Tumult in The Reading Rooms

By Richard N. Ostling

Being a Christian Scientist has never been easy. The Boston-based religion denies the reality of material existence, which means that sin, evil and disease are not real, either. One consequence of this metaphysical view is the famous Christian Science practice of shunning medical treatment. The belief has also led to a growing number of prosecutions of devout parents who have denied the use of lifesaving measures to their critically ill children.

Now Christian Science is further beset -- by doctrinal tumult. Last month many members of the faith were shocked when sedate reading rooms around the world began displaying a book that had been deemed unsound by church officialdom more than four decades ago. The Destiny of the Mother Church, by Bliss Knapp, claims that the faith's 19th century originator, Mary Baker Eddy, was virtually a second Christ. This flies in the face of Eddy's own claims to be no more than the inspired founder and leader of the movement. Official publication of the volume has led to a rare outburst of protest from within the ranks, with critics charging that apostasy has resulted from both a bizarre bequest and the faith's financial crisis.

It is impossible to gauge the extent of the alleged money crunch, since Scientists are given little information on church affairs. The church is governed by a five-member Board of Directors with near-absolute powers. Nonetheless, Stephen Gottschalk, a former editor at the church's headquarters, contends that losses from the Mother Church's media operations alone will reach at least $70 million this year (approaching the estimated overall headquarters income of $85 million).

Membership figures are even harder to come by, since Mrs. Eddy ordered that they be kept secret. Outside estimates put the current total at around 150,000. By all indications, the ranks are thinning -- and aging. One source holds that since the 1950s, the worldwide number of "practitioners," the rough equivalent of clergy, has plummeted from 9,800 to 2,750.

The current imbroglio over heresy and money can be traced back to 1983, when the church hired John H. Hoagland Jr. to run its media operations. One of Hoagland's first acts was to curtail spending on Eddy's daily newspaper, the money-losing Christian Science Monitor. He began to pour tens of millions of dollars into World Monitor magazine, a nightly cable-TV news program, a Boston UHF station and, especially, a 24-hour cable service, Monitor Channel, founded in May.

What is the link with Destiny? Disillusioned church members assert that the book was published in order to obtain a bequest of $90 million from the Knapp family, whose fortune was based on California agriculture, real estate and oil. The writer's father Ira was a member of Eddy's inner circle, and the book represents the author's reminiscences and beliefs concerning the founder. Those beliefs were rejected by the ruling board in 1948, shortly after the volume first appeared. Under the terms of the bequest, the Knapp fortune was destined to go to Stanford University and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art unless the church changed its decision and made the book available by 1993.

Destiny appears to advocate a semi-divine change in the status of Eddy, the New England visionary who first began propounding her creed in 1866. According to Knapp, her arrival as a religious figure was foretold by the biblical prophet Isaiah ("thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles"). Knapp further contends that Eddy's "work or assignment was complementary to that of Christ Jesus."

The church's tolerance of Knapp's teaching led its former longtime archivist, Lee Z. Johnson, to send a protest letter to the board and reading rooms worldwide. The claims of Destiny, he said, are "incorrect" and a "deviation," harsh terms in Christian Science. But according to Hoagland, the publication of Knapp's work is nothing more than an act of pluralism. "This commotion is not about the Bliss Knapp book," he says. "It's about our move into television. These critics simply don't approve. So they search for reasons to attack the church."

There is no sign that the board is about to change its mind or relinquish any of its authority. Nor are there any indications that the Destiny furor will lead to a full-blown schism. But for some faithful Scientists, the foundations of the Mother Church are shaking.

With reporting by Robert Ajemian/Boston