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God's Perfect Child: Living and Dying in the Christian Science Church

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I grew up in a Christian Science family and tried for years attempting to confirm in my own life that its principles of "healing demonstration" actually worked, before giving it up when I began to actually start thinking for myself partway through college. Based on my own childhood, it was obvious from the lengthy preface's emotionally nuanced, on-target portrayals of the characteristic inner life and other features of a Christian Science upbringing that this was going to be an insightful book.

Many have focused on the corruption, backstabbing, and stonewalling in the Mother Church as documented in Perfect Child, or have argued about the book's portrayal of Mary Baker Eddy. But for me its thematic core lies in its rich storehouse of insight and examples about how the psychology of denial inherent in the practice of C.S. gives rise to the "shadow" side of the movement, both in the individual lives of adherents as well as how this shadow has been collectively woven through-and-through the movement's history from the beginning. As anyone knows from Psychology 101, any time a part of the psyche is suppressed or regarded as unreal, it merely expresses itself in distorted and unconscious ways, and much of this book is about just this fascinating side of Christian Science.

This includes not just the toll taken in terms of wrongful deaths as discussed in the central sections about the "child cases." As tragic as they are, these cases and/or those of permanently disabling untreated illnesses or accidents probably only involve a modicum of Scientist families. The underlying tragedy which affects almost all is the deeply buried, warping, psychological split it creates in adherents who must live in the material world while fantasizing it doesn't have the power or the reality that it does.

The insidious psychological distortions and pretend-games this introduces into individual Christian Scientists' lives (numerous examples of which are heart-wrenchingly and at times farcically documented in Perfect Child) certainly are not what the Church will say it officially sanctions. But overall, a movement is inevitably going to be, has to be, judged by the real people who practice it and the effects it has on them in real life, not the ivory-tower theory behind it, as this book amply demonstrates.

Looking back, I never saw a verifiable instance that Christian Science could "heal" any physical problem of significance that wasn't a typical self-limiting illness such as flu, fever, or cold that wasn't going get better on its own anyway. It amazes me it took me so long to accept the obvious, even if I was just a kid then.

To this day, I remember the kindly little old ladies in church crutching around with canes or looking at you only half-seeingly through cataracts. I remember the nice, sincere guy several classes ahead of me in Sunday school with the withered, palsied arm and hand, clenched claw-like against his side that never got better; the daughter of one of my own Sunday school teachers with a serious case of psoriasis or eczema on her face that never went away; myself, one of the first in grade school to have to get eyeglasses starting at age 7 due to progressive nearsightedness; my own father who put off treatment of life-threatening kidney disease till he very nearly died before finally accepting medical treatment in his last years before dying an early death. And my own dear mother who continues to believe in the efficacy of Christian Science to this day even as arthritis encroaches, and while on high-blood-pressure medication and estrogen.

I was personally fortunate in that my own parents eventually came to ignore, not only in their lives but in their children's, the Church's stricture against "mixing" C.S. and medical treatments. However, that they nonetheless continued to believe in the efficacy of C.S. is demoralizing for a child and remains incomprehensible but is, alas, typical, and a recurring element of the episodic tragedies that unfold in this book. Such is the mesmeric power C.S. can have. And as Fraser points out, to put the onus on followers for not being able to "practice" or "understand" the religion "correctly" is just the same old blame-the-victim game played on people since time immemorial.

If you are a former Christian Scientist, the book will answer a lot of questions you may have had about what's beyond the images that even followers are fed: what exactly were those controversial "Kerry letters" of the 1970s that were only whispered about; why was "class instruction" kept so secret; what was the big deal about "malicious animal magnetism"; what are the quote-unquote "documented cases" of C.S. healing the official Church cites in the Journal and Sentinel really worth, and what do the few studies out there in actual peer-reviewed scientific journals reveal; how long ago did the movement peak, really, and how far along is its decline; and the pivot-point of the book--the "child cases" of wrongful death and child neglect against which the Mother Church has worked to legislate immunity, through the use of unscrupulous tactics hidden from the rank-and-file.

