Monday, September 8, 2008

The Good (the Bad) and the Ugly (Part II)

In the earlier entry, two biographies of Mary Baker Eddy were briefly discussed. At that time no "bad" biography came to mind to accompany the "good" (Robert Peel) and the really "ugly" (Gill). The early Dakin and Milmine "biographies" are, however, worthy candidates for the bad, but both of thse go way beyond plain bad to vicious and nasty.

Dakin and Milmine were motivated by hate, not a desire to tell anything truthful about Mrs. Eddy. The tiniest shreds of fact were fleshed out by disgusting gobs of vilification, innuendo, grotesque distortion, and misinformation. Both these books of sludge were listed, regrettably but not surprisingly, in the bibliography of the Gill book.

One of the worst by-products of the Gill book is that for those feckless Christian Scientists who had long yearned for a guilt-free pass to mix medicine, doctors, and Christian Science, this book was a disingenuous godsend from Boston. "If Mrs. Eddy could take drugs," as the Gill book "uncovered", "then, hooray, I can too!"

Mrs. Eddy flatly denied using drugs. See her article "Falsehood" in Miscellaneous Writings (P.248:16-7). So either one accepts Gill, and in effect calls Mrs. Eddy a lier and a hypocrite, or he wholly rejects Gill's misrepresentations. And how could anyone who feels Mrs. Eddy lied about the use of drugs muster any desire to accept her as his Leader and remain a true Christian Scientist? Well, maybe the answer to that question depends upon what the true definition of "true" is.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hooray for you, for speaking out so strongly against what Boston did in putting out that awful bio of the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. I owe my very life to the writings of this God-inspired woman, who deserves enormous respect for all she did for humanity.

Anonymous said...

Yes, Boston has been so out of contol.

Anonymous said...

Mrs. Eddy herself says in Science and Health that hypodermics are allowed if pain is so excessive that a person cannot pray for themselves.

going from memory, I believe Gill connects the 2 or 3 instances where MBE took hypodermics to her adding that line to Science and Health.

I haven't checked the date of the article 'Falsehood' but it could have been writeen prior to the hypodermic incidents.

Taking a hypodermic is not the same as a continuous regime of drug use.