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God's Perfect Child: Living and Dying in the Christian Science Church, by Caroline Fraser
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Amazon.com Review
In God's Perfect Child: Living and Dying in the Christian Science Church, Caroline Fraser delivers the most intelligent, humane, and even-handed history yet published of this important American religion. God's Perfect Child begins by telling the life story of Mary Baker Eddy, who founded Christian Science in 1879. Eddy built the church from a fringe sect into a mainstream religion whose wealth and power exceeded that of many Protestant denominations in the mid-20th century--and were considerably augmented by the church's once-popular newspaper, the Christian Science Monitor. Fraser, a literary critic and poet who was raised a Christian Scientist, has a relentless analytic bent and an acute eye for physical detail, both of which are in evidence on every page of this book. Her stories of parents whose attempts at faith-healing resulted in their children's deaths are especially poignant. These stories also illuminate and analyze the fears and pains that have plagued many Christian Scientists who subscribe to Eddy's belief that individuals can control their physical destiny by force of faith. Ultimately, Fraser has little sympathy for the obdurate self-reliance advocated by Christian Scientist doctrine, which she sees as a forerunner to the extremist paranoia of contemporary cults. "The suggestibility, infatuation, and enthusiasm that sparked Christian Science ... lies behind our current anxious fixations on imaginary perils and medical conspiracies," Fraser writes. "Florid though they may seem, such fears can have far from imaginary consequences." The goal of Fraser's book is to track down and annihilate irrational fears in the religion of her childhood; her reason for doing so, however, exudes an undeniably spiritual grace: "Should we continue to pursue [these fears], our providences will surely grow ever more remarkable." --Michael Joseph Gross
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From Publishers Weekly
Freelance writer Fraser spent her childhood practicing the teachings of Christian Science. She was told that she was "God's Perfect Child" and that any errors she made, including being carsick every Sunday as she and her family traveled to her grandparents' house, were due to her "Mortal Mind." Although she left the church before she entered college, Fraser acknowledges that Christian Science is "profoundly complex" and "worth understanding in its own right." She sets out in this scintillating religious history to show the good, but especially the harm, that Christian Science has done. She opens with a brief biography of Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, whose Science and Health is studied reverentially by church members. She reveals Baker Eddy's fear of the material world and the ways in which she fashioned this fear into a religion that resists the advances of the scientific age. Fraser traces the development of Christian Science from a small sect to today's large political and religious organization that attracts numerous followers eager to embrace its messages of human perfectibility and self-reliance. In the course of her history, the author also briefly examines the lives of some famous Christian ScientistsADoris Day, Carol Channing and Mr. Ed's Alan YoungAand their contributions to the church. But, Fraser's history is also a rousing expos?. Not only does she reveal what she sees as Mary Baker Eddy's neuroses, but she also delves into what she calls the church's "pernicious" teachings that illness is not real (it's only the "Mortal Mind" obscuring the "Divine Mind") and that people can heal themselves without the benefit of medical help. Fraser combines episodes from her own experience with an evenhanded historical analysis in this first-rate social and religious history. (Aug.) Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Product details
Hardcover: 576 pages
Publisher: Metropolitan Books; 1st edition (August 15, 1999)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0805044302
ISBN-13: 978-0805044300
Product Dimensions:
6.2 x 1.8 x 9.6 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
Average Customer Review:
3.7 out of 5 stars
50 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#1,265,282 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The negative reviews of this book on here are disingenuous, unintelligent, and shrill.But they are typical. The Church and its members don't want to own up to how dangerous it is adhering to the strictest tenets of Christian Science. Of course, anyone who believes that diabetes, a broken bone, a terminal illness, or any other life-threatening illnesses can be done away with by wishing and praying need a serious reality check.My paternal grandmother was a Christian Science practitioner. She told me I could give a "demonstration" by curing myself of my congenital hearing defect.These are the issues behind the religion, its founder, and the Church, that Caroline Fraser has so scrupulously, relentlessly researched - and is the basis for this spellbinding book.Fraser's level of scholarship, reasoning, analysis, presentation, and cogent, stylish writing is, in a word, extraordinary.Her work here, without (naturally) the "cooperation" of the Church, is of an unbelievable breadth, reporting, and super-completeness. Every possible angle is investigated, elaborated upon, and made manifestly clear.You can almost discern Fraser's incredulous tone in places where the ignorance and shocking indifference directed toward those in need of medical care which results in horrific tragedy; not just dying, but of needless suffering due to withholding of medications. It is difficult to read some of the sheer stupidity of the actions of some of the "followers," and their heinous complacency and indifference to obviously ill and suffering people; your heart breaks for the many children in these pages who didn't have to die.Then there is the matter of money, and "mishandled" funds. Lawsuits. Infighting in the Church. All of it, appalling.The Church did in fact have a chance to redeem itself. The most revealing factor in this examination, of great interest, is that one of the Church's teachers, Arthur Corey, had the