A “Green Oak in a Thirsty Land”

Abstract

After the passing in 1910 of Mary Baker Eddy, founder of the rapidly increasing Christian Science movement, the governing Christian Science Board of Directors of The Mother Church in Boston faced the daunting task of unifying the sometimes unruly and overly exuberant members of a faith noted for its efforts to reintroduce healing to the religious scene. This essay demonstrates that over the next fifteen years the Directors skillfully consolidated their authority and so established centralized control over the fastest-growing religious group in the United States. Divisive litigation between the Directors and the independent-minded Trustees of the Christian Science Publishing Society, 1919–1921, was resolved in favor of the Directors and so provided the capstone for their efforts to bring order to the new faith. In their actions, the Directors often followed business and societal practices, as a means of attaining routinization of charisma.