and death and reject modern medicine, even at the cost of their children's lives. She reveals just how Christian Science managed to gain extraordinary legal and Congressional sanction for its dubious practices and tracks its enormous influence on new-age beliefs and other modern healing cults. A passionate exposé of zealotry, God's Perfect Child tells one of the most dramatic and little-known stories in American religious history.

Blue Windows
Blue Windows

Author: Barbara Wilson

Publisher: Macmillan + ORM

Published: 2014-12-30

Total Pages: 444

ISBN-13: 1466888865

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From Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Church of Christian Science, to Deepak Chopra, Americans have struggled with the connection between health and happiness. Barbara Wilson was taught by her Christian Scientist family that there was no sickness or evil, and that by maintaining this belief she would be protected. But such beliefs were challenged when Wilson's own mother died of breast cancer after deciding not to seek medical attention, having been driven mad by the contradiction between her religion and her reality. In this perceptive and textured memoir Blue Windows, Wilson surveys the complex history of Christian Science and the role of women in religion and healing.

Christian Science
Christian Science

Author: Mark Twain

Publisher:

Published: 2016-12-05

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 9781540851420

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Christian Science is a 1907 book by the American writer Mark Twain (1835-1910). The book is a collection of essays Twain wrote about Christian Science, beginning with an article that was published in Cosmopolitan in 1899. Although Twain was interested in mental healing and the ideas behind Christian Science, he was hostile towards its founder, Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910).

A River Could Be a Tree
A River Could Be a Tree

Author: Angela Himsel

Publisher: Fig Tree Books LLC

Published: 2018-11-13

Total Pages: 329

ISBN-13: 1941493254

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How does a woman who grew up in rural Indiana as a fundamentalist Christian end up a practicing Jew in New York? Angela Himsel was raised in a German-American family, one of eleven children who shared a single bathroom in their rented ramshackle farmhouse in Indiana. The Himsels followed an evangelical branch of Christianity—the Worldwide Church of God—which espoused a doomsday philosophy. Only faith in Jesus, the Bible, significant tithing, and the church's leader could save them from the evils of American culture—divorce, television, makeup, and even medicine. From the time she was a young girl, Himsel believed that the Bible was the guidebook to being saved, and only strict adherence to the church's tenets could allow her to escape a certain, gruesome death, receive the Holy Spirit, and live forever in the Kingdom of God. With self-preservation in mind, she decided, at nineteen, to study at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem. But instead of strengthening her faith, Himsel was introduced to a whole new world—one with different people and perspectives. Her eyes were slowly opened to the church's shortcomings, even dangers, and fueled her natural tendency to question everything she had been taught, including the guiding principles of the church and the words of the Bible itself. Ultimately, the connection to God she so relentlessly pursued was found in the most unexpected place: a mikvah on Manhattan's Upper West Side. This devout Christian Midwesterner found her own form of salvation—as a practicing Jewish woman. Himsel's seemingly impossible road from childhood cult to a committed Jewish life is traced in and around the major events of the 1970s and 80s with warmth, humor, and a multitude of religious and philosophical insights. A River Could Be a Tree: A Memoir is a fascinating story of struggle, doubt, and finally, personal fulfillment.

Banished
Banished

Author: Lauren Drain

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Published: 2013-03-05

Total Pages: 211

ISBN-13: 1455512435

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Banished is an eye-opening, deeply personal account of life inside the cult known as the Westboro Baptist Church, as well as a fascinating story of adaptation and perseverance. You've likely heard of the Westboro Baptist Church. Perhaps you've seen their pickets on the news, the members holding signs with messages that are too offensive to copy here, protesting at events such as the funerals of soldiers, the 9-year old victim of the recent Tucson shooting, and Elizabeth Edwards, all in front of their grieving families. The WBC is fervently anti-gay, anti-Semitic, and anti- practically everything and everyone. And they aren't going anywhere: in March, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the WBC's right to picket funerals. Since no organized religion will claim affiliation with the WBC, it's perhaps more accurate to think of them as a cult. Lauren Drain was thrust into that cult at the age of 15, and then spat back out again seven years later. Lauren spent her early years enjoying a normal life with her family in Florida. But when her formerly liberal and secular father set out to produce a documentary about the WBC, his detached interest gradually evolved into fascination, and he moved the entire family to Kansas to join the church and live on their compound. Over the next seven years, Lauren fully assimilated their extreme beliefs, and became a member of the church and an active and vocal picketer. But as she matured and began to challenge some of the church's tenets, she was unceremoniously cast out from the church and permanently cut off from her family and from everyone else she knew and loved. Banished is the story of Lauren's fight to find herself amidst dramatic changes in a world of extremists and a life in exile.

The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy and the History of Christian Science
The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy and the History of Christian Science

Author: Willa Cather

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 1993-01-01

Total Pages: 572

ISBN-13: 9780803263499

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This controversial biography of the founder of the Christian Science church was serialized in McClure's Magazine in 1907-8 and published as a book the next year. It disappeared almost overnight and has been difficult to find ever since. Although a Canadian mewspaperwoman named Georgine Milmine collected the material and was credited as the author, The Life Of Mary Baker G. Eddy was actually written by Willa Cather, an editor at McClure's at that time. In his introduction to this Bison Book edition, David Stouck reveals new evidence of Cather's authorship of The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy. He discusses her fidelity to facts and her concern with psychology and philosophy that would take creative form later on. Indeed, this biography contains "some of the finest portrait sketches and reflections on human nature that Willa Cather would ever write."

