Mary Baker Eddy: An Innovator who successfully closed God's gender gap

by Lynne Blundensen

A group of women from Seattle, has been publishing a newsletter about women and religion for several years.  For the most they are middle-class housewives with a great desire to correct what they see as the imbalance in contemporary worship of God.  They think there is too much emphasis on God as man and not enough emphasis on the idea of God as Mother as well as Father, but they were discouraged.  They felt they had rediscovered a great idea and couldn't understand why churches weren't responsive. They felt alone with no place to turn.

I wondered why they hadn't thought of attending Mary Baker Eddy's Church of Christ, Scientist.

Eddy wrote a book, "Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures," in 1875 in which she said, "In divine science, we have not as much authority for considering God masculine as we have for considering him feminine, for Love imparts the clearest idea of Deity."

The quotation is part of her interpretation of Genesis 1:27: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created He Him; male and female created he them."

Eddy wrote that "man is a generic term.  Masculine, feminine and neuter genders are a human concept."  And later, "The ideal man corresponds to creation, intelligence, and to Truth.  The ideal woman corresponds to Life and Love."

So here were these wonderful women in Seattle struggling to establish an idea that is really not new in the United States.

Others have expressed this idea through the history of churches and religion in this country, but Eddy's position is unique.  She not only wrote a book, she founded a church (reluctantly, she said) where twice a week, in conjunction with the Bible, her words are read.  Her idea, as best as I understand it, was that the information in "Science and Health" would be an impersonal pastor in every Church of Christ, Scientist and every member of each church in her denomination.

Some of Eddy's other writings are published in various forms, including the manual of her church.  A full discussion of her discovery, the writing of her book, and the founding of her church can be found in Miscellaneous Writings, under the chapter, "Inklings Historic."

Besides Miscellaneous Writings, The Christian Science Publishing Society (which Eddy also founded) publishes the Christian Science Monitor as well as many of her writings, a weekly magazine and monthly journal.

Other women have founded or head church in this country--Ann Lee of the Shakers and Aimee Semple McPhearson of the Church of the Foursquare Gospels are two examples--but none has had an impact on society in the way Eddy has.

The members of her church include Senators, congressmen, governors, administration assistants to the president, people in the FBI, CIA and the armed services.  There are members who are housewives and teachers and architects and tile setters and nuclear physicists and swim instructors.  There are members of her church who write best-selling romance novels and members who make clever and amusing movies.

All these people are doing their work as citizens while believing that they have "not as much authority for considering God masculine as they do feminine."

The idea of the masculinity and femininity of God obviously is not enough to make someone join a church.  But the women I talked to in Seattle didn't  seem to know that they're is a church that does not exclude men but does include women.  It's not a bad notion, but it's an idea that certainly meets resistance.

Equality of male and female characteristics of God certainly has a had a hard time finding its part in worship.

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