Joseph Adams and Christian Science pastoring

On April 12, 1879, Mary Baker Eddy met with the members of the Christian Scientist Association, a group of people who had studied Christian Science with her. They voted to organize a church named the Church of Christ, which “should reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing.”¹ By the time the church was chartered on August 23, it had been renamed the Church of Christ (Scientist), because the Commonwealth of Massachusetts had already incorporated another church as the Church of Christ. 

Initially Eddy was the pastor of the church, but over time she invited other ministers into the pulpit—either clergy of other denominations who were sympathetic to Christian Science or ministers who had studied Christian Science with her at the Massachusetts Metaphysical College (MMC). While some of them became dedicated Christian Scientists, others did not turn out to be a good fit—including Joseph A. Adams (1834–1900), who preached for the church for several Sundays in the spring of 1886.²

Born in Northampton, England, Adams was an itinerant Congregational minister. He emigrated to the United States around 1860 and preached in Indiana, Colorado, and California. Early in 1886 he was living in Oakland, California, with his second wife, homeopathic physician Julia A. D. Adams (c.1831–1905). The two had become interested in the “mind cure” (which later developed into the New Thought movement) and had read the writings of Warren Felt Evans, one of its proponents. In due time, Adams read Eddy’s book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures and became a student of Christian Science. In a letter no longer extant, Eddy invited him to come to Boston to preach at her church. Apparently she wanted to try him out as a potential pastor or assistant pastor. She also invited him to study with her at the Massachusetts Metaphysical College. Adams replied in a letter dated March 9, 1886:

Your cordial invitation to the Pastoral work of the C. C. S has awakened earnest desire for the guidance of the Infinite Spirit, and after passively waiting for the direction promised, the impression that comes to me is this. That I dare not say ‘No’, nor unqualifiedly say ‘Yes.’

After sharing his thought process, Adams agreed:

If the wisdom of my suggestion commends itself to your judgment and that of the Church, I will engage to be with you in two or three weeks from the receipt of your reply. Accept my hearty thanks for the Invitation to a seat in your class.³

He studied with Eddy in her primary class that began on March 29, 1886, and then preached several times at the services of the Church of Christ (Scientist) in Boston’s Chickering Hall. It wasn’t long, however, before attendees objected to Adam’s personality and preaching style. One such critic was George H. Bradford, a fellow classmate. After hearing Adams preach, he shared his objections in a letter to Eddy dated April 29, 1886:

…He is an unfit man – and unfit in too many vital ways ever to be made over – (and be, at least, useful to the present generation–) He lacks painfully in dignity – and reverence – and overflows on the side of gush, empty declamation and egotism. Say nothing of unsound doctrine– A man may be cured there- 

And in the presence of the glorious solemn truths considered so lately in the class, if he could not feel some degree of dignity and reverence, he never can or will. When he finished his shouting …Your calm voice came to lift us into an atmosphere of peace – I couldn’t take in the sense of what you said – it was enough to feel the uplift – 

So much for Adams – with my respects– You ought not to waste time on him, for a preacher – and you would never feel safe as to what he might say or do.⁴

Following more criticisms from church members—and Eddy herself—Adams resigned in a letter dated May 14, specifically addressing Bradford’s comments (which Eddy had apparently told to him): 

I have nothing but fervent christian love to those Dear ones, but while they entertain such thoughts of christianity or duty, I cannot yoke up with them in carrying on the work of God, for they would pull one way and I another. So please consider that at the end of next month (June) when my term of trial will expire, my relations with the ‘church of Christ (Scientist) as your Assistant Pastor will cease. …

Adams then proposed a plan for his exit:

If the Church would give me my Railway Fare home and you think it best, I will close my labors here at the end of this month, for I do not feel comfortable in knowing that some of the leading members purposely absent themselves from church because of my boisterous preaching. And yet before I go, I desire to prove to them (and I think I can do it with God’s help) in two Sundays more, that their fears for the cause of C Science was only in belief and not in reality, and that a little more patience on their part would have revealed the mythical nature of their fears. Especially do I wish to prove to that unscientific brother who thinks that this vociferousness is a part of my constitution and that 10 years could not eliminate it.⁵ 

The Church of Christ (Scientist) did pay Adams’ way back to Oakland. In September Julia studied Christian Science in Boston with Eddy, and in October Adams himself was back in Boston, taking Eddy’s normal class at the MMC. While Julia returned to Oakland to continue her Christian Science work there, Eddy sent Adams to Chicago to work with Ellen Brown Linscott, who was the head of the Chicago Christian Science Institute, formed for teaching Christian Science.