potential to modernize the extremist, fear-propagating tenets of Christian Science, but - no surprise - he was vilified and stymied by the powers that be running the institution.As Fraser writes: "But Corey also had an unerring sense of where the Christian Science movement had gone wrong. He identified the Church's gradual insistence after (Mary Baker) Eddy's death on "radical reliance" as a bad political mistake, forcing Scientists to take a hard line that made the religion unappealing to outsiders and critics. Corey is virtually the only Christian Scientist ever to acknowledge honestly and directly the dangers that the religion posed to children, publishing a description of children who had suffered and died as a result of overzealous reliance on Christian Science. ""The irony of Arthur Corey's life and career as an outcast Christian Scientist lies in the fact that he represented, on many levels, the best qualities of his religion. He embodied the kindness, compassion, and temperateness of the moderate Scientist, the Scientist who chooses not to force his beliefs on others or push his patients and students beyond what they can stand. He acknowledged, as no Christian Scientist publicly has before or since, the mental anguish that is caused by not knowing the potential severity of any given illness: "I have seen more than one patient relieved of unbearable terror by a medical diagnosis which revealed that a particular disorder was benign or malignant," he wrote. "It is nonsense to think the doctors produce the disease." His teachings stripped the religion of its darkest impulses toward paranoia and extremism. He stood for what Christian Science might have been at its best: a devotion to exploring the meaning of life, health and true morality. Arthur Corey died in 1977, dismissed by the Church but, nonetheless, a popular and enthusiastic Christian Science teacher to the end." (end quote)I have known many Christian Scientists who visit their doctors regularly and get the proper medical intervention as needed. The religion, for them, is greatly helpful in giving them inner strength to cope with life. My fear, though, is that innocent people, especially children, will continue to be the institution's casualties.Until now, I had never understood why my grandmother functioned the way she did; she alienated practically everyone in her midst by being a fanatic of CS, and caused much ill-will and bad tidings. She only became human and real when she wasn't under CS's dictum. I only wonder what she would have been like had she not been so *fanatical,* so unyielding.This peerless, supremely presented study of Fraser's can hardly be bettered - and may stand as the definitive history and examination of Christian Science.
This book is so good! I've read most of the books for ex-Scientists and have found this to be the best. It is objective and very well written. I especially enjoyed the history of the church and the biographical section about Mrs. Eddy. While a Scientist I was never able to get through her authorized biographies because I just couldn't believe them. This one feels real to me. The church has revised its way of dealing with children, (My state COP rep is telling the Scientists in my area that she only will treat a child for 24 hours, after that she tells the parents to take them to a doctor), but there is still lots of pressure on adults to stay the course even if CS isn't helping them. This is a very interesting read and I highly recommend it.
If you're wanting a secular, well-written and well-researched read of Mary Baker Eddy and Christian Science this is an excellent read.
I feel that this book succeeds almost perfectly in accomplishing its goal. It has a point of view which is clearly stated and is most brilliant in making accessible to the non-CS reader some of the historical and contemporary issues in the faith. I thought Fraser was very even handed in her sympathies to those reformers who have tried to heal the church. I did not come away with a negative opinion of CS but I do now have a better understanding of the faith as a whole. Fraser's book is a wake up call;I think the church could show a great deal of maturity by taking this critique and using it to constructively go forward. The CS church near where I live is sparsely attended and the membership is very old. It will not be long until it is silent. A great, thought provoking book!
Great read for ex-Christian Scientists. Very well-researched and informative.
After reading this book, I had to contact Caroline Fraser and tell her how spot on her book was!!! I was also raised as a Christian Scientist, from a mixed marriage ( a term I had never heard before) with my mom a Strict True Believer and my dad not). Although it seemed that Caroline's experience was more extreme than mine, both me and my brother "saw through these beliefs" by Jr High. We realized that "praying away" broken or sprained ankles, fingers, torn ligaments, was NOT going to work. (we both played at high level of sports). Also, mumps, measles and flu did NOT get better by praying or pretending they did not exist. When I went to a doctor (on my own) with a 103 temperature because of tonsillitis in High School and one shot of an antibiotic cured it over night, both me and my brother quite the religion right there!!!. My mom eventually contracted very bad arthritis, and after years of praying, even she turned to help from modern medicine. My brother died in 1986 from Hereditary Hemocromotosis, which I found out I had. If I had stayed with CS, I would NOT be writing this at a healthy age of 63.Having been brought up as a Christian Scientist, I did find her information on the inner workings of the church and the power struggle very interesting. It is well worth reading. Christian Science is NOT a "cult" and I do find some very good things in it's teachings, but I and thankful I did not raise my children in that religion.ps. I still have my mom's "Science and Health" and do read it once in a while.John M. Wedeward
As an ex-Christian Scientist raised by CS parents this book frames the whole crazy experience of growing up and growing out of supernatural beliefs in the broader historical context of the origins of the religion right up to modern day psuedoscience and woo movements of today that owe much to Christian Science,
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