A "turnabout"

In an article from the August 1982 issue of The Christian Science Journal titled “The Structure of The Mother Church”*, authoritative Christian Science historian Robert Peel gives details of the times when the authority of the Manual of The Mother Church has been challenged.

Here’s some background on one of those instances.

A member of the Board of Directors had been dismissed by the Board and that person went to court. Folk interested in this difficult time for The Mother Church would find it enlightening. The man was John V. Dittemore. The court case was Dittemore v. Dickey. Dittemore lost his case.

In Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Authority, Peel tells us of Dittemore’s "final turnabout" over the matter in 1937, giving the text of his letter to The Christian Science Board of Directors:

As the result of experience over a period of years and a great deal of serious study devoted to the science of government, I have come to the humble conclusion that I made a great mistake in allowing personal differences of opinion and the feelings that developed therefrom to influence me to the extent which they evidently did after Mrs. Eddy passed on.

We were all greatly affected by her demise and held divergent views regarding the policies to be pursued when she was no longer here to direct us. And while I acted upon convictions which I regarded as right at the time, I have since been led to see, and am anxious to go on record as admitting it, that I was wrong in letting personal opinion and matters of policy induce me to depart from Principle.

God’s law does not divide and separate men, it unites them, enabling them to work together and perpetuates this unity. Personal differences that appear irreconcilable disappear as we grow in the understanding of His law and the ability to demonstrate it. Man is properly self-governed only as he enthrones this mighty law in his heart and mind. It annihilates everything unlike itself and I find it has destroyed all sense of personal animosity, all desire to justify self, and brought instead the sincere desire to acknowledge my mistake in organizing what was apparently regarded as an opposition movement, opposed to the Cause of Christian Science, to Mrs. Eddy and her teachings.

I recognise and revere her as having restored to humanity primitive Christian healing and acknowledge The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass., as the first church in history to stand for the spiritual and scientific significance of the life of Christ.

I am happy to forward you this letter to us as you may see fit and to sincerely announce as my fervent desire that the Cause which you represent may continue to grow and prosper under your direction.

Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Authority. 509-510

In the above-mentioned Journal article, Peel wrote:

The Manual By-Laws are laws of limitation only to such qualities as self-will, rivalry, duplicity, sloth, pride, personal sense, and the self-deluded complacency that assumes it has already reached Christ Jesus' pinnacle of demonstrated spirituality.

Joyce Voysey

*Ed. Anyone wishing to read the Peel article is welcome to call their local Christian Science Reading Room. Subscribers to JSH-Online should be able to click the link. Anyone in Australia who would like a gift subscription should contact the Librarian at Christian Science Society Redcliffe.

Copies of Peel’s book Mary Baker Eddy: Years of Authority are available for purchase or borrowing from Christian Science Reading Rooms.