It wasn’t long, however, before Linscott became alarmed at Adams’ tendency to give appreciation and legitimacy to teachings of metaphysicians in Chicago who had left Christian Science and whose current teachings were not in harmony with it. She was particularly concerned that Adams was becoming friendly with Mary H. Plunkett and her husband. Although Plunkett had studied with Eddy in 1885, she soon left Christian Science and affiliated with other former Christian Scientists who had departed from Eddy’s teachings. Adams, however, tended to accept them as Christian Scientists and entertained Plunkett’s suggestion that he and Linscott merge with them as fellow metaphysicians. Linscott wrote Eddy on November 16 to inform her of the situation:

…I promised to let you know anything that is going on, and now have to tell you that the Plunkett faction are making great efforts to get Mr. Adams to recognize them and to establish friendly intercourse with him. …If Mr. A- would only not meet these “wolves in sheeps clothing” as if they were his long lost brothers and sisters- this is a pretty sentiment, but it is not practical with these wretches, and indeed with few.⁶

Eddy replied to Linscott on November 22:

Have written Mr. A. in my strongest terms. If this does not change him I can do no more at present and time will have to ripen him for my instruction.…Teach him by every word look and act of your own the great difference between seeming and being — between virtue and vice.⁷

It’s apparent that two characteristics of Adams led ultimately to his separation from the Christian Science movement. One was his receptivity to teachers and teachings that departed from Christian Science as taught by Eddy. The other was a tendency to take offense when Eddy or her church expressed their authority in matters of doctrine or practice.

The latter tendency was at the root of Adams’ ultimate break with the organized Christian Science movement. This began in February 1887, as the result of a conflict with Eddy over what she believed was his plagiarism of her writings and ideas in an article on Christian Science he’d written for the Chicago Inter-Ocean, with the intent of reprinting it as a pamphlet. After Adams sent a copy of the article to Eddy, she issued a severe rebuke and threatened legal action against him if he reprinted it. 

Adams replied on February 12: 

I am just in receipt of your communication, and a more dumbstricken man you never saw. A babe just born was never more unconsciously innocent of your charge of injustice to you, than I am, and to threaten me with legal proceedings if I reprint the article (as it is) which was written in defense of you and the Cause of which you have been the honored instrument of resurrecting from the dead past, has produced in me a sorrow that no words can adequately express.⁸

In a letter to Eddy written about two weeks later, Adams announced the beginnings of his separation from organized Christian Science and the dissolution of his partnership in the Chicago Christian Science Institute with Linscott:

…It is quite true, that as far as I am personally concerned a complete moral revolution has taken place; producing an entire change of procedure as regards my future methods of work in connection with C– Science. …The clear perception of the fact, viz, That I must not allow any personality to stand between me and the Truth as I understand it, has constrained me to dissolve partnership with Miss Brown and to start out on an entirely independent line of Action. I refuse to be any longer regarded as the Principal and representative head of any particular school of Christian Science.⁹

Adams further elaborated in a letter to Eddy dated March 22, naming former Christian Scientists as potentially seen as having their own “schools” of the religion:

Once admit an Eddy School of C– Science which so many of your students here are contending for (and giving me the cold shoulder because I do not endorse it) then you must admit by fair logic the possibility of a Hopkins School, A Swarts School, An Evans School, An Arens School until we get into the error of the Corinthian Church, where one said ‘I am of Paul, ‘I of Apollos, ‘I of Cephas’ ‘and I of Christ’ So it is getting to be all through the West, “I am an Eddyite,’ I of Evans, I of Hopkins, I of Swarts’ I of Weeks, I of Arens &c &c—¹⁰

Eddy wrote to Adams on April 27, addressing and summarizing in one letter the two issues that were separating him from Christian Science:

After over ten years of experience and success far beyond yours, I learned that nothing but organization would save this cause for mankind and protect it from the devouring disorganizers. The apostle likens the church to the body of Christ. I liken the blood of Christ to the life of Truth. Then if you would break up His church, are you not breaking His body and spilling His blood? You are commanded to go to the lost sheep and gather them in: but you go to the goats to gather them in. …

You are letting the good and bad seed spring up in your mind. Your spiritual perception is darkening, and you will lose your power to heal unless you separate in your thoughts and actions the tares and wheat, for tares uproot the wheat.¹¹

Despite all this, Adams remained listed as a practitioner and teacher in the directory of The Christian Science Journal until February 1888, when his card was removed, apparently because of his associations with teachers and groups who were not Christian Scientists. After this, he became further removed from Christian Science over time. He founded his own church, called the Second Congregation of Christian Scientists, and also edited his own periodical, the Chicago Christian Scientist, later called the Chicago Truth Gleaner. 

In 1895 Adams returned to Oakland and tried to found a church. However, it appears to have been a short-lived venture, and he instead lectured before various audiences on spiritualism and “gospel science,” passing away in 1900.