Christian Science: Its Encounter With Lesbian/Gay America
by Bruce Stores
iUniverse, Inc. $20.95

Christian Science was once considered robust and radical, as it assayed and challenged the foundations of theology, medicine and the physical sciences. Today it seems a pale caricature of itself, reduced in the popular imagination to a group of dotty people who “don't go to doctors” [the latter point actually not true]. Bruce Stores has given us a case study of this highly ideological religion being forced to confront its shadow. The presenting symptom was homophobia but much else lurked below the surface.

I was drawn to Christian Science in the late 60’s by its healing methods and clear-cut theology. As a Gay man I particularly liked its discernment of God’s androgyny, which we all express in our individual male-femaleness.

Many Christian religions have a problem with sex and mine is no exception. It was never talked about of course but as the sexual revolution and Gay liberation took hold in the 70’s the Christian Science church reacted by publishing articles setting forth what elders at headquarters felt was the biblically based standard of sexual morality. Non-marital sex was out and homosexuality was deemed anathema.

Bruce Stores describes how Christian Scientist activists [myself included], drawing on the experience of Gay people in other religions, organized, lobbied and pamphleted to turn the tide. The church administration, not used to such tactics, became even nastier and more rigid. LGBT folks were eventually excluded from employment, membership and class instruction.

At the time this was a shocking blow to any hopes we had to participate in the life of the church; so many Gay people just left the religion completely. Some of us, however, stuck, but had the sense to form our own national and local groups where we could study and practice Christian Science unfettered by homophobic attacks.

The official church now felt little pressure from activists to reform, but it still had to rub shoulders with America and eventually face its own dark soul. First the administration got its wings clipped in a court fight with Chris Madsen, a prize-winning reporter for the Christian Science Monitor. Yes, as a religious institution they had the right to fire a Lesbian, but their trampling of her basic employment rights got them in hot water and they settled out of court.

Next the church tangled with a San Francisco radio station KQED, which broadcast Monitor Radio programs but would not countenance exclusion of LGBT people and non-Christian Scientists in the Monitor's hiring practices. The church dragged the negotiations on and on, as Bruce Stores exquisitely shows, but here too, in the end, they quietly knuckled under.

Finally the church tried to establish a cable television network. Enthusiasm for the project at headquarters was matched by disbelief at the local level. When the network failed, costing hundreds of millions of dollars, the membership took to squabbling, finger pointing, issuing pamphlets and so on. The church virtually tore itself to pieces. It reminded some of us Gay Christian Scientists of our own struggles 15 years before. I’ll have to admit to a bit of schadenfreude.

With the membership and finances depleted, the church seemed to move towards a more human stance. It reached out to various communities it had previously condemned or ignored. Gay people found they would be welcomed into membership and class instruction. This came to light in emails and discussions with church officials. Nothing has yet been stated in the church’s publications, which incidentally remain closed to discussions of Gay people’s experiences and healings. Some local churches, teachers and practitioners retain the old bigotry that may show up in that schizzy form of “loving the sinner but hating the sin.”

When Gay people were forced into the wilderness, they accidentally innovated a new format for exploring Christian Science: small study and practice groups. This way of approaching Christian Science is now promoted by headquarters and is spreading through the movement. What we painfully stumbled upon in 1978 is the new Big Thing!

Bruce Stores has done a superb job of pulling this story together, ferreting out little known aspects of it and placing it all in the context of America's unfolding political and religious life. What comes through for me is that in spite of all the homophobia, church politics, hopes dashed and partially re-assembled, Christian Science still blazes bright for those who want it.