SOURCE: "Honesty, Blasphemy and The Destiny of the Mother Church," in The Christian Century, Vol. 108, No. 32, 1991, pp. 1028-1031.

In the following essay, Gottschalk explores the controversial reception of Bliss Knapp's biography of Mary Baker Eddy.

A book and an endowment have thrown the Church of Christ, Scientist, into its most significant controversy of the past 70 years. The dispute erupted after the church announced it would publish a book it had rejected over four decades ago, Bliss Knapp's The Destiny of the Mother Church, as part of a new biography series on church founder Mary Baker Eddy. Then in early September former church archivist Lee Z. Johnson sent a letter to librarians of the denomination's more than 2,300 reading rooms, as well as to the executive boards of churches. The letter quietly and knowledgeably set forth six specific points—expressed to the church's board of directors three weeks before—for...