Today, Mrs. Eddy might be regarded as a spiritual activist. In her time, the word was "reformer". But Eddy never approached a topic from a secular perspective. Her reasoning and logic always lead thought to both a universal and a spiritual level.
For instance, on the topic of male/female identity and relations, Peel suggests that:
"The politics of feminism was for her [Mary Baker Eddy] a minor matter compared with the demonstration of principled love for the whole human race" (p. 163).
He continues:
"The issue was little understood, even by many Christian Scientists. In Mrs. Eddy's terminology, the words "woman" and "womanhood" frequently refer not to a particular woman or to women as a sex but to woman is idea, or more specifically as that revelatory state of mind in which man is conceived to be the child of God." (p. 163-4)
This reminds me of Peel's comment from Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Trial (Boston: The Christian Science Publishing Society, originally published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971):
"Mrs. Eddy did not ask for women half the world that men had made;
instead, she demanded an entirely new world for both of them." (p. 108)
What a fresh perspective on a continuing and important topic.
Julie Swannell
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