Christian Science

Christian Science is Mark Twain’s critical examination of the religious movement founded by Mary Baker Eddy. The book is divided into two parts. The first contains earlier writings, revised and corrected by the author. The second presents a portrait of Mrs. Eddy based on her published words, institutional acts, and the legal structure she created to govern the movement.

Twain analyzes the doctrines, organization, and authority of Christian Science, paying particular attention to the concentration of power in its founder. His discussion combines skepticism, satire, and close reading of official texts. Rather than treating Christian Science as a purely theological question, he approaches it as a social and institutional phenomenon shaped by personality, discipline, and law.

The work belongs to the wider American debate over new religious movements in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.