Robert Peel

So!  November is here and a new book to delve into – Robert Peel’s Spiritual Healing in a Scientific Age.

Robert Peel is somewhat of a hero to me.  My copy of his book Mary Baker Eddy: the Years of Authority is falling to pieces because I have read it so many times.  However, I have found that his academically-based reasoning can sometimes go over my head.  It seems to me that he was frustrated because all the evidence which he and thousands of others have given for the absolute truth of Christian Science was not accepted by reasonable and reasoning people.

 

It may be surprising that Robert Peel’s journey reminds me of Elijah’s.  When Elijah was tempted to believe that he was the only one who was on God’s side, and he mourned: “I have been jealous for the Lord God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away” (I Kings 19:10).  Then, even though he had the wonderful realisation that God was not in the earthquake or the fire or the wind, but that He was in the “still small voice,” he repeated his complaint in verse 14.  He had to come to the conclusion that he could pass on his work to competent followers such as Jehu and Elisha (Verse 16).  He didn’t have to worry about the future – God would still be on the field.

 

I hope our study of this book explains something of my thought on this subject.

 

The dust cover of Peel’s book Christian Science: Its Encounter with American Culture has his photo and this mini-biography on the back:

 

“Robert Peel was born in England, has lived in several countries, and now resides in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  He was graduated from Harvard with highest honors and his senior thesis, The Creed of a Victorian Pagan, was subsequently published.  While teaching English at his alma mater he began to focus his attention on American intellectual history and the relation of Christian Science to its cultural milieu.  Later he taught both literature and philosophy at Principia College and wrote for various critical journals.  Although an editorial writer for The Christian Science Monitor when he wrote Christian Science, Mr. Peel undertook and carried it through as a completely independent project.”

 

Christian Science: Its Encounter with American Culture was first published in 1958 and went through seven printings (up to my copy).

 

Keith Collins’ book The Christian Science Monitor: Its History, Mission, and People (published 2012) has a couple of references to Peel.  On page 159: “Peel was a Harvard-trained intellectual star and brought a perspective on Christian Science that included historical and cultural context almost unheard of at the church.  He would go on to write a three-volume history of Mrs. Eddy, which is still regarded as the most complete, perceptive, and accurate biography of her ever produced.”  And on page 201, in speaking of famous Monitor correspondent Takashi Oka and the occupation of Japan after World War II, Collins mentions Robert Peel (who was in the army) and Monitor correspondent Gordon Walker, visiting a Christian Science family.  This story is also recorded in Emi Abiko’s little book A Precious Legacy: Christian Science comes to Japan (published 1978), although here Monitor correspondent John Beaufort is mentioned along with Peel.  Some children of Japanese Christian Scientists had been at Principia School through the war years, and Peel had taught one of them in his English class as well as in his Sunday School class, so he brought their mother first-hand news of the daughter, as well as members of the other family’s children.  See p.85.

 

It is understood that, while his name is never put forward,  the invaluable book A Century of Christian Science Healing (published 1966), was assembled by Robert Peel.  And our Book of the Month for November seems to me to be a sort of follow-on from that compilation.

 

Wikipedia has a list of the Peel books:

•  Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Discovery, ISBN 0-87510-085-6 (first published 1966; Holt, Rinehart and Winston)
• Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Trial, ISBN 0-03-086700-2 (first published 1971; Holt, Rinehart and Winston)
• Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Authority, ISBN 0-87510-142-9 (first published 1977; Holt, Rinehart and Winston)
• Christian Science: Its Encounter with American Culture, Library of Congress 58-8542 (Henry Holt and Company, 1958). See ISBN 0-933062-24-9
• A Century of Christian Science Healing (significant editorial contribution), ISBN 0-87510-067-8 Library of Congress 66-15060 (The Christian Science Publishing Society, 1966)
• Spiritual Healing in a Scientific Age, ISBN 0-06-066484-3 (Harper and Row, 1987)
• Health and Medicine in the Christian Science Tradition, ISBN 0-8245-0895-5 (Crossroad, 1988)

I hadn’t heard of the last one, so that makes me curious.

 

Joyce Voysey