Return of the Divine Sophia
Return of the Divine Sophia

Author: Tricia McCannon

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2015-03-06

Total Pages: 479

ISBN-13: 1591437768

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An initiatic journey into the Mysteries of the Goddess and humanity’s return to an age of peace and celestial light • Details the ceremonies and rituals of initiation into the Fellowship of Isis • Reveals the lost teachings of Jesus about the Divine Mother and Father and how the goddess Sophia is connected to Mary Magdalene as the Female Christ • Explores the many archetypes of the Goddess, including Isis, Brigit, and the Black Madonna, and how we can transform into Homo luminous, spiritual beings of light Called through her dreams by the Priestesses of Isis, Tricia McCannon set out on a spiritual journey into the Mysteries of the Goddess. After a fateful encounter with a high initiate of the ancient Fellowship of Isis, she began researching the history of Judaism and Christianity to find out how and when the Divine Feminine became lost. She discovered a forgotten age when the Creator was honored as female and humanity lived in peaceful societies completely free of war. She shows how we can return to an age of peace and celestial light if we work to bring the masculine and feminine energies of the world back into balance. Sharing her journey into the heart of the Divine Mother, McCannon details her initiation into the Fellowship of Isis, a process rich with ceremony, ritual, and myths of the Goddess from ancient Egyptian, Celtic, Greek, Hebrew, and Native American traditions. She reveals how the many archetypes of the Goddess, including Isis, Ishtar, Brigit, and the Black Madonna, can become our allies for self-transformation. She explores Mysteries at the heart of Christianity that have remained hidden for nearly 2,000 years and how the Gnostic goddess Sophia is tied to the Second Coming, Mary Magdalene, and the Female Christ. She reveals the lost teachings of Jesus about the Divine Mother and Father and about the Divine Daughter and Son. Through her story and her in-depth research, McCannon takes us on a journey to awaken the creative power of the Divine Feminine within each of us. Equipped with the teachings of the Goddess, we gain the mastery to overcome the deeply rooted masculine-feminine imbalance of the patriarchy and to embark into the future as Homo luminous, beings of light.

The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ
The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ

Author: Levi H. Dowling

Publisher: DigiCat

Published: 2022-11-13

Total Pages: 547

ISBN-13:

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The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ is a book by Levi H. Dowling who claimed that he had transcribed the text of the book from the kashic records, a purported compendium of mystical knowledge supposedly encoded in a non-physical plane of existence. In the later 20th century, it was adopted by New Age spiritual groups. The title is derived from the practice in astrology of naming time periods in terms of constellations and their dominant positions in the sky, according to the earth's axial precession. In that system, the Age of Aquarius is approaching. Content: Section I (Aleph): Birth and Early Life of Mary, Mother of Jesus Section II (Beth): Birth and Infancy of John, the Harbinger, and of Jesus Section III (Gimel): Education of Mary and Elizabeth in Zoan Section IV (Daleth): Childhood and Early Education of John the Harbinger Section V (He): Childhood and Early Education of Jesus Section VI (Vau): Life and Works of Jesus in India Section VII (Zain): Life and Works of Jesus in Tibet and Western India Section VIII (Cheth): Life and Works of Jesus in Persia Section IX (Teth): Life and Works of Jesus in Assyria Section X (Jod): Life and Works of Jesus in Greece Section XI (Caph): Life and Works of Jesus in Egypt Section XII (Lamed): The Council of the Seven Sages of the World Section XIII (Mem): The Ministry of John, the Harbinger Section XIV (Nun): The Christine Ministry of Jesus—Introductory Epoch Section XV (Samech): The First Annual Epoch of the Christine Ministry of Jesus Section XVI (Ain): The Second Annual Epoch of the Christine Ministry of Jesus Section XVII (Pe): The Third Annual Epoch of the Christine Ministry of Jesus Section XVIII (Tzaddi): The Arrest and Betrayal of Jesus Section XIX (Koph): The Trial and Execution of Jesus Section XX (Resh): The Resurrection of Jesus Section XXI (Schin): Materialization of the Spiritual Body of Jesus Section XXII (Tau): Establishment of the Christine Church

Leaving Christian Science
Leaving Christian Science

Author: Lauren Hunter

Publisher: Veritable Books

Published: 2020-08-23

Total Pages: 160

ISBN-13: 9781735183701

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Whether you're a Christian Scientist searching for answers or a former follower still struggling to let go of the difficult and confusing teachings of Christian Science, this book can help you on your search for truth. In these ten intensely personal narratives, former Christian Scientists bravely recount their journey out of the religion and into authentic, biblical faith in Jesus Christ. Each chapter addresses a different theme, shining light on theological inconsistencies taught by Mary Baker Eddy in her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. These themes include matter, Jesus Christ, contagion, prayer, and sin. With reflection questions, pastoral teaching, related Bible verses, and a guiding letter from the author, each story navigates common obstacles and paves the way for a deeper understanding of the Christian faith. For those yearning to find truth, there is hope to be found here.