What about Christian Science branch churches and politics?
Item from Mary Baker Eddy’s scrapbook, “Mrs. Eddy’s Politics,” The Boston Post, November 3, 1908. SB018.
Earlier this year, we received an interesting question from a Library patron: “What did Mary Baker Eddy say about the extent to which branch churches are free to engage in political discourse?”
Since Eddy made it clear that each branch of The Mother Church (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts) was to choose its own course of action except where the Church Manual outlines certain specific requirements (see Article XXIII, Sections 1 and 3),1 our inquirer wanted to know if limits exist in the ways that branches can operate politically.
In their response, our Library researchers noted that, according to the United States Internal Revenue Service, “in 1954 [the United States] Congress approved an amendment by Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson to prohibit 501(c)(3) organizations in America, which include charities and churches, from engaging in any political campaign activity.”2 Branches of The Mother Church in all countries may consult legal counsel for questions about compliance with local laws.
While we found no statements from Eddy about the engagement of branch churches in political discourse, we did find an interesting exchange of correspondence on the subject of politics that she had with her student Augusta Stetson.
On April 30, 1907, Stetson wrote to Eddy, telling of her brief visit to the White House in Washington, DC, where she had met President Theodore Roosevelt. In her letter, Stetson criticized Roosevelt’s politics and associates, trusting that the copy of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures that she’d left would change him.3
Eddy immediately responded:
May 1, 1907.
Mrs. Stetson
My darling Student:
Yours is read and understood. Now let me forewarn you to make no more investigations at the White House and send no more of my publications nor those of other Scientists there till the new President is elected, whoever he be, and not then. Remember this that I charge you viz. Avoid being identified pro or con in politics. If you do otherwise it will hinder our cause, remember this. Keep out of the reach of such subjects. Give all your attention to the moral and spiritual status of the race. God alone is capable of government; you are not, I am not, but God has governed through His anointed and appointed one in the way of divine Science; — not politics nor the making or breaking of national laws or institutions. He, God, alone is capable of this.
Lovingly ever thine
Mary Baker Eddy4
The following year, Eddy published a statement titled “Politics” in the Boston Post newspaper. It was subsequently reprinted in her book The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany:
POLITICS
Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy has always believed that those who are entitled to vote should do so, and she has also believed that in such matters no one should seek to dictate the actions of others.
In reply to a number of requests for an expression of her political views, she has given out this statement: —
I am asked, “What are your politics?” I have none, in reality, other than to help support a righteous government; to love God supremely, and my neighbor as myself.5
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- Article XXIII. Local Self-government. Section 1. The Mother Church of Christ, Scientist, shall assume no general official control of other churches, and it shall be controlled by none other.
Each Church of Christ, Scientist, shall have its own form of government. No conference of churches shall be held, unless it be when our churches, located in the same State, convene to confer on a statute of said State, or to confer harmoniously on individual unity and action of the churches in said State….
Mother Church Unique. Sect. 3. In its relation to other Christian Science churches, in its By-Laws and self-government, The Mother Church stands alone; it occupies a position that no other church can fill. Then for a branch church to assume such position would be disastrous to Christian Science. Therefore, no Church of Christ, Scientist, shall be considered loyal that has branch churches or adopts The Mother Church’s form of government, except in such cases as are specially allowed and named in this Manual. (Mary Baker Eddy, Manual of The Mother Church [Boston: The Christian Science Board of Directors], 70-71).
- https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/charities-churches-and-politics
- Augusta Stetson to Mary Baker Eddy, 30 April 1907, 092f.20.037. The letter began by mentioning the “Peace Congress” that Stetson and some other Christian Scientists had attended: the National Arbitration and Peace Congress, held in New York City April 14-17. That same month, a “Peace Meeting” in support of the New York meeting had also been held in The Mother Church Extension. Stetson’s student Hayne Davis (1868-1942) was a notable advocate for international cooperation and for peace in Europe. He was the American head of the Association for International Conciliation, and was instrumental in appointing Eddy as a Fondateur of the new peace society. According to biographer Robert Peel, “Later, as Mrs. Eddy grew disenchanted with Davis, her approbation of the organization—though not of its ideals—cooled.” (Robert Peel, Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Authority [Boston: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1977], 470, fn 6). These experiences contributed to the adoption of the By-Law, Article VIII, Section 16, “Joining Another Society”:
It shall be the duty of the members of The Mother Church and of its branches to promote peace on earth and good will toward men; but members of The Mother Church shall not hereafter become members of other societies except those specified in The Mother Church Manual, and they shall strive to promote the welfare of all mankind by demonstrating the rules of divine Love. (Eddy, Manual, 45).
- Eddy to Stetson, 1 May 1907, H00118. “[T]he new president” elected in 1908 was William Howard Taft, who defeated William Jennings Bryant. Augusta Stetson’s career as a Christian Science practitioner and teacher ended when she was dropped from membership in The Mother Church in 1909.
- Eddy, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany (Boston: The Christian Science Board of Directors), 276. The Boston Post statement had first been reprinted in the Christian Science Sentinel, 7 November 1908, 190, and in The Christian Science Journal, December 1908, 569. Women did not have the right to vote in United States national elections until 1920.