For those of you who aren't Christian Scientists, you'll get interesting insights into classic traits of Christian Scientists such as the passive-aggressiveness, bland denials, reaffirmations of untruth and fantasy, and the double talk that often typify their response to things they don't like but are supposed to try to be nice about. Just like some of the reviews you'll read on this page from current adherents and higher-ups within the Church. Don't let those deter you--read the book and decide for yourself.

I was raised as a Christian Scientist. I stopped attending church at age 20. I'm now 48. While the religion has some good points, it has some bad points too---and I feel both sides are honestly presented in this book. I doubt very many practicing Scientists would read this book, but as an ex-Scientist, I couldn't put it down. It was so helpful to me personally. I hadn't known such books on Christian Science existed, and when I found them on amazon.com, I bought all of them---they've all been helpful, but this book was the best, due to the depth of the research. I highly recommend this book to anyone who was raised in this religion and had to blindly follow along even though it didn't make sense.

Like Caroline Fraser, I too am a former Christian Scientist. I was raised in Christian Science, joined the Mother Church in my teens, graduated from Principia College (for Christian Scientists only), was president of a college "Org" while in grad school, and attended church services until I was in my early 30's. So I can testify to the spot-on accuracy and fairness of Fraser's portrayal of Christian Science in this book.

Hostile reviewers have claimed that Fraser's father, described in the prologue, is some sort of "oddball" Christian Scientist for habits such as not using the seatbelts in his car. In fact, if you truly believe that "accidents are impossible in God's kingdom," as Scientists are taught, then there is no logical reason to use your seatbelts. Christian Scientists who do use seatbelts, like previous reviewer Richard Biever, are tacitly acknowledging that at least some teachings of Christian Science are ridiculous.

After the brief personal account which opens the book, Fraser devotes about the first third of the book to a review of the life and career of Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science. Her primary source, contrary to hostile reviewers, is the church-approved biography by Robert Peel. Fraser does not set out to write a full biography; rather, her focus is on clearing away the mythology Scientists have constricted about their "beloved Leader." For example, Fraser demolishes one of the central Christian Science myths, that of Eddy's "fall on the ice" in 1866, which supposedly led to the epiphanic moment when she "discovered" Christian Science.

Fraser also describes the CS Church's efforts to suppress any unfavorable treatments of Eddy in print. For example, a publisher recently reissued Willa Cather's well-regarded biography in 1993. Unable to prevent publication, the Church coerced the publisher into issuing a vaguely worded "disclaimer" with the book, which the church has used to try to delegitimatize it.

The remainder of the book deals with several issues that the Christian Science Church has had to deal with over the 20th century, such as controversies over church governance and the church's media activities. The section that has stirred the greatest hostility among Christian Scientists is Fraser's segment entitled "Christian Science goes to Court." Here Fraser recounts many of the legal challenges to Christian Science over the years. Her emphasis is on the responsibilities of Christian Science parents to properly care for their children. In 1974, the church lobbied the Dept. of Health, Education and Welfare to issue a regulation which effectively coerced states into passing laws shielding Christian Scientists from prosecution for withholding medical care from their children.

The consequences were tragic. Fraser recounts several wrenching accounts of Christian Scientist's children dying, often in extreme pain, from diseases that were easily curable if medical care had been obtained in time (these are what Biever calls "alleged failures"). Attempts to prosecute parents for negligence failed for the most part, thanks to the laws obtained by the church's effective lobbying.

But what of the successes of Christian Science, say its adherents, such as Richard Biever, who refers vaguely to "thousands of healings." You wouldn't know it from hostile reviewers, but Fraser deals with this issue thoroughly. She notes that in fact there is NO credible evidence of the "healing power of prayer" to heal anything other than psychosomatic illness. Fraser analyzes and debunks church propaganda claiming the contrary. She also notes research by William Simpson, which demonstrates that Christian Scientists have significantly lower life expectancies than do comparable groups who accept medical care. Simpson's findings are hardly what you would expect if Christian Science were truly an effective "healing method."

Why, then, do Christian Scientists believe so strongly in the effectiveness of their "treatments." I would attribute it to three reasons. First, as Fraser makes clear, Christian Scientists deliberately shield themselves from learning how the human body works. (For example, like most Scientists, I was excused from health education in school, and I was well past 30 before I even opened a book that had anything to do with human biology). As a consequence, Christian Scientists are ignorant of how effective the body's defenses are against disease.

Second, like many people, Christian Scientists commit the post hoc fallacy: A Christian Scientist feels ill, so they "know the truth" about their situation. After some time, the cold/flu/headache/fever/ankle sprain/etc. goes away, and the Christian Scientist concludes "I've had a healing." Not understanding that such "healings" can be attributed to the human immune system throwing off the cold virus or whatever, the Christian Scientist reaches an invalid conclusion.

Third, Christian Scientists simply ignore or rationalize away their failures (as do the fans of psychics). Fraser describes two chilling examples of this tendency. She cites a deposition given by a practitioner, Thomas Black, in a court case related to a child's death. Black stated "Whenever Christian Science is properly applied, it heals." He explained that the child's death came because "Christian Science was misapplied" by the parents. Even more callousness is shown by Ruth Brewster, another practitioner, in a "testimony of healing" in a church publication. Brewster described rearing four children, claiming that none of them ever had "an activity missed because of illness." However, Brewster had once had a fifth child, a daughter who died at 7 years old of an untreated illness, who she simply pretended had never lived.

The inability of Christian Scientists to address their failures is the most important issue raised by Fraser (though not the only important one). Christian Scientists are often dishonest with themselves and others. If the Christian Science movement is ever going to regain the vitality it had early in this century, Christian Scientists are going to have to start being more honest. Reading this book and confronting what Fraser has to say would be a good start.

In sum, I think that every Christian Scientist should read this book with an open mind. Non-Scientists with an interest in the church or its activities will also find it fascinating.

Whatever your beliefs, and whether you are a former Christian Scientist or a continuing member of the Mother Church, you owe it to yourself to be willing find answers about Christian Science from a 3rd party, not your practitioner, your Teacher, your Sunday School Teacher, or your parents. Documented, footnoted, and deliberate, this book takes you beyond the sanitized biographies of MBE and the history of the church put out by the CSP in the Reading Room.

This book was, for me, not only eye-opening in terms of the origins of the church (and the continuing 'dissenting' movement I had no idea existed), but also affirming: Learning that there are others who suffered at the hands of well-meaning, compassionate people who otherwise were caring, giving parents, except when it came to acknowledging your pain, disease, or injury -- when they became emotionally unavailable, sometimes pretending they didn't understand when you asked to go to a doctor...or assuring you that healing would take place as soon as you acknowledged the "Divine Truth" of your relationship with God. When you became no longer an individual but a 'divine idea' that couldn't really be sick, injured, or in pain, because that wasn't part of God and couldn't be part of you either, as His creation.

More shocking still was the realization after reading this book that based on the exclusions for CS treatment still provided in many state laws, abused and neglected animals may have more protections afforded them than the children of praticing Christian Scientists.

Before I get hauled over the coals (immaterial though they may be) for 'not really understanding' the message of Christian Science by some readers:
My Sunday School teacher was at one time 1st reader for my church, 1st reader for the Mother Church, a Class Teacher, Practitioner, and COP representative. If I didn't get the 'real message' of Christian Science from him, I don't know who else I would have been able to 'get' it from.

A word of warning for Christian Scientists: Reading this book may result in a lot of difficult questions to yourself and others. Be prepared to process more than just a few lingering doubts by the time you get to the end of it.

Caroline Fraser's broad look at Christian Science is a generally well-written and extensively documented historical and sociological study; unfortunately, it is crippled by undisguised (and not infrequently vicious) bias and highly selective use of evidence.

Her presentation of Mary Baker Eddy is little more than a rehash of the most polemical (and often inaccurate) prior biographies. Those looking for a far better researched and eminently more credible view of Eddy should turn instead to the 1998 biography by non-Christian Scientist Gillian Gill.

Fraser's summary of church history is somewhat better, although it, too, picks and chooses its facts carefully. Her assault on Christian Science as a philosophy is almost laughable, occupying a whopping (!) two pages of the book.

Fraser's hardest blows are reserved for failed efforts to heal, especially children, and the court cases that resulted. The facts are not pretty and should be sobering to Christian Scientists, but in fairness (to whatever extent due), much has still been omitted. Fraser's frequently hammered conclusion that Christian Science doesn't heal -- or does so only in psychosomatic cases -- is simply untenable in the face of enormous evidence to the contrary. Dismissing that evidence by calling it anecdotal is dishonest and, in any event, still doesn't make it untrue.

Fraser's book is physically and documentarily impressive, but only those who share her prejudgments or who are largely unacquainted with the broader literature on Eddy and Christian Science will believe for a minute that it is in any way objective and thorough.

This book is a revelation, and it is liberating. Anyone born into the Christian Science faith who either grew to wonder, doubt, rebel - or mainly found it impossible to reach a "perfect child" state - needs to read this book! It is, as Spaulding Gray writes on the jacket, an excellent deprogramming map. I, too, have watched loyal Christian Scientists die from lack of medical attention - usually in a twisted combination of agony and guilt that they couldn't "understand the truth" well enough to escape the sickness that claimed them. Among these people were my parents, as well as a number of Sunday School teachers. As a former class-taught "scientist" and Sunday school teacher, I began to have serious conflicts about a perfection I could never reach, and sought the help of psychological counseling. Children are taught in Sunday school to see other people like Christ did - purely, as God's "perfect child." To think of someone, or some situation, as unfair, or awful or terrible, is to be un-Christlike. In this manner, one grows up to smile in the midst of pain, learns not to speak up to the dirt that might be done to him, takes upon himself the responsibility of an evil act, cannot call a spade a spade. In this manner, one trusts an ideal mind rather than his own mind, and thereby doubts himself at every turn. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how psychologically damaging this might be. I told the counselor we had been taught to, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus..." (the 6th tenet of Christian Science). "What are you doing to yourself?" said the psychologist. "There is only one Christ. He's perfect. You're not! It's o.k. to be human!" After receiving swift medical attention for a potentially serious condition, I received a call from a church member who said, "Dear, you will see one day that this never really happened." My other friends, meanwhile, were bringing me soup and flowers and cheering me on. This was a clarion call for me to get away from this church. Such twisting of reality is very harsh on children who have grown up in a faith foisted on them by their parents. As a child, I suffered numerous earaches that ultimated in my losing a lot of hearing. I always believed (because I was told) I was saved from total deafness by Christian Science, and the faith of my mother, who took me to a practitioner instead of a school for the deaf. Imagine what it felt like when, at the age of 54, I was told that my fever-induced earaches might well have been assuaged by a simple aspirin! The horrific part of this story is not about dealing with hardness of hearing - I've adjusted well with the use of a hearing aid - it is about being so programmed as to reinvent reality, or to believe a reinvented reality, to this extent. Nietszche wrote much about the horrors of religion being shoved down the throats of children - and anyone subjected to such programming could do well to check out what he says. I agree with the previous reader who commented how liberating it is to take an aspirin for a headache rather than consider it an enormous moral issue. There are Christian Scientists who do not dare leave their house each day until they've studied the "Lesson-Sermon" - and sometimes that will be about noon. Is the constant prayer espoused in Christian Science a form of extreme fear? The day I realized I didn't have to pester God every day with prayers was a great day. It was a great day, too, when I realized I felt perfectly happy and safe taking my chances with the rest of the world, that I didn't have to have the mind of Christ. It is great to just be a normal human being with faults and warts and passions - to say what one really feels deep down. I thank Carolyn Fraser for writing this book!

I marvel that Ms. Fraser got this book published. If you read this book, you too will marvel. I am a fourth generation, ex-Christian Scientist and the daughter of a CS practitioner. Ms. Fraser has provided me the missing link I have been searching for all my adult life. This book is the first chapter in the truth that will set me free. My life will forever be profoundly influenced by having read God's perfect Child and I recommend it as essential reading for others with backgrounds similar to mine.

A sad story of a religion that had so much potential, but refused to grow and evolve. A science renews itself, and is open to new theory's and ideas. It does not excommunicate thinkers with progressive ideas and critics. In 1900, I think C.S. was full of new thinking and religious innovation, even if it was far from perfect, and even if M.B.E. showed signs of mental illness and paranoia during her life. M.B.E., Quimby, and others showed us in the west the power of the mind. However, the refusal of an aging M.B.E. and the C.S. Board of Directors to address her contradictions (dentistry and painkillers vs. radical reliance) and the refusal to separate the "chaff from the wheat" in this fully grown religion is causing its demise. Caroline Fraser does an accurate and thorough job documenting the "chaff" of this religion. It is understandable that christian scientists will view this book as "an attack" or "hateful", because having your inadequecies exposed is painful. The challenge she gives to the church is to heal itself from its mistakes. If the church refuses to change I suspect the good aspects of C.S. will be incorporated into other evolving religions and fields of psycology. Being raised in a C.S. sunday school, where three of my sunday school teachers died in the prime of their lives from diseases that probably would not have killed them if they had sought medical treatment is a sad testimony to the C.S. movement to grow up and renew itself.

I first began reading about other people who were raised in this church when I got Barbara Wilson's book, "Blue Windows." There seem to be so many of us out here -- who were raised in Christian Science, and have turned away from it. Caroline Fraser's book is somewhat long -- she could have deleted a lot of the church history -- and left it to Gillian Gill's remarkable biography of MBE. What makes Fraser's book unusual and unique is the incredible amount of information she shares about what went on in the church from the 1970s on. The one really humorous piece I found was the temporary take over of the annual meeting in 1969 by a Black activist. You can bet none of us in "the Field" ever heard about that until now. Fraser's book also is very saddening in that there were many good people out there who tried to do what was right, and their children paid the price. I grew up with severe deformities that were never addressed in this religion. I prayed for a cure -- my cure after years of teasing, name-calling (including some by children in the Christian Science Sunday School) and misery came when I began earning enough to afford plastic surgery. And I was criticized for taking that road by some members of my parents' church. I know some of the people mentioned in this book -- and unfortunately, the comments by practitioners who refuse to pray for anyone who has accepted medical care are real. I once called a practitioner for help, and was told to wait until the next morning. I fainted that night, and was hospitalized by my school. I was a third-generation Christian Scientist who worked at The Mother Church. I remember an elderly lady with a large growth hanging down the length of her cheek. Like most of us raised in this religion which does not allow us to attend health classes, I did not know what it was. Years later, I realized cancer was eating its way through her face. I lost a parent to this religion -- a parent who died in a hospital of massive organ failure because finally -- it became impossible for them to bear the pain any longer. Fraser's book will not please everyone, but I believe that a church that relies so much on "Truth" should not be afraid to open its archives to the truth -- whether it's pretty or not. Isn't that what science is based on -- considering all factors? Fraser's book was the final wake up call for me. After almost 20 years, I am going to sever my membership in this church.

I read this book about a year ago. I found it immensly disturbing. Yet, at the same time, it is a fascinating and important book. I've not known many Christian Scientists, but I have read Science & Health and am well acquainted with many of the ideas of Mary Baker Eddy.

Among the contributions of Mary Baker Eddy has been to highlight the relationship between faith and health. However, I do believe that one should not negate medical science. The world in which Mary Baker Eddy lived and our world today are vastly different. Seeking healing through prayer might have very well been prudent in the 19th century. Medical care was not what it is today. I count myself as a religious person, but I don't see the need for abandoning medical care.

While highlighting the good of Christian Science, Carolyn Fraser also lets us see another side. It is a profoundly disturbing